The fall of Bitcoin nodes. Why nobody talks about it ?

[KROIN_SYSTEM]

In these days in Kroin we are coding our transactions verification process and of course we peek a little bit outside our office, also for take a breath!

This article in coin desk http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-nodes-need/ put some cards on table:

What really happening to btc network ?
Why Nodes numbers dropping so fast recently ?
Why nobody talks about it ?

Is just how money developers makes for sustain btc network?

Any opinions are welcomed.

one of the Kroin Staff

[1713520170]

1713520170

[allgoodthings1]

That's an old article in CoinDesk, but the problem has only gotten worse. Probably the chief reasons for the drop are *How large the blockchain has become (and difficult to manage on home computers), and The proliferation of wallet software that does not download the full chain. The Bitcoin Foundation wrote about this problem a month or so ago, too.

A lot of us run full nodes on VPS. That can be pretty inexpensive -- at $2/mo. But more help is certainly needed. All of us who benefit from the network ought to give back to it in ways commensurate with our received benefit.

[susan234]

Too lagre blockchain now, like me, with the home computer to open the wallet was powerless, waiting for the improvement of wallet appear.

[TimS]

All of us who benefit from the network ought to give back to it in ways commensurate with our received benefit.

Sooo, one day we give $20 for each BTC we own and the next we take it back? 

[Q7]

Yes unfortunately that's the reality. The bloated blockchain remains a problem. It took me a week plus to finish sync on my slow network and i wonder with most lite wallet nowadays, it doesn't become a requirement anymore or give an incentive for people to maintain a node.

[RodeoX]

I think we expected that mainstream users will largely use online and non-node wallets. Most people want a system than is lighter and can run on cell phones. You don't have to rely on another entity to use BTC, but I bet in the future 90% will.

[dserrano5]

I expect the number of nodes to raise when the pruning stuff is available, although admittedly only a few of them will store the whole blockchain so most won't be "full" nodes. They will relay transactions and blocks though.

[ranochigo]

Most of them don't bother to run one because of their bandwidth and large disk space requirement. People would ultimately want to use the wallet instantly and Bitcoin core typically take around a few hours to sync and on some computers, even days. SPV wallet are more convenient. The network need more reliable node with high availability so it is pretty useless for a average home user to run a full node.

[naplam]

We should first think about how many nodes we need or want. Everybody says "more!". how many more and why?

[yayayo]

It's a considerable problem. Decentralization is at stake.

I don't understand why Gavin is pushing for an automatic block size limit increase that will make this problem only worse (I think the block size limit should be raised by demand only, not in an automatic fashion). Imho it's a totally wrong perception of priorities to aim at including as many transaction as possible without costs while the foundation of the whole network is in danger.

Enabling semi-full-nodes via pruning is extremely important for network health.

ya.ya.yo!

[L0uis]

Running a node since yesterday, hovering between 20-30 connections 

[dakota neat]

You have to differentiate between the quality of the nodes. Home PCs which are up a few hours a day on low bandwith or nodes on dedicated 24/7 servers. I don't know if there is a metric to get this information. The plain number of nodes doesn't mean much. Today many people run full nodes on a VPS.

[superresistant]

 
With a bit of knowledge, one can launch over a thousand nodes around the world via VPS and the help of bash script, in few hours.

Yes it is a problem and solving it is damn easy.

What we can start is to run a full node at home and at work (if possible) and also run some VPS.
If most people do it, problem solved so just do it.

[L0uis]

With a bit of knowledge, one can launch over a thousand nodes around the world via VPS and the help of bash script, in few hours.

Yes it is a problem and solving it is damn easy.

What we can start is to run a full node at home and at work (if possible) and also run some VPS.
If most people do it, problem solved so just do it.

Just using my MacBook. No clue of how VPS things work lol.

[franky1]

the node list of https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/ is not that accurate. my IP is geo-tagged and locked so its very possible to locate me on the map........... yet im not on the map.

i know of 12 other people within 40 miles of me, all using bitcoin-core... yet.. not on the map. so i do not bother caring about the stats of bitnodes as it only shows which nodes are linked to their node.. not the entire worlds nodes.

coindesk and some posters here are not reading "reachable nodes" and thinking that bitnodes is the 100% definitive listing site

[liu405]

Running a node since yesterday, hovering between 20-30 connections 

yes  it is so slow now.

[allgoodthings1]

Running a node since yesterday, hovering between 20-30 connections 

Bless you! That's a good start. I have 3 going on VPS and they probably average about 70 connections. Sometimes, over 100 -- even with a limiter set at 100.  Go figure.

[allgoodthings1]

Just using my MacBook. No clue of how VPS things work lol.

If you're interested in the VPS thing, see my post of earlier this year: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=582817.0

There are good people that will set you up one for free.

[btcrich]

I don't see how there being fewer full nodes has any negative impact on decentralization.  The only benefit of running a full node is that other users may be able to use you as an additional peer when downloading the blockchain, and then only if you have your port forwarded properly.

Mining is the only significant way to support the network.  Having an idle node on your vps has almost no positive effect.

[opossum]

It's a considerable problem. Decentralization is at stake.

I don't understand why Gavin is pushing for an automatic block size limit increase that will make this problem only worse (I think the block size limit should be raised by demand only, not in an automatic fashion). Imho it's a totally wrong perception of priorities to aim at including as many transaction as possible without costs while the foundation of the whole network is in danger.

Enabling semi-full-nodes via pruning is extremely important for network health.

ya.ya.yo!

Just because the limit as to how large each block can be is raised does not mean that the actual size of blocks will increase. The actual size of blocks will increase up to the block limit based on the amount of on-chain transactions that bitcoin has.

I would say that the main reason that we are seeing less nodes is because people no longer need to run a full node in order to run a wallet. I think this will be reversed as more companies start to accept and use bitcoin. I would predict that companies like exchanges, merchants and payment processors (like coinbase/bitpay) will be the primary operators of nodes as they have a very good reason to want to have a full node (and really a well-connected full node)