Nodes

What is the Mempool? The simplest definition for the mempool is: the mempool is a cache that stores unconfirmed consensus valid transactions. But why do we need a mempool? The mempool is an important resource for each node and it mainly allows the peer-to-peer transaction relay network. Every ~10 minutes when a new block is found, nodes without a mempool experience a bandwidth spike and a computational-intensive period validating each transaction in the block. On the other hand, it is likely that nodes that implement a mempool have already seen all or most of the transactions inside a new block and have them stored in their mempools. ...

We all have encountered at some point that our Bitcoin node stops working, the raspberry fails, the disk dies, or we simply need the disk for other purposes and we end up without a Bitcoin node. In the future when we want to set up a node again we find that we have to go through the IBD (initial block download) process to synchronize the blockchain. A heavy process, that can last in many cases days and that prevents us to use the node and to connect the wallets until the node is completely synchronized. ...