I'm studying the Avalanche consensus algorithm, which is used in a #blockchain / #cryptocurrency platform that promises to be more scalable and much faster than #Bitcoin, while also supporting contracts and tokens (like #Ethereum).
https://docs.avax.network/learn/platform-overview/avalanche-consensus
I'm still quite dubious on some of the core ideas, and if there are any experts around I'd have some questions.
I built the avalanchego node from sources and it's now downloading the blockchain...
https://github.com/ava-labs/avalanchego
#avalanche #cryptocurrency
In 30 minutes, it downloaded only 210MB. It seems to be CPU-bound, and using only one core.
So I'm thinking there's plenty of room for performance improvements...
Ah, and today I managed to create a wallet and send myself a small amount of AVAX for testing.
I tried sending a transaction to a web wallet (https://wallet.avax.network), and it was confirmed in 3 or 4 seconds, as advertised.
So far, so good 👌
@codewiz won't this 210 mb grow over time?
@Dashtop Yes, the Bitcoin blockchain takes 350GB on disk. It's been operating for ~10 years, at full capacity for the past 6-7 years.
But the Ethereum blockchain is already much bigger than that even though it's been around only for 6 years!
Avalanche is loosely based on Ethereum, and even has multiple blockchains, so I'm a bit concerned that it will become too bloated to operate a node on a laptop.
@codewiz hope somebody figures a solution to that, storage always seems low :/
The full chain is 4.7GB on disk, which is nothing compared to #Bitcoin and #Ethereum, but still annoying for a mobile / embedded node.
I wonder if a client could issue transactions and verify payments without downloading the whole chain?