Simplified Payment Verification (SPV)

The Bitcoin whitepaper’s section 8 describes Simplified Payment Verification (SPV). Employing the features of Merkle proofs enables a transaction recipient to demonstrate that the sender controls the underlying funds of the payment they are presenting without downloading the entire Blockchain. So this does not ensure that we have already spent the money. Instead, it assures by sending the operation to the Bitcoin miners. However, in this situation, the SPV proof, supported by formally enforceable cryptographic signature technology, serves as compelling proof of fraud. While nodes serve as the settlement layer, SPV enables users to transact with one another securely.

Software that searches other nodes for new blocks and transactions is known as simplified payment verification (SPV); however, nodes do not store the Blockchain themselves. A type of light client Satoshi Nakamoto describes in the whitepaper is an SPV client. With SPV, users will have access to a trust-minimized method of exploring the Blockchain without dealing with the hassle of maintaining a node. The nodes SPV clients use to query the Blockchain are trusted, but there are many more nodes and the cryptographic security of Merkle trees that make it very difficult to misuse this trust.

In this article, we will discuss the following:

• What is Simplified Payment Verification?
• Advantages Of Simplified Payment Verification
• Bitcoin Node
• Simple Payment Verification Wallet
• Simple Payment Verification Wallet Client
• Merkle Tree
• Advantages Of Merkle Tree

What is Simplified Payment Verification?

Utilizing Bitcoin with Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) without maintaining a full network node A node must evaluate any new transactions it receives by default, ensuring that we didn’t use any of the transaction’s sources. The node needs access to the Blockchain to perform that check. Therefore, users should maintain a complete local replica of the Blockchain if they do not trust their network neighbors so that they may validate any input.

We can check bitcoin transactions without maintaining a complete set of nodes. And this is referred to as SPV or simplified payment verification. It is sufficient for a user or user’s bitcoin SPV wallet to have a duplicate of the block summaries of the blockchain ledger, which can be found by repeatedly contacting network nodes after acquiring the longest chain. The Merkle branch connecting the transaction to its chain is then obtained by the wallet using the SPV client. A central node has accepted a transaction as it links to a location in the active chain, and subsequent blocks further prove the confirmation.

Advantages Of Simplified Payment Verification

Regarding the amount of data needed, the benefits of adopting SPV are evident:

A wallet can store the Blockchain’s block descriptors in about 50MB.  The sum increases linearly at a rate of roughly 4MB every year. Compare this to the hundreds of megabytes that would need to store the entire network even if not using SPV. The maximal size of the data required by the Merkle routes is display style 64log 2ndisplaystyle 64log 2n bytes, where n represents the number of transactions in each Block.

Bitcoin Node

Nodes are unique components of networks that interact with one another to construct the network as a whole. Any machine that contains a Bitcoin application and stores the whole Blockchain. So this is a bitcoin node. Nodes communicate with other nodes in the network via validating, broadcasting, and requesting new blocks and the mempool. Consensreaches a point if the software used by the nodes is consistent.

The number of nodes is essential for safeguarding the network against unauthorized or careless source code modifications, reorganizations, and other standard changes.

Simple Payment Verification Wallet

Before asking, “what is SPV Wallet,” you should know first: SPV is a technique, not a creator or a company. SPV, which stands for streamlined payment verification, is not brand-new. Satoshi Nakamoto described it in the first Bitcoin Whitepaper (section 8). In essence, SPV enables you to authenticate your transactions independently of others. It guarantees that your transactions are included in a block and provide evidence (proof of work) that new blocks insert into the chain. Therefore, the definition of an SPV wallet is the same as that of a “hot wallet” or “cold wallet” – it’s a kind of bitcoin wallet that safeguards your information in the current chain.

An SPV wallet downloads only the “block headers” of the Blockchain. Each Block references the last Block in the Blockchain. A “hash” of the header in a block serves as the identity. Finding that hash is frequently referred to as the “public blockchain challenge” or “cryptographic puzzle” that a miner must complete to add a block to the chain. The difficulty of the hash must adhere to a standard that dynamically modifies in terms of the network. Therefore, you must review the Blockchain’s most modern past to determine the current difficulty level and whether any new blocks you see are valid if you want to ensure you are not getting duped.

