Decrediton SPV mode & seed restore

Simple Payment Verification (SPV) allows the use of a Decred wallet without having to download the entire blockchain. SPV has been built directly into Decrediton and is also used in the Bison Relay app.

Decrediton SPV mode & seed restore
Decrediton SPV mode & seed restore
  • SPV is Light weight
  • Suitable for mobile
  • Faster set up & load

A wallet operating in SPV mode only needs to download block headers and full blocks that contain transactions relevant to it. Typically, this means downloading megabytes, rather than the full blockchain, which is currently more than 10 gigabytes. This reduces the wallet’s hardware requirements and greatly reduces the initial load time for new wallets. It should be noted, although a Decred SPV wallet is still extremely secure, it doesn’t have the same levels of security as a fully validating wallet. The current recommendation is, fully validating wallets should be used when transacting and verifying large amounts and SPV is suitable for transacting smaller amounts.

SPV has many advantages over fully validation wallets, and generally the user experience is more streamlined for everyday use cases. The hardware requirements to run a Decred wallet are drastically reduced when operating in SPV mode, this includes needing less storage and processing power. As a result of these decreased requirements, Decred wallets can operate on a wider set of devices – particularly mobile devices, smartphones, and tablets.