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Let's say I have an output in the blockchain at height 100,000. At height 200,000, I want to prove that my output has the work of 100k blocks built onto it, securing it. In Bitcoin, proving that the output has X number of hashes securing it requires providing the full chain of headers, or 80 bytes * 100,000.
Is there an alternative proof of work where these 'work-proofs' do not grow in size indefinitely?
EDIT:
Now that I have found some resources, the terminology for I was looking for is "compact SPV proofs".
If you just want to prove the work, isn't the difficulty of the block it's in enough? – Luca Matteis – 2015-06-11T19:03:37.010
@LucaMatteis Not really, I'm thinking it would be nice to be able prove a transaction is in the main chain by linking it to the genesis block in some way, and showing the rate of blocks being built on it, all without downloading the whole header chain. – morsecoder – 2015-06-11T19:33:58.750