Do I understand this correctly that the blockchain would only be stored on the "server version" of the client and not by every client ? I'm not sure that's a good idea. I don't know how people would feel about that and also doesn't that make the whole thing less secure especially in the beginning where fewer servers are running ? Say 10 servers are runnin initially. What if i whip up 20 VMs on my computer and make them servers....could I then not controll the network ? Not to mention that if the client doesn't hold the blockchain mim attackes could to a crapload of damage especially if coordinated well.
What's the point of having outdated snapshots in the client ? So the update from the DBs won't take as long ?
Nope, you don't need whole chain for security purposes.
Also 'normal' clients would also be
part of the network.
They just wouldn't store whole history, only those
snapshots + blockchain history since last snapshot till present.
Most people don't need whole history anyway (i.e. compare to btc, where download of whole the blockchain takes days if not weeks...)
When you would receive initial snapshot, there would be additional step of verification,
that the snapshot you've received is actually CORRECT one (there are number of ways this could be done),
to make sure the peers from which you've received it are not EVIL ones.