Hello everyone. My bitcoin client is currently synchronizing and has 191762 / 195388 = 98.15% of the blocks downloaded. It is going really slowly, maybe only 4 blocks a minute. At this rate it will take about a day to finish. Is this normal?
Normal. Especially if you are using an encrypted filesystem.
Obviously it could not have taken this long on the earlier blocks. Is it because of higher transaction volume as of late or what?
Yup,
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http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=allThe most recent release of the client, v0.6.3, performs better than older versions.
Upcoming versions (w/ LevelDB, Ultraprune) will make this much less of an issue.
Electrum is a good alternative that requires no blockchain download. The keys are kept local/private.