New Bitfury Data Shows that Over HALF of Classic nodes are from TWO Datacenters

[bitcoinmarkets]

web: http://www.bitcoinfuturesguide.com/bitcoin-blog/new-bitfury-data-shows-that-over-half-of-classic-nodes-come-from-amazon-choopa-not-dedicated-servers



When you look at the node counts of different varieties of Bitcoin, you will see numbers such as from Coin.Dance



Which indicates that Classic has almost half the nodes as Bitcoin Core. "Impressive!" you may think to yourself. Over at Bitnodes you get similar numbers:



A less informed observer may now be misled into thinking that a significant proportion of bitcoiners, represented through nodes, are supporters of Classic rather than Core.

However thanks to Alex Petrov and Bitfury we have some more detailed data about the providers of the IP addresses of the nodes, and divided amongst Classic and Core we see that there is a significant difference. Let's look first at the Core distribution:



We see a pretty decentralized distribution here, the most common provider is Hetzner at 8%, but the bulk of the nodes are distributed across nearly 1,000 different providers.
And for comparison, here's the Classic distribution by provider:



What sticks out immediately from this data is how centralized the node distribution is for Classic. A whopping 31% of them are Amazon.com, while 23% are Choopa. So two conglomerate VPS providers have a duopoly over node count on the Classic side.

This is likely a result of various campaigns by wealthy bitcoin holders who support Classic, who have pushed for artificially inflating the Classic-supporting node count by spinning up instances at VPS providers/datacenters.

Interestingly, some Classic supporters, such as Brian Armstrong, still are touting the growing nodecount as a victory, despite this data showing that it is artificially inflated:



Some are choosing to continue to fight, while most people have moved on from the Classic vs. Core debate. The issue was settled when the Core laid out a clear road map and the Roundtable Consensus from miners came overwhelmingly in support of Core, who agreed to a blocksize increase after Segregated Witness is being rolled out next month, and developing Lightning Network on the side.

[Lauda]

I've known this for a while now and so did a few others. However, it is nice to see some number from a company such as Bitfury. Those nodes are really pointless as they could be shut down easily. This is the Sybil attack that has been going on (A data with Sybil). What makes things even worse is that the Coinbase CEO is the one who is promoting such attacks.

[NUFCrichard]

I've known this for a while now and so did a few others. However, it is nice to see some number from a company such as Bitfury. Those nodes are really pointless as they could be shut down easily. This is the Sybil attack that has been going on (A data with Sybil). What makes things even worse is that the Coinbase CEO is the one who is promoting such attacks.

When a mining group got close to 50% a while back, the community made moves to spread out mining power a little better.
Surely the same should be done here too...

[BillyBobZorton]

Wow this is pretty damn pathetic. This looks like it's done to persuade noobs into Classic, so when they see Brian Armstrong tweet about how "Classic is number 1 in nodes" they will follow cause noobs dont know jack shit. Sad.

[LiteCoinGuy]

I've known this for a while now and so did a few others. However, it is nice to see some number from a company such as Bitfury. Those nodes are really pointless as they could be shut down easily. This is the Sybil attack that has been going on (A data with Sybil). What makes things even worse is that the Coinbase CEO is the one who is promoting such attacks.

he is promoting pointless bullshit, that is even worse.

[Lauda]

When a mining group got close to 50% a while back, the community made moves to spread out mining power a little better.
Surely the same should be done here too...

These two situations are not really comparable. A recent analysis shows that there are less than 300 people behind those nodes. Their goal is to try and manipulate others into thinking that there is huge support for Classic. Obviously this isn't the case, ergo they don't care (i.e. won't spread them).

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Imagine that your nodes get DDOS at home so people move to free and cheap cloud based services to keep them up.

[marky89]

Imagine that your nodes get DDOS at home so people move to free and cheap cloud based services to keep them up.

How does that solve the problem of having massive amounts of nodes run by a few entities on central cloud service? I would hope that we wouldn't need to depend on mass centralization to prevent DDOS attacks on the network. That wouldn't be very robust.

[shorena]

Imagine that your nodes get DDOS at home so people move to free and cheap cloud based services to keep them up.

Imagine how actual server operators easily mitigated the DDoS attacks[1] as they are primitive and flawed. It also makes no sense that every classic supporter is running to only two ISPs while there are plenty of other options. There are large "just throw your money my way I will set up a classic node" programms that are well funded for the next 3 months. Whether or not you like classic you have to see that this is an inflated count that is not sustainable. The number of nodes alone is also not important. If classic wants to succeed it needs nodes, miners, merchants, users and developers.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1380642.0

[Quickseller]

Imagine that your nodes get DDOS at home so people move to free and cheap cloud based services to keep them up.

