[Bitcoin-development] Proposed additional options for pruned nodes

[gabe appleton <gappleto97@gmail.com>]

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Hi,

There's been a lot of talk in the rest of the community about how the 20MB
step would increase storage needs, and that switching to pruned nodes
(partially) would reduce network security. I think I may have a solution.

There could be a hybrid option in nodes. Selecting this would do the
following:
Flip the --no-wallet toggle
Select a section of the blockchain to store fully (percentage based,
possibly on hash % sections?)
Begin pruning all sections not included in 2
The idea is that you can implement it similar to how a Koorde is done, in
that the network will decide which sections it retrieves. So if the user
prompts it to store 50% of the blockchain, it would look at its peers, and
at their peers (if secure), and choose the least-occurring options from
them.

This would allow them to continue validating all transactions, and still
store a full copy, just distributed among many nodes. It should overall
have little impact on security (unless I'm mistaken), and it would
significantly reduce storage needs on a node.

It would also allow for a retroactive --max-size flag, where it will prune
until it is at the specified size, and continue to prune over time, while
keeping to the sections defined by the network.

What sort of side effects or network vulnerabilities would this introduce?
I know some said it wouldn't be Sybil resistant, but how would this be less
so than a fully pruned node?

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