Bitcoin Forum

What are the benefits for me?

If there is none economically (ex I don't recieve transaction fees) what are the actual minimum system requirements to do that?

I'm planning to have a 24/7 node working but I'm scared of electricity costs (in my country it's very expensive) so I'm considering on how to do that with the lowest expense possible.

I own several computers so I wouldn't need to buy hardware, but they either are very outdated or not really powerful (cpu and gpu wise)

A standard pebtium laptop would take a week or two to download the blockchain (they aren't very fast).

If you can get better ram for it then you might be able to get it to go a bit faster.

There was a thread of people using raspberry pis which use about the same amount of electricity as some modems (afaik). See if you can find power ratings for the products you want to buy to see if its worth it. You don't get paid for hosting one anyway so it might or might not be worth doing it. You'll be propagating the network but there are a lot of nodes running already.

A small netbook like this (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-Laptop-Asus-Eee-Pc-1015cx-Red-Good-condition-Windows-7-OS-All-working/183413926040?hash=item2ab4526898:g:esYAAOSwgO9dFk7l) would consume little to none electricity. (~$150)

Running a node itself doesn't have any financial benefits directly but it allows you to become a part of the bitcoin network. You can observe the ongoing network activity without needing any third parties.

Or... you can create your own Lightning Node (https://lightning.network/) (Allows to send and receive very small amount of bitcoins) and BTCpay (https://btcpayserver.org/) server (free open source payment gate for your business) on top of your full node if you are interested in those.

Yeah I know that nodes are already a lot, but volunteers would improve the blockchain security even if they are few.

One volunteer a day keeps the 51% attack away right?

As for the raspberry part I feel relieved. I've always been fascinated by hollywood hackers and when I see mining facilities my heart beats faster they look so cool! But ASICS are expensive and loud and in my country because of electricity costs they are useless with current bitcoin price... No way I would be able to run a mining node haha

No the pi is just a tiny computer.

And the 51% attack is based on miners, not nodes. Whether someone accepts your transaction is based on how their node is configured.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/

Discussion on it can be found here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5196287.msg52891211#msg52891211

It doesn't. 51% has absolutely nothing to do with helping to resist 51% attacks. Since the blocks generated during 51% attack, the ease of executing an attack with 10 nodes is the same as 10,000. Nodes would just accept the rogue blocks since they are still within the protocol rules.

---

In terms of security, it does help to improve the network's security by potentially make sybil attack harder. For a sybil attack to be executed with a large number or nodes, the attacker needs a lot more resources and nodes to have a chance at executing one.

1. Better privacy (if you use Bitcoin Core as your wallet)
2. Don't need to rely completely on another full node
3. Direct access to Bitcoin's blockchain, it's really useful if you're a software developer


According to https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#minimum-requirements (https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#minimum-requirements), it's


Take note it's a bit outdated since Bitcoin's blockchain size is about 270GB. 1GB RAM is also enough with additional configuration & if you use lightweight Linux OS.


Then you might want to buy and use Raspberry Pi instead which uses between 5W - 15W (depends on type you bought)

I run a node myself.
If you want to understand why it is important to run a node, you can revert to some very insightful resources like the following ones:

• Running A Full Node (https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#what-is-a-full-node)
• 6 REASONS TO RUN A BITCOIN FULL NODE (https://bitcoinist.com/6-reasons-run-bitcoin-full-node/)
• VIDEO Bitcoin Q&A: Why running a node is important (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX0Yrv-6jVs)

if you want to setup your node using a RaspbeyPi, you can follow this very good guide (the one I followed too, and I even translated in italian (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5092648.msg49026596#msg49026596)), that allow to get a 24/7 inexpensive node, with very little technical knwoledge.

 ]Beginner’s Guide to ️Lightning️ on a Raspberry Pi (https://stadicus.github.io/RaspiBolt)

I have installed BitCoin Core, and have setup all that is needed , also get incoming peers, but still i see no transactions coming in. It looks like my node isn't running on a way. Do you guys have an idea ?

Did someone send you any coins? If not, then you won't see any incoming transactions. Setting up a full node has nothing to do with collecting transactions.

If you have peers, that's enough.

This is how my node looks right now and I don't have upnp enabled (so my node is not visible on bitnodes) and I can still see the mempool state.

https://images2.imgbox.com/8a/0d/mHESM6Cm_o.png

While I am writing this post, another block was found and the number of unconfirmed tx's fell to 300-400. If it doesn't look like that screen shot, something isn't working properly probably.

this is how my screen looks like. So i get incoming and outcoming peers. But i have 00000 numbers of transactions

http://avgntiel.nl/BitcoinCoreMTB.png

And why my image doesn't show up ?

You're a newbie so the images won't show up. Its normal as per the forum rules.

As for the mempool stats not showing up, it is a known bug [1] for Bitcoin Core 0.19.0.1. It's a GUI issue and should be fixed within the next release.

[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/17576

So better downgrade to 0.18 ?

It's a GUI bug. It doesn't really affect the functionality of the client as a full node. You can still get the mempool information albeit you'll have to input a few commands. Other than that, it functions the same as any other node.

But when it is all running, were do i see the node rewards ?

What do you mean by rewards? Full nodes are not rewarded for running. Only miners who find blocks are rewarded.

Hahhaha, what is then the usefull thing of Bitcoin Core ?
When you have it running but nothing get for it ?

If you want quick moniez go set up a dash masternode, invest in shitcoins or play dice. You are in the wrong place for making easy money.

