Why does nobody ever mention (chain) bootstrap files when syncing a new Bitcoin node? It's not like you have to sync the entire chain from scratch.
Discussion
What do you mean?
I mean all you have to do is find a recent bootstrap, throw that into the QT folder and sync the missing blocks from the date the bootstrap was created. There is no need to sync 16 years of transactions.
Is this the same as running a pruned node?
Never mind. You just answered 🤦♂️
Bootstrap.dat is just a recent chain-state backup.
Well thats good to know.... now lol 😂 as im already half way through syncing for a seccond time. Full syncing is just a "you 100 percent know you got the unaltered version"? I read the white paper briefly and i ask could just bootstraping lead to discrepancys later? Lets say if a bitcoin that had not been used (so syncing new blocks would work ) was tampered with then one day in the future that gets used and that leads to a error in the block chain. Then I mention that if your not the only person to have used that excat file to set up your node leed to a "bad" transaction turning good ? Sorry if my lack of knowledge makes that hard to understand.
In general that's not really possible. If you had a corrupted bootstrap file (a different chain-state from the actual one) it would fail. Best thing would be to ask a friend to bootstrap their sycned wallet. I think Bitcoin.org used to maintain one as well but afaik they stopped. At one point there was an update for better syncing and everyone stopped doing bootstrap files. Fun fact, a recent bootstrap is still much faster than a sync from scratch.
Just in case your curious where I came up with my question lol this is where. Thank you for explaining bootstraping. I think I remember something of the sort being suggested when trying to move your node to a new device. 
