Can bitcoin core verify a third party blockchain download?

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If you were to obtain a copy of the bitcoin blockchain, i.e. a copy of someone's data dir excluding his wallet files on a removable drive or other storage medium, could bitcoin core verify that or not? This would be useful in developing countries where the initial blockchain download is hard to do but keeping up with the chain is easy.

Abdussamad

Posted 2019-04-13T11:40:57.067

Reputation: 1 850

Answers

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If you give Bitcoin Core a fully populated data directory, it will use it without any validation.

However, if you only give it the blocks/ subdirectory, it will fully validate it to recreate the chainstate directory, exactly as if it were received over the network.

Pieter Wuille

Posted 2019-04-13T11:40:57.067

Reputation: 54 032

What do you make of this statement? Is there a risk of an RCE with a 3rd party copy of the data dir?

– Abdussamad – 2019-05-08T07:43:13.357

Asked: 2019-04-13T11:40:57.067

Viewed: 38 times

Active: 2019-04-13T20:29:28.603