If you’ve ever lived through the pain of syncing a QT wallet to a blockchain network, I’m sorry you had to deal with that! We both know that you never want to do it again.
If you’re interested in holding a specific cryptocurrency, you either use the best wallet you can find — one which lets you maintain control over your private keys — or you take a gamble by leaving funds on a centralized exchange.
Certain projects offer limited choices in digital vaults. Hopefully, a lightweight or mobile version is available. But sometimes, you’re simply stuck with the QT for desktop.
Now, if you’re not familiar with this aggravation, let me give you an idea.
QT wallets require synchronization with the coin’s entire blockchain. And if you’re just discovering the project after it’s been around a few years, you may see this when launching the wallet:
Okay, this wallet’s been open and syncing since last night, and I only have to keep it open for 3 more weeks while it catches up to 2.2 million blocks. Sure, I can wait…
Meanwhile, my laptop crawls through every task in lockstep with a tortoise. In other words, unless you have a dedicated machine to run wallets, your poor computer may have trouble handling much of anything else.
Depending on the scenario, you may just have to suffer through it. However, if the project offers snapshots, you can send that QT wallet through a time-hopping portal and get synced much faster.
I recently discovered such a project and used its snapshot feature successfully, and wanted to share it with everyone here. Not all projects offer this service, so you may want to reach out and ask them if you’re struggling to sync.
Now that you know how a snapshot can help you out, let’s get you acquainted with what they are and how to use them.
What’s a Snapshot?
Put simply, a snapshot is a copy of a blockchain network, captured at a certain point in time. So, rather than sync your wallet from the genesis block, you force the wallet to quickly catch up and match the snapshot.
Think of it as a blockchain selfie. Rather than having your wallet validate every. single. block., your wallet assumes that all the data captured in the snapshot has already been confirmed.
Your QT wallet doesn’t need to experience the blockchain’s entire history — it can merely look at the selfie to agree with the network’s current status.
How to Use a Snapshot
In this tutorial, I’ll use a snapshot provided by Veil, a coin taking a privacy-centric approach to cashless societies. All-digital payments are the future, and Veil aims to create, in its own words, “an encrypted equivalent of the cash economy, where privacy is the most convenient choice.”
Regardless of the project’s intentions, trade volume, or market cap — you’re free to form your own opinions there — I appreciate the efforts to accelerate wallet synchronization.
From here, I’m assuming you’ve already downloaded a Veil wallet. And since my PC runs Windows, we’ll use that OS.
Here’s how to do it:
1) Get a Snapshot. Download one of the zip files the Veil team hosts here: https://veil.tools/snapshots/. These are big files weighing in around 18 gigs. However, downloading one is far speedier than a full wallet sync.
2) Close the Wallet. Yes, smartypants, this could’ve been step #1 — but something had to come first!
3) Extract the Zip File. Once unzipped, you’ll find 4 crucial folders inside: blocks, chainstate, indexes, and zerocoin.
4) Navigate to Your Veil Wallet’s Data Directory. In Windows, you can simply put this into the search bar and hit Enter: %APPDATA%\Veil
Alternatively, you can use this file path from your desktop: C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Veil
Inside the directory, you should see the same 4 folders from the zipped snapshot: blocks, chainstate, indexes, and zerocoin.
5) Rename the Folders. I simply numbered them as such: blocks1, chainstate2, etc. You can also move them out of the folder, or delete them.
Deletion is fine because we’re replacing them later. However, be careful with the other folders!
Never delete the “backups” folder, or a “wallet.dat” file!
6) Move the Snapshot Folders Into the Directory. Remember those 4 folders inside the snapshot folder? Drag-and-drop them into the directory folder.
7) Launch the Veil Wallet. Now that your wallet’s directory contains the snapshot folders, it’ll begin synchronization from there.
Now, rather than starting from the Veil network’s launch in January 2019, you can begin from today.
There you have it!
Wrapping Up
I’ve been in contact with the team, and a lightweight Veil wallet is in the works. But while its details get sorted, a snapshot puts a turbo booster on the core wallet's sync process.
From a consumer’s POV, the user experience is essential. If projects leave users in the dark and expect them to figure everything out on their own, I’m afraid they won’t last long because the competition is too fierce.
As I covered here on Publish0x before, simplicity is the key to widespread blockchain adoption. Hats off to Veil for providing daily shortcuts to successful wallet operation.
Thanks for reading!
~BlockchainAuthor
