bitcoin-qt is 10 times bigger than the pre-built version! #23377

I followed the link bitcoincore.org/en/download on this project to download the latest version (22). I check the file size of the bitcoin-qt and get this:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 t t 35541656 Sep 8 14:15 bitcoin-qt

Then, I build the whole bitcoin project by following the instructions here and get this:

-rwxrwxr-x 1 t t 439887952 Oct 13 20:31 bitcoin-qt

Why is my build more than 10 times bigger than the downloaded version? My own build will pass all of my virus scanners, but the downloaded version will fail some scanners with these messages:

ELF:BitCoinMiner-ET [PUP]
Riskware/CoinMiner

Did the builders sneak some code into the build for covert mining on the user's machines?

I would like to think download link is endorsed by you guys and the downloaded version would be equivalent to what I build myself. But, that is obviously not the case.

If you self-build, by default the resulting binaries will contain debug symbols, to aid with finding issues. You can remove these by stripping (strip -s bitcoin-qt e.g.).

If you want to create binaries similar to the release binaries, use the depends system (see the depends/ subdirectory in the repo).

If you want reproduce the exact release binaries, use guix based build environment (see the contrib/guix/ directory in the repo).