How does Bitshares intend to trim it's blockchain?

[arhag]

Trimming the blockchain is a feature I look forward to eventually seeing in BitShares. I don't expect it will happen anytime in the near future though.

I've written my thoughts on how this could be done here.

[hughmanwho]

And while a snapshot is a nice feature.. just doesn't seem all that trustless to me.  How can you trustlessly prove that you are holding on to the correct snapshot with any degree of certainty?

Perhaps it's more complex than I'm imagining but I would expect it's no different to any block proofing. So long as the history is available and distributed widely, most nodes will see the benefit. Those that play host to the history perhaps do not even need to hold all of it. I wonder it must be challenging otherwise BTC and others would have suggested it before now.. 

It's not that complicated in a Proof of Work coin.. a decent amount of work but no, Bitcoin developers are just lazy or extra cautious about security or something.  Or just super rich and don't really feel like they have that much of an incentive to work round the clock doing the entrepreneur thing to stay competitive.

It's very complicated in a Proof of Stake coin though.  Because the way to make this 'mini-blockchain' of proofs, you need to proof that you have a certain amount of stake every step of the way.. which means holding on to a copy of the blockchain in order to provide these proofs.

[davidpbrown]

And while a snapshot is a nice feature.. just doesn't seem all that trustless to me.  How can you trustlessly prove that you are holding on to the correct snapshot with any degree of certainty?

Perhaps it's more complex than I'm imagining but I would expect it's no different to any block proofing. So long as the history is available and distributed widely, most nodes will see the benefit. Those that play host to the history perhaps do not even need to hold all of it. I wonder it must be challenging otherwise BTC and others would have suggested it before now.. 

[hughmanwho]

And while a snapshot is a nice feature.. just doesn't seem all that trustless to me.  How can you trustlessly prove that you are holding on to the correct snapshot with any degree of certainty?

[kokojie]

So you don't really trim it?  You essentially release new snapshots of the new genesis block every once in a while?  So it's not really decentralized?

Sounds like some trimming is done though?  Could you explain the algorithm behind it?  I'm pretty well versed in cryptocurrency.

Not saying it's the correct way to do things, but anyone can do the snapshot, so snapshotting is decentralized.

[hughmanwho]

So you don't really trim it?  You essentially release new snapshots of the new genesis block every once in a while?  So it's not really decentralized?

Sounds like some trimming is done though?  Could you explain the algorithm behind it?  I'm pretty well versed in cryptocurrency.

[sudo]

snapshot&trim

[hughmanwho]

Trimming the blockchain of a Proof of Stake coin is very complicated.

I've heard the argument that because Bitshares only has 100 delegates, that you can always just trust that those 100 delegates and basically trust that what they are feeding you is valid because you only have 100 computers which need to agree.

Except.. that you don't trustlessly know who those 100 delegates are unless you have a copy of the blockchain on hand, right?

Anyway price is finally low enough that it might be worth investing... but blockchain trimming is a big deal to me.. is there a serious plan in place?