<p>For the second part of your question (what's to stop the size of the blockchain from growing indefinitely to the point where it's impractical to store on consumer hardware?), there are concepts like sharding and side chains and .... You can watch Charles Hoskinson talking about this topic <a href="https://youtu.be/Ja9D0kpksxw?t=852" rel="noreferrer">here</a>.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-05-11T18:13:43.213Z
2021-05-11T18:13:43.213Z
Jelil Akjaly
<p>No, it never gets pruned. One of the appealing features of blockchain is that the history stays there forever.</p>
<p>The size of the blockchain grows roughly linearly (ignoring the effect of adoption), whereas storage capacities follow Moore's Law and grow exponentially. So the expectation is that, yes, the blockchain will grow bigger and bigger, but that that is no problem, because hard drives get bigger (and cheaper) faster.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-05-07T19:18:44.280Z
2021-05-07T19:18:44.280Z
Lars Brünjes
<p>From what I've read, downloading a full Daedalus node is currently around 6-10GB. Do old UTXO's ever get pruned from the blockchain? If not, what's to stop the size of the blockchain from growing indefinitely to the point where it's impractical to store on consumer hardware?</p>

<storage><utxo>
Do old UTXO's ever get pruned from the blockchain?
# Do old UTXO's ever get pruned from the blockchain?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-05-07)

From what I've read, downloading a full Daedalus node is currently around 6-10GB. Do old UTXO's ever get pruned from the blockchain? If not, what's to stop the size of the blockchain from growing indefinitely to the point where it's impractical to store on consumer hardware?

**Tags:** storage, utxo

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2021-05-07. Score: 16 | Accepted answer

No, it never gets pruned. One of the appealing features of blockchain is that the history stays there forever.

The size of the blockchain grows roughly linearly (ignoring the effect of adoption), whereas storage capacities follow Moore's Law and grow exponentially. So the expectation is that, yes, the blockchain will grow bigger and bigger, but that that is no problem, because hard drives get bigger (and cheaper) faster.


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### Answer by username_1 on 2021-05-11. Score: 5

For the second part of your question (what's to stop the size of the blockchain from growing indefinitely to the point where it's impractical to store on consumer hardware?), there are concepts like sharding and side chains and .... You can watch Charles Hoskinson talking about this topic [here](https://youtu.be/Ja9D0kpksxw?t=852).


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