There's already a couple of ways around this. One is the 'online wallet' set up, where someone already has the complete block chain online, the other is the bootstrap approach, whereby although you still download the entire chain, you can do it a lot more quickly via Bittorrent or the like.
But generally, I imagine most people would go with the online wallet approach if they're not comfortable with the drive space requirements.
I also believe that it is possible (theoretically, at least) to essentially just start somewhere further in the chain, in a way. Having said that, that would probably remove you from the option to mine at the same time. Maybe?
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There's already a couple of ways around this. One is the 'online wallet' set up, where someone already has the complete block chain online, the other is the bootstrap approach, whereby although you still download the entire chain, you can do it a lot more quickly via Bittorrent or the like.
But generally, I imagine most people would go with the online wallet approach if they're not comfortable with the drive space requirements.
I also believe that it is possible (theoretically, at least) to essentially just start somewhere further in the chain, in a way. Having said that, that would probably remove you from the option to mine at the same time. Maybe?