How is that faster than under a day that would be required to download a 50-100gb bootstrap?
My assumpton is that they're considering that you will reindex (./bitcoin-qt -dbcache=600 -reindex) after you download it from somebody. Of course if you don't reindex then there is no way that downloading with the client could be faster provided that the source that you're downloading from isn't limiting its upload speed.
edit: I believe that bootstrap.dat requires indexing no matter what, so downloading and indexing would always be slower than downloading and indexing at the same time. What I was talking about is actually getting a complete database (blocks and chainstate directories) from somebody.
edit2: If you have a mechanical hard drive, downloading the blockchain requires 2GB of cache memory in addition to memory for the OS and the bitcoin program. In other words you need 4GB and even with that it'll slow down getting in to 2016 data. Also, if you don't have ECC RAM then as single bit error will invalidate the entire index due to something like checksum error - database corrupted or Mekcle Root mismatch and you'll have to start over with the -reindex flag.
Free blockchain download to people in Illinois and bordering States, but please do me a favor. This is an older one that's at block 474777 from June 8th. Also it was created using bitcoin-core 0.12.1. Newer versions should be able to use it and auto update the format but I'm not sure about the newest versoins. This blockchain is already indexed and it was created by myself. You can check my trust with the web of trust used on the IRC channel. I have a high rating. If you're not close to Illinois I'll disconnect you. No, I'm not being charged extra to send to a long distance location, I'm just enforcing my own personal Internet agenda. I'll take the link away once one or two people start downloading it.
If you want to pay me $3 I'll let you download it even if you're not by Illinois. I will also accept 0.0005 Bitcoins, 0.03 Litecoins, or 3 Primecoins.
The favor: When you download this could you tell me if it works on your system and could you check error.log in your Bitcoin configuration/data directory (where wallet.dat is) and tell me if it encountered any errors when you reindex it, if you do chose to reindex it.
Here is the link to the file. It is a 100GB rar archive with a recovery record in case a bit gets corrupted. It also includes peers.dat. I thought that that might help bootstrapping go a little faster some day in the future. SHA1: b4d34735dac777202b681ef021ed38bfd6bc1f02
http://[URL hostname hidden - please PM me for this URL or use the Gnutella download method]/public/blockchains/bitcoin-core_0.12.1_indexed_blockchain_block474777_and_peers.dat_2017-7-8.rar
Once you download it then unpack it in your bitcoin data directory. Make sure to preserve the directory structure in the unrar program or the Windows GUI version. Delete the blocks and chainstate directories first to not have abandoned files around.
In Linux at the command line it would be something like this:
$ cd ~/.bitcoin
$ rm -r chainstate/ blocks/
$ sha1sum bitcoin-core_0.12.1_indexed_blockchain_block474777_and_peers.dat_2017-7-8.rar
# The result should be b4d34735dac777202b681ef021ed38bfd6bc1f02 . If it isn't, then you have a bad download. Try to do a recovery on the rar archive. It will create a copy that's corrected to the correct sha1 hash.
$ unrar x r bitcoin-core_0.12.1_indexed_blockchain_block474777_and_peers.dat_2017-7-8.rar
Now run bitcoin-qt. If you don't trust me or if you have a lot of money in your wallet then you'll want to reindex it. Do bitcoin-qt -dbcache=500 -reindex #This will take a long time. If you don't have more than 2-4GB of RAM (depending on your client version) and you don't have a SSD don't do it.
edit 3:
Another method! I have the file shared on Gnutella. It's the same file as mentioned above. Would someone like to try putting urn:sha1:WTJUONO2Y53SAK3ID3YCD3JYX7LLYHYC in to a program like gtk-gnutella and seeing if it finds the file? Please do ensure sharing is on in your client as you download! This is a base32 SHA1 which is different than what sha1sum produces. After downloading the file with Gnutella, the previous instructions for unpacking it still apply.