If I understand Simplified Payment Verification correctly:
New coin issuers need to store all coins and all recent coin transfers.
There are many new coin issuers, as many as want to be issuers, but far more coin users.
Ordinary entities merely transfer coins. To see if a coin transfer is OK, they report it to one or more new coin issuers and see if the new coin issuer accepts it. New coin issuers check transfers of old coins so that their new coins have valid form, and they report the outcome of this check so that people will report their transfers to the new coin issuer.
I think the real issue with this system is the market for bitcoins.
Computing proofs-of-work have no intrinsic value. We can have a limited supply curve (although the “currency” is inflationary at about 35% as that’s how much faster computers get annually) but there is no demand curve that intersects it at a positive price point.
I know the same (lack of intrinsic value) can be said of fiat currencies, but an artificial demand for fiat currencies is created by (among other things) taxation and legal-tender laws. Also, even a fiat currency can be an inflation hedge against another fiat currency’s higher rate of inflation. But in the case of bitcoins the inflation rate of 35% is almost guaranteed by the technology, there are no supporting mechanisms for taxation, and no legal-tender laws. People will not hold assets in this highly-inflationary currency if they can help it.
Bear
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