Simple Payment Verification Wallet Client

Some wallets that identify as the Bitcoin SPV wallet client:

A native Bitcoin SPV client is available, although it is still in the experimental stage and should not use in current production settings, according to developers’ GitHub posts. The Bitcoins project is still developing and will inevitably undergo significant changes. There are still a few simple tasks to complete. Utilizing innovations in the Lightning Network, Open Bazaar, and btcd improved SPV wallet client for bitcoin.

For a user, an SPV wallet isn’t less secure. It will accurately inform you of the quantity of bitcoin you may spend and whether any bitcoins delivered to you can be successfully spent (i.e., whether you own it). Since you never actually own anything other than a few cryptographic keys that let you use specific monies handed to you, my terminology could seem a little strange.

You may have read that running a full node is preferable. In terms of the network, it is true that the more nodes that enforce the system’s rules, the better. It is best if there are more active nodes reporting transactions. Imagine the four-eyes-principle taken to the next level. However, running a full node for every user is neither practical nor practical. For instance, if you have a digital wallet, it might not have enough capabilities or capacity to join the network or validate every transaction.

Merkle Tree

A Merkle tree is a form of data structure with particular qualities that are advantageous for Bitcoin. For example, this method makes it simple for one node to convince another that includes a specified transaction in a specific block. So this is helpful for SPV nodes and light clients who only save specific transactions or blocks and do not need a financial recording of the whole Blockchain.

For instance, if Lisa operates a wallet and is awaiting the confirmation of her transaction, although she does not run a node, she can ask John, who runs a complete node, for a Merkle proof. Without John disclosing all of the transactions or the entire Block to Lisa, this proof will persuade Lisa that the transaction she is engaged in was part of a legitimate block.

More on Merkle Tree

Technically speaking, a Merkle tree has tiers. The list of all transaction IDs in a block forms the top layer. These txids are combined and scrambled in pairs with SHA-256 to create the second layer. So this means that it will cut the second layer in half from the first layer. This process repeats until the final layer includes exactly one hash. The Merkle root refers to this. Given the characteristics of a  hash, a financial transaction id change will percolate up the tree and completely alter the parent hash.

• A Bitcoin block’s previous block hash, produced from the passwords of every transaction in the Block, is known as the Merkle Root.
• In SPV, a Merkle Path represents the details that the user needs to figure out their own transaction hash’s expected value for the Merkle root of a block. The Merkle Proof incorporates the Merkle route.
• In SPV, a Merkle Proof establishes the existence of a particular transaction in a specific block. It contains both the Merkle Path and the Merkle Root.

A customer (or their wallet) only requires the transaction’s Merkle path and the block header for a specific block to construct a Merkle proof (80 bytes).

A user (or their wallet) simply requires the chain of block headers to verify proof (as opposed to the whole blocks themselves). They, therefore, need a copy of each Block’s block header that they understand to be accurate. A user can confirm a time stamp transaction in a particular block without looking through all of the transactions in that Block by employing their block header chain, the transaction (or its hash/id), and its Merkle proof (also known as an inclusiveness proof).

Advantages Of Merkle Tree

A Merkle tree allows the validity of any specific transaction id and demonstrates without disclosing the full Merkle tree. For instance, only three hashes require to prove that one of the eight transactions in a Merkle tree was present. So this offers excellent efficiency for light clients, which do not maintain the complete Blockchain and must therefore ask other nodes for evidence that specific transactions are confirmed.

Summing Up

The method of Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) is one that Satoshi Nakamoto describes in his paper. SPV enables a lightweight client to confirm that a transaction is on the Bitcoin network without accessing the Blockchain. The block headers, which are substantially smaller than the actual blocks, are all that the SPV customer requires to download. An SPV client seeks confirmation of inclusion in the form of a Merkle branch to confirm that a transaction is in a block.

Because they are not required to entrust the computers with their information, SPV clients provide greater security than online wallets.