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I read about SPVs here that:

[A SPV] client downloads a complete copy of the headers for all blocks in the entire block chain. This means that the download and storage requirements scale linearly with the amount of time since Bitcoin was invented.

but being new to Bitcoin, I don't know how to quantify this in terms of :

  • bandwidth
  • storage
  • ram

requirements I need for running a SPV (on an embedded device).

Can someone please help?

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Bandwidth - You need to receive an 80-byte header about every 10 minutes. In addition, if you want to spend, you will get SPV proofs that range about 500-1000 bytes per utxo. In other words, the bandwidth requirements are really tiny.

Storage - Each block header is 80 bytes, as of this writing, there are less than 430,000 blocks, so 80 * 430,000 = 35.4 MB. 100 MB should last you another 15 years.

RAM - The main usage of RAM is to do SHA256 and ECC signing/verification operations. A minimal CPU with not much RAM (512 MB) can do both without a problem.

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  • Thanks. In terms of RAM/processing power, would you say a router with 32 MB flash and 300 MHz would do?
    – hartmut
    Sep 5, 2016 at 18:59
  • If you don't mind it being a little slow, that should be fine.
    – Jimmy Song
    Sep 6, 2016 at 15:19

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