How does that solve the problem of having massive amounts of nodes run by a few entities on central cloud service? I would hope that we wouldn't need to depend on mass centralization to prevent DDOS attacks on the network. That wouldn't be very robust.

Imagine that your nodes get DDOS at home so people move to free and cheap cloud based services to keep them up.

Imagine how actual server operators easily mitigated the DDoS attacks[1] as they are primitive and flawed. It also makes no sense that every classic supporter is running to only two ISPs while there are plenty of other options. There are large "just throw your money my way I will set up a classic node" programms that are well funded for the next 3 months. Whether or not you like classic you have to see that this is an inflated count that is not sustainable. The number of nodes alone is also not important. If classic wants to succeed it needs nodes, miners, merchants, users and developers.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1380642.0

I have seen a number of threads on places like reddit with instructions on how to run a Bitcoin Classic node, that often includes a specific VPS provider.

A couple of other things to note:
-I would never run a full node from my home internet connection, as I use a laptop with a wireless connection to my router, and I do not want my ISP to know that I am involved in the Bitcoin world
-Even if the above were not true, there were multiple instances in which entire large neighborhoods were effectively cut off from the internet due to DDOS attacks on XT nodes, so large block supporters know that it is ill-advisable to run a Bitcoin Classic full node from their home internet connection.
-Over the long run, it makes more sense to run a full node from/via a datacenter environment because of the resources available in data centers that are not available in a home environment -- it also makes little sense for a "normal" user to really need to be running a full node, and no "to enforce the consensus rules" is not a valid reason because other nodes/miners can simply follow their own rules if they so wish

[Lauda]

Imagine that your nodes get DDOS at home so people move to free and cheap cloud based services to keep them up.

Learn how to mitigate DDoS attacks by script kiddies and then run a full node.

-snip-
-Over the long run, it makes more sense to run a full node from/via a datacenter environment because of the resources available in data centers that are not available in a home environment

None of that justifies using a datacenter where a lot of nodes are located. If you wanted to help the infrastructure and had to use a datacenter, then you'd pick one where there are very few nodes or none.

I would hope that we wouldn't need to depend on mass centralization to prevent DDOS attacks on the network. That wouldn't be very robust.

If you centralize the network then you could destroy Bitcoin with the flip of a switch.

[marky89]

Imagine that your nodes get DDOS at home so people move to free and cheap cloud based services to keep them up.

How does that solve the problem of having massive amounts of nodes run by a few entities on central cloud service? I would hope that we wouldn't need to depend on mass centralization to prevent DDOS attacks on the network. That wouldn't be very robust.

Imagine that your nodes get DDOS at home so people move to free and cheap cloud based services to keep them up.

Imagine how actual server operators easily mitigated the DDoS attacks[1] as they are primitive and flawed. It also makes no sense that every classic supporter is running to only two ISPs while there are plenty of other options. There are large "just throw your money my way I will set up a classic node" programms that are well funded for the next 3 months. Whether or not you like classic you have to see that this is an inflated count that is not sustainable. The number of nodes alone is also not important. If classic wants to succeed it needs nodes, miners, merchants, users and developers.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1380642.0

I have seen a number of threads on places like reddit with instructions on how to run a Bitcoin Classic node, that often includes a specific VPS provider.

A couple of other things to note:
-I would never run a full node from my home internet connection, as I use a laptop with a wireless connection to my router, and I do not want my ISP to know that I am involved in the Bitcoin world

So your solution is to give that information to Choopa, instead? To what end?

-Even if the above were not true, there were multiple instances in which entire large neighborhoods were effectively cut off from the internet due to DDOS attacks on XT nodes, so large block supporters know that it is ill-advisable to run a Bitcoin Classic full node from their home internet connection.

You're only establishing that XT nodes were DDOS attacked. How do XT/Classic users plan to maintain a network, if none of them can run a node? The majority of nodes being run by one, or a few, entities on two central cloud services opens the entire network to Sybil attack. Even if the controllers of said nodes were honest, Amazon or Choopa could easily shut down all such nodes (whether by their own volition or by being ordered to do so). What then?

The only difference between one person controlling one node and one person controlling a thousand nodes is that in the latter situation, his nodes can be used to mount Sybil attacks (with or without his knowledge).

