In the scenario of 100% of Bitcoin Core nodes having been ‘pruned’, what is the impact on syncing new installs of Bitcoin Core. Can Bitcoin Core still download the entire transaction history as required, and if yes, how? If not, what is the impact on securing future integrity of transactions if less and less active nodes are on the system as a result of pruning and being unable to download the entire blockchain history.
Background: I have always run a full node for years, but am not always ‘live’. I recently had upgraded to Bitcoin Core 27 and it immediately got stuck. I tried for several days, no change. Then I was forced to go back to Bitcoin Core 25. It has processed the chain up to Fri Feb 9 09:32:36 2024 and has been stuck at Progress 90.60% for nearly a day, with 1 Peer connected. To say the least, this is concerning. I never experienced any issues bringing the chain up to date until pruning was introduced, and I am concerned that pruning is becoming so widespread that the necessary blockchain download can no longer be reliably performed. And if that is the case, how is integrity being maintained if new nodes cannot be onboarded and active nodes are in decline?
