zack-bitcoin/amoveo

checkpointing, and syncing blocks in reverse time order

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A compromise between checkpoints and syncing all the blocks:
You download a recent checkpoint of the consensus state so you can immediately start participating in the blockchain, and you start verifying the blocks in reverse order from your checkpoint backwards towards the genesis block. You can set in the config file the depth at which to confirm that the blockchain is valid.
So a very security minded person, or an archival node could have it verify and store all the blocks.
And people who have already verified the history on other computers, they don't have to waste time re-verifying the same history again. They already confirmed which block hashes correspond with which heights.
This means an Amoveo node freshly downloaded from github would be usable on main net within seconds of turning it on for things like spending veo, operating a mining pool or exchange, checking your balance.
it is pretty cool how we can verify blocks in any order, it gives us a lot of freedom in making other design choices.

this was implemented, but not yet activated.