<p>Yes bitcoind will download the entire blockchain so that it can work out what money is real.</p>
<p>You can enable pruning if you don't want to permanently store old blocks and don't want to help ensure the future security of Bitcoin.</p>
<p>You don't have to ever run bitcoin-qt</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-27T09:37:07.880Z
2024-03-27T09:37:07.880Z
RedGrittyBrick
<p>Do I need to install the Bitcoin GUI and download the entire blockchain before being able to run bitcoind?
The instructions ask us to directly run bitcoind -daemon , will this start downloading the blockchain in the back end</p>
<p><a href="https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#mac-os-x-yosemite-1010x" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#mac-os-x-yosemite-1010x</a></p>

<bitcoind>
Running Bitcoind - prerequisites
Jack
# Running Bitcoind - prerequisites

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-03-27)

Do I need to install the Bitcoin GUI and download the entire blockchain before being able to run bitcoind?
The instructions ask us to directly run bitcoind -daemon , will this start downloading the blockchain in the back end

<https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#mac-os-x-yosemite-1010x>

**Tags:** bitcoind


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2024-03-27. Score: 0 | Accepted answer

Yes bitcoind will download the entire blockchain so that it can work out what money is real.

You can enable pruning if you don't want to permanently store old blocks and don't want to help ensure the future security of Bitcoin.

You don't have to ever run bitcoin-qt


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