How are Nodes founds?

[masize]

Hello, I've been reading about Technical aspects on Bitcoins about 3 weeks ago. I would like to know how do Nodes work.

Where do they connect to first?
How do your client find nodes. I must have a tracker or something right?

[niko]

See https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Client_Node_Discovery

[masize]

See https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Client_Node_Discovery

Great Niko, thanks a lot.

Last question, How are transactions made.
How is it that a transaction can be seen in a matter of seconds?
My clients sends the transactions to all nodes connected and in a couple of seconds they send it to the whole worldwide network?

[niko]

See https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Client_Node_Discovery

Great Niko, thanks a lot.

Last question, How are transactions made.
How is it that a transaction can be seen in a matter of seconds?
My clients sends the transactions to all nodes connected and in a couple of seconds they send it to the whole worldwide network?

Yes. You broadcast a transaction, so all nodes become aware of it. It becomes part of the pool of transactions awaiting confirmations (inclusion in the next block by the mining nodes). Miners collect these, prepare the next candidate for theor block, and start hashing to "hit the jackpot" - once they do, these transactions are included in the blockchain. Note, miners may prioritize ttansactions based on fees paid by the payers.

[masize]

See https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Client_Node_Discovery

Great Niko, thanks a lot.

Last question, How are transactions made.
How is it that a transaction can be seen in a matter of seconds?
My clients sends the transactions to all nodes connected and in a couple of seconds they send it to the whole worldwide network?

Yes. You broadcast a transaction, so all nodes become aware of it. It becomes part of the pool of transactions awaiting confirmations (inclusion in the next block by the mining nodes). Miners collect these, prepare the next candidate for theor block, and start hashing to "hit the jackpot" - once they do, these transactions are included in the blockchain. Note, miners may prioritize ttansactions based on fees paid by the payers.

So, you are saying that my own transaction is broadcasted, traveling from thousands of nodes in the whole network?
What happens when Bitcoin gets bigger and bigger.
Just by letting the Bitcoin client running, I'll be broadcasting thousands of transactions per second. I guess as the network grows, there will be less and less nodes to handle this huge cpu processing and network bandwidth.

[niko]

See https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Client_Node_Discovery

Great Niko, thanks a lot.

Last question, How are transactions made.
How is it that a transaction can be seen in a matter of seconds?
My clients sends the transactions to all nodes connected and in a couple of seconds they send it to the whole worldwide network?

Yes. You broadcast a transaction, so all nodes become aware of it. It becomes part of the pool of transactions awaiting confirmations (inclusion in the next block by the mining nodes). Miners collect these, prepare the next candidate for theor block, and start hashing to "hit the jackpot" - once they do, these transactions are included in the blockchain. Note, miners may prioritize ttansactions based on fees paid by the payers.

So, you are saying that my own transaction is broadcasted, traveling from thousands of nodes in the whole network?
What happens when Bitcoin gets bigger and bigger.
Just by letting the Bitcoin client running, I'll be broadcasting thousands of transactions per second. I guess as the network grows, there will be less and less nodes to handle this huge cpu processing and network bandwidth.

Good question, and it is open for discusion. Look it up on wiki (scaling) and in this forum. Most folks came to conclusion that we can scale up significantly before hitting some of the limits (don't forget Moore's law). I don't want to reiterate in this thread specific arguments already available elsewhere. Enjoy the reads!

[masize]

Good question, and it is open for discusion. Look it up on wiki (scaling) and in this forum. Most folks came to conclusion that we can scale up significantly before hitting some of the limits (don't forget Moore's law). I don't want to reiterate in this thread specific arguments already available elsewhere. Enjoy the reads!

Of course, but BTC law is greater than Moore's law  . Its growing nearly exponencial. I'll make a search on scaling subject. Thanks niko.

[Nullvoid]

Thanks for the info. Was quite interesting.

[Mylon]

I've been reading a lot on this stuff too. What you have to keep in mind is that a transaction is technically only 40 bytes. Also Satoshi already predicted that sooner or later mining would be something only specific companies do, because it takes so much computing power. This exact same argument came up on the crypto mailing list and let me pull it real quick, as Satoshi was so good in explaining it, I can only quote:

Once the latest transaction of a coin is buried under enough blocks, the spent transactions which preceded it can be discarded in order to save disk space. To facilitate this without breaking the block's hash, transactions are hashed in a Merkle tree, with only the root included in the block's hash. Old blocks can then be compacted by stubbing off branches of the tree. The interior hashes need not be stored.

A block header with no transactions would be about 80 bytes. Supposing that blocks are generated every 10 minutes, 80 bytes × 6 × 24 × 365 = 4.2MB per year. With computer systems typically selling with 2GB of RAM as of 2008, and Moore's law predicting current growth of 1.2GB per year, storage should not be a problem even if the block headers need to be kept in memory.

Looking at 6GB of blocks now, and having 16GB RAM in my system, keeping current growth rate, I will be able to keep it in my RAM forever... When no longer able to... I have an expansion of factor 1000 when moving to hard drives... (have 4x 4TB drives)

Keeping this in mind, and Moore's law, would we really run out of disk-space? With SSDs now catching up more and more quickly to traditional hard drives... I really don't think we will have to worry.

[niko]

Yes, memory and storage seem to be alright. Another factor to consider is the bandwidth. Processing power seems not to be an issue.

[masize]

Yes, memory and storage seem to be alright. Another factor to consider is the bandwidth. Processing power seems not to be an issue.

Well, storage of course as its growing nearly exponencially. Where can I find this scaling issue?

[niko]

Yes, memory and storage seem to be alright. Another factor to consider is the bandwidth. Processing power seems not to be an issue.

Well, storage of course as its growing nearly exponencially. Where can I find this scaling issue?

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability
Also, search this forum.

[BluesBrother]

Interesting thread but can Moores law really be applied to a field that is reaching its physical limits (nano-technology-wise)?
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/421186/why-cpus-arent-getting-any-faster/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/07/us-chips-technology-idUSBRE8561C620120607


But that wouldn't stop specialized companies just buying more physical space as the market grows.