From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (smtp1.linux-foundation.org [172.17.192.35]) by mail.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 695001643 for ; Fri, 9 Oct 2015 03:38:44 +0000 (UTC) X-Greylist: delayed 00:20:07 by SQLgrey-1.7.6 Received: from s1.neomailbox.net (s1.neomailbox.net [5.148.176.57]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id DD7F6160 for ; Fri, 9 Oct 2015 03:38:43 +0000 (UTC) To: bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org From: telemaco Message-ID: <56173207.3040601@neomailbox.net> Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2015 05:18:31 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.7 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW, T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD autolearn=ham version=3.3.1 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on smtp1.linux-foundation.org Subject: [bitcoin-dev] Why not checkpointing the transactions? X-BeenThere: bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.12 Precedence: list List-Id: Bitcoin Development Discussion List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2015 03:38:44 -0000 Hello, I have been working on database engineering for many years and there are some things i don't understand very well about how bitcoin architecture works. I have not written here because i would not like to disturb development with yet another of those far to implement ideas that does not contribute to actual code as sometimes is said here. On any case today I have been listening the last beyond bitcoin video about the new bitshares 2.0 and how they are changing the transaction structure to do it more similar to what relational database management systems have been doing for 30 years. Keep a checkpointed state and just carry the new transactions. On rdbms, anyone if they want to perform historical research or something, they can just get the transaction log backups and reply every single transaction since the beginning of history. Why is bitcoin network replying every single transaction since the beginning and not start from a closer state. Why is that information even stored on every core node? Couldn't we just have a checkpointed state and the new transactions and leave to "historical" nodes or collectors the backup of all the transactions since the beginning of history? Replication rdbms have been working with this model for some time, just being able to replicate at table, column, index, row or even db level between many datacenters/continents and already serving the financial world, banks and exchanges. Their tps is very fast because they only transfer the smallest number of transactions that nodes decide to be suscribed to, maybe japan exchange just needs transactional info from japanese stocks on nasdaq or something similar. But even if they suscribe to everything, the transactional info is to some extent just a very small amount of information. Couldn't we have just a very small transactional system with the fewest number of working transactions and advancing checkpointed states? We should be able to have nodes of the size of watches with that structure, instead of holding everything for ever for all eternity and hope on moore's law to keep us allowing infinite growth. What if 5 internet submarine cables get cut on a earth movement or war or there is a shortage of materials for chip manufacturing and the network moore's law cannot keep up. Shouldn't performance optimization and capacity planning go in both ways?. Having a really small working "transaction log" allows companies to rely some transactional info to little pdas on warehouses, or just relay a small amount of information to a satellite, not every single transaction of the company forever. After all if we could have a very small transactional workload and leave behind the overload of all the previous transactions, we could have bitcoin nodes on watches and have an incredibly decentralized system that nobody can disrupt as the decentralization would be massive. We could even create a very small odbc, jdbc connector on the bitcoin client and just let any traditional rdbms system handle the heavy load and just let bitcoin core rely everyone and his mother to a level that noone could ever disrupt a very small amount of transactional data. Just some thoughts. Please don't be very harsh, i am still researching bitcoin code and my intentions are the best as i cannot be more passionate about the project. Thanks,