Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: How is it possible to measure the amount of nodes that are just "listening" ?
by
achow101
on 31/10/2017, 15:38:26 UTC
Come on we're playing semantics. Yes, obviously a SPV wallet doesn't fully verify like a full node does, but it does simply verify transactions which is the point. It has limited trust to a third party and since the information it receives from a third party is cross verified with others and
The point is that SPV wallets can't and don't "simply verify transactions". There is no verification that can be done without having the transactions that a transaction spends from.

it is deep in the blockchain, there's a fair assumption of truth in it.
That's also not true. A transaction is not necessarily deep in the blockchain. SPV wallets allow you to receive unconfirmed transactions and sometimes spend from them. You can also spend from transactions with one confirmation; those are definitely not "deep in the blockchain"

The point is that every person isn't going to run a full node, and you want all users to have a decentralised self verifying experience. SPV nodes on mobile are the best answer to this.
Yes, I agree that not everyone is going to run a full node, but current SPV wallets are not a decentralized self verifying experience at all.