Technical Clarity
Calin Culianu’s explanation of why $BCH node runners do not actually verify every transaction from block zero even on a full node: Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash node both implement a feature called assume-valid, which skips signature verification for blocks before a certain checkpoint.
What a full node actually verifies is chain of custody, not every individual signature.
He argues this makes the claim that you must verify from genesis to be truly trustless technically false for almost every node on both networks, and that UTXO commitments, which BCH is implementing, provide the same security guarantee with a fraction of the overhead.
Bitcoin Takeover S17E2 with @cculianu
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