HTC Exodus - New phone Capable To Run Full BTC Nodes

https://mashable.com/article/htc-exodus-1s-blockchain-phone/?europe=true

Hello people.

I read about the above linked article on a new HTC blockchain-capable smartphone.

Now my 2 questions are:

1) >How can this phone act as a "FULL NODE" of BTC? Is this really true? You could throw away your full node on linux computer, and instead use the HTC phone?

-First, I have difficulty to understand how its going to store the hundreds of GB of data...

-I am thinking about the mining activity. how can this small piece of phone chip do mining if it cannot achieve high hash rates?

2) Is such a fullnode phone helpful and positive impact on the overall btc network (what are the positive impacts?)?

Thank you for explanations.

johnsmiththelird

Posted 2019-05-12T19:36:07.577

Reputation: 481

Answers

1) >How can this phone act as a "FULL NODE" of BTC? Is this really true? You could throw away your full node on linux computer, and instead use the HTC phone?

A smartphone is just a lower power computer that fits in your pocket. For a computer to be a full node, it just needs to run full node software. Phones can already do this, and it seems like HTC is just pre-installing an app to run a full node on this phone.

In fact, right now you can run a full node on a phone yourself using the ABCore android app.

-First, I have difficulty to understand how its going to store the hundreds of GB of data...

By using a high capacity MicroSD card. The phone will have a MicroSD card slot, and MicroSD cards can already have capacities as high as 512 GB. Alternatively, the node could be a pruning node so it doesn't actually store the entire blockchain history. Pruned nodes are still full nodes, they just don't serve historical blocks to other nodes.

-I am thinking about the mining activity. how can this small piece of phone chip do mining if it cannot achieve high hash rates?

Full nodes are not necessarily miners. You can have a full node without mining or producing any blocks at all whatsoever.

2) Is such a fullnode phone helpful and positive impact on the overall btc network (what are the positive impacts?)?

Yes. Any full node is helpful to the network. Full nodes validate and relay all blocks and transactions they receive. More full nodes means more people are verifying that blocks and transactions are correct. More full nodes in general help make Bitcoin more robust and decentralized.

Andrew Chow

Posted 2019-05-12T19:36:07.577

Reputation: 40 910

I'd say that the benefit to the network of a full nodes on a low-powered device with slow I/O and crappy intermittent internet connection is going to be very low. However, the benefit to you may be huge - enabling you to run a wallet that trustlessly can validate incoming payments. Indirectly the benefit to the ecosystem may be large too, by enabling perhaps more people to independently verify. – Pieter Wuille – 2019-11-23T21:26:27.997

2) Is such a fullnode phone helpful and positive impact on the overall btc network (what are the positive impacts?)?

In addition to what @Andrew wrote, its worth noting that a user should want to run a full node for their own gain, not just ‘for the health of the network’. Certainly more full nodes creates a more robust network, but we don’t depend on user altruism to attain that. A user that runs their own node gains independence and sovereignty, and needs to trust no other person or service in order to interact with the network.

So being able to run some sort of full node on a phone is great for users.. and for the network as well.

chytrik

Posted 2019-05-12T19:36:07.577

Reputation: 10 276

HTC Exodus - New phone Capable To Run Full BTC Nodes - is this possible?

Answers