The more honest full nodes there are on the network, the hardest it is for miners to perform attacks on the network or increase their earnings with malicious practices via Sybil attacks. For example, in a selfish mining attack, the attackers might have higher chances of having their split of a chain being accepted if they had poisoned the network with non-impartial nodes. So in an indirect way, honest nodes help also against mining attacks.

If you want to earn something and can keep a node running then you can try running a lightning node but I'm not sure how much you can earn from the fees of on - it'll be very little atm though.

I am afraid routing fees are totally inadequate to compensate for hardware, running costs and time spent to run a lightning node.
Running a node for the fees means doing so for the least important of the reasons.

Don't forget transaction fees when you open and close channel. Even faucet could give you more Bitcoin rather than routing fees.

Only exchange/services who might earn profit since they have many LN channel for routing purpose.

Absolutely.
My badly explained point is that even running a node, already fully setup, has running cost in terms of resources (electricity, time and risks) that greatly overtake the eventual revenues.
This is in the present, I don’t know in the future (many years ahead) when L1 will be saturated and L2 will be more used.

If you are looking for quick and easy revenue, this is not the direction worth looking at.

Yeah it's not a fast way for getting a good revenue stream. But if you're not paying for electric or anything then it's an idea...

And you don't have fees to open a node, just fees if you start a channel. If you help someone else start theirs you don't pay their fees.

Not my topic but question to the people replying to this - what kind of security risks (if any) come with running a full node from your residential connection?

Not massively risky I would say.
If properly configured the attack footprint of a full node is definelty not too big.
You can find a few hint on how to strenghten your node here (https://stadicus.github.io/RaspiBolt/) (albeit the guide is specific for a specific hardware configuration, you can find some useful hints).
If you don't run your node under TOR you might discole your IP, this may lead to ddos attacks.
Something is actually mentioned in the bitcoin.org website:

https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#possible-problems

If you decide to contribute to the network, your IP will be visible to everybody. At worst your IP can get DDOS'ed probably but since your router is behind a firewall and only your fullnode will use the port that you forwarded, I don't think there are any serious risks like getting hacked etc...

If you only download the data and not upload, it is not risky at all.

As long as you're network has strict rules, you'll normally be fine.

There are always vulnerabilites in certain things but as long as you ensure security remains pretty tight and you don't try to change any settings you don't understand (typically on the router) and the firewall remains as strong or only allows connectios to go through to that computer (on the 8333 port) then you should be safe.

Ya I figured the most would be DDoS. Is getting DDoS'd while running a full node common in the Bitcoin world? I've run private game servers and it's very common in that world  >:(

I have been running a node since a year now.
It never happened to me.
This is my experience.

I think they go after the nodes used for more.. The last DDoS afaik was electrum, so that was specific to nodes hosting their servers.

If you run a node, you're only one in eleven thousand so there's a chance you might not ever be DDoSed (especially if the network keeps growing and you don't stand out much).

It rarely happens because there aren't many options to DDoS full nodes. Additionally, Bitcoin Core have mechanism to block peers/nodes who attempt to DDoS by sending invalid information.

You probably don't need to worry about it too much, unless your node is part of public service (e.g. pools, block explorer, exchange, etc.)

I thought you'd ddos the router and not the machine? Unless you can find a port on the same machine thst is more vulnerable to attacks...

Not sure if we've moses on from accelerated denial of service (using timeservera) as that flaw may have been patched or there might have been something more efficient.

I think the reason people aren't using DoS attacks more is because they're not very worthwhile. Especially since most people can get a new ip pretty quickly too or can push their node through a different network.

Longsword94, Bitcoin's security model is that you run a full node.

The economic benefit of running a full node is that you know that you are synced with Bitcoin.

Currently, all models for using Bitcoin without running your full node, mean that you trust - you guess - that the Bitcoin ledger someone gives you, is correct.

In a Bitcoin wallet model that does not involve a fully verifying Bitcoin node, some reduced security mode is used. For instance header-only sync and SPV proofs. An SPV proof can prove to you that a payment has happened. But, an SPV proof cannot prove that Bitcoins you believe you own, have not been consumed. It would be expensive to trick your computer which does header sync, however it can be done. So again, running a fully verifying Bitcoin node is the only way to know that you are on the real, valid mainnet chain.

So that is, it's a cost that you pay to know that you are in reality, similarly to how you pay for a newspaper to know what's going on in the world.


Regarding operational expenses and suitable hardware for a fully verifying Bitcoin node:

As pointed out by others a Bitcoin node is a very cheap piece of hardware, except for that using an SSD is greatly helpful. For the computer part, some cheap 64bit Raspberry Pi computer is enough really.

The computationally intense tasks a fully verifying Bitcoin node performs, are 1. to check a lot of SECP256K1 cryptographic signatures and 2. to compute a lot of SHA256 hashes. At the end of the day these operations are still not many, so again a pretty primitive computer will do.

A very high end could maybe sync the whole Bitcoin blockchain in 15 minutes using LibBitcoin. In your case if the initial sync takes days, it's still fine as your timeframe is to run it for years.

This kind of low-power, simple computer fully verifying Bitcoin node should operate in the 0-30 watts total power consumption interval. That should mean 10-20 kilowatt hours per month power consumption. I wonder if anyone has benchmarked this? Or noone did because it was so cheap noone really cared. The energy consumed eventually becomes heat.

Rarely bandwidth consumption could be an issue and you can configure that away.

Even for my 2 year old laptop, the synchronization could take quite a few days even if the dbcache is set to 1GB and the computer is just left running (barring any crashes). I haven't been able to test it on the RPI 4 but I imagine that it would be a lot worse. IMO, the most efficient way would be to pre-sychronize the blockchain on another more powerful computer before loading it onto an SSD and starting it on a lower power computer.