Keeping all those altcoin wallets in sync can be a challenge, and you certainly don't want to miss out on any unexpected spikes in price, or other activity in a volatile market. Enter CryptoChainer.com, which was created to make your crypto life much easier. Keeping up with the various blockchains of coins you may have invested in (or just simply collected), can be a lot of work.
At the site, you can download recent blockchain snapshots, of your favorite altcoins. For example, you see on the exchange that a coin you've been holding for months, or years, has suddenly gained interest, and the price is reflecting that. Remembering that you had a few stashed away, you find the wallet application & launch it. Even if you update the application itself, the blockchain will be out of sync, by the amount of time since you last opened it. This might be a few days, a few weeks or months, or even years - in the case of some older altcoins.
If you download the blockchain snapshot, and extract it to the coin's data folder, you may be able to get in sync much quicker, even almost instantly, in some cases. Many of these blockchains can be difficult to sync from scratch, as the coin may have had one or more forks, or there are just simply not enough peers to connect to.
For any coin wallet to synchronize, it has to connect to other "nodes" or "peers." Other users running the same wallet. If there are no nodes, a coin may be effectively dead. The blockchains on CryptoChainer include known working nodes, should allow your wallet to get in line with the network. Active coins often have what are called "seed nodes," which are machines that are always on, and keep that particular network moving. Anyone can run a "node" for a coin, just by leaving their wallet running 24x7, while connected to the internet. All coins benefit from having always-on peers, that new users can use to get in sync with everyone else.
Sometimes you may find, that even with the full blockchain in place, there are no connections to the network. In this case, try to visit the coin's "block explorer," which is a website that chronicles the history of that particular blockchain, and all transactions, and often has a list of working nodes. You can use these to get your wallet connected. It may involve editing the .conf file of that wallet, but you can find plenty of information about that, on the various threads on the coin's forum posts. Some users will also offer up known-working nodes.
CryptoChainer is trying to help these coins going, by providing a free service for all users. The site accepts donations in various alternative currencies, but does not charge an admission fee. Some of these blockchains are all but impossible to sync from scratch, or will take a very long time.
One example is FedoraCoin, commonly known as TIPS. This is a fairly old coin, and has recently "forked." What this means, is that the peers became out of sync, and there are now two separate blockchains. It is not clear exactly how, or when this happened, but the result is that one exchange (BTER) is on one fork, and another exchange (Novaexchange), is on another. Both of these blockchains are represented on CryptoChainer, and both are confirmed to send to those respective exchanges. What the future of this situation holds, is anyone guess, but for now, you can download the blockchain (each are over 1GB, and would take the better part of a week to sync), and judge for yourself.
Blockchain requests are accepted, and are accommodated when possible. The files are hosted on a server provided by InfluxCoin, and utilizes the hosting services the Influx team provides. If you had success grabbing a blockchain from the site, or have any suggestions, please post about it in the forums, or contact CryptoChainer directly.
Steve