-Over the long run, it makes more sense to run a full node from/via a datacenter environment because of the resources available in data centers that are not available in a home environment --

No, that only makes sense if bitcoin does not scale and we endlessly increase throughput capacity. Why would people run datacenter nodes if they could run them at home?

it also makes little sense for a "normal" user to really need to be running a full node, and no "to enforce the consensus rules" is not a valid reason because other nodes/miners can simply follow their own rules if they so wish

How do you figure? The entire point of bitcoin is to use the redundancy of data verified by all nodes to establish trustlessness. Enforcing consensus rules is how you know you got paid, rather than trusting someone else to tell you. Nodes/miners can follow their own rules, sure -- and the very point of enforcing the consensus rules is to fork them off if they do so. If a miner includes a 21 million BTC transaction in his last block, you'd surely want to reject it. A lite node will not do so on its own.

[Quickseller]

Imagine that your nodes get DDOS at home so people move to free and cheap cloud based services to keep them up.

Learn how to mitigate DDoS attacks by script kiddies and then run a full node.

Script kiddies are not DDOS'ing the likes of XT and Classic nodes (and companies that support these proposals).

-snip-
-Over the long run, it makes more sense to run a full node from/via a datacenter environment because of the resources available in data centers that are not available in a home environment

None of that justifies using a datacenter where a lot of nodes are located. If you wanted to help the infrastructure and had to use a datacenter, then you'd pick one where there are very few nodes or none.

My main point was that there are threads out there with instructions on how to run/start a full node with Bitcoin Classic that includes instructions on how to sign up with a particular VPS service. A Bitcoin Classic supporter may wish to put a small amount of their own money where their mouth is and follow these instructions on how to run a full Bitcoin Classic node.

I would argue, counter to what the OP is implying, that if a very small number of people were running Bitcoin Classic nodes then they would buy up multiple VPS's across multiple data centers and IPSs, and geolocations.

[Jet Cash]

I see this thread has been moved to Altcoins. Is classic now considered to be an altcoin?

[shorena]

Imagine that your nodes get DDOS at home so people move to free and cheap cloud based services to keep them up.

How does that solve the problem of having massive amounts of nodes run by a few entities on central cloud service? I would hope that we wouldn't need to depend on mass centralization to prevent DDOS attacks on the network. That wouldn't be very robust.

Imagine that your nodes get DDOS at home so people move to free and cheap cloud based services to keep them up.

Imagine how actual server operators easily mitigated the DDoS attacks[1] as they are primitive and flawed. It also makes no sense that every classic supporter is running to only two ISPs while there are plenty of other options. There are large "just throw your money my way I will set up a classic node" programms that are well funded for the next 3 months. Whether or not you like classic you have to see that this is an inflated count that is not sustainable. The number of nodes alone is also not important. If classic wants to succeed it needs nodes, miners, merchants, users and developers.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1380642.0

I have seen a number of threads on places like reddit with instructions on how to run a Bitcoin Classic node, that often includes a specific VPS provider.

A couple of other things to note:
-I would never run a full node from my home internet connection, as I use a laptop with a wireless connection to my router, and I do not want my ISP to know that I am involved in the Bitcoin world

I cant judge how successfull this will be based on your actions to prevent this, but I would say its not common.

-Even if the above were not true, there were multiple instances in which entire large neighborhoods were effectively cut off from the internet due to DDOS attacks on XT nodes, so large block supporters know that it is ill-advisable to run a Bitcoin Classic full node from their home internet connection.

I see the claims, but I have yet to see any believable reports on this.

-Over the long run, it makes more sense to run a full node from/via a datacenter environment because of the resources available in data centers that are not available in a home environment -- it also makes little sense for a "normal" user to really need to be running a full node, and no "to enforce the consensus rules" is not a valid reason because other nodes/miners can simply follow their own rules if they so wish

I myself run two (soon one) nodes on VPS. I know the benefits of a server vs. a home line. It is odd that all seem to pick the same ISP though esp. since its amazon, which is not cheap and not easy. Its way easier and cheaper to find a local ISP offering a small server and following one of the billion guides how to setup a node.

Depends on what you define as "normal".

I see this thread has been moved to Altcoins. Is classic now considered to be an altcoin?

Kinda, yes. Based on the way classic would fork theymos thinks classic posts should be in alt.

-snip-
Script kiddies are not DDOS'ing the likes of XT and Classic nodes (and companies that support these proposals).

No, the attack is done from a paid bot net operator according to a reddit post. Judging by the number of IPs I see with the "why? fuck u thats why" subver on my nodes, it makes sense.

-snip-
My main point was that there are threads out there with instructions on how to run/start a full node with Bitcoin Classic that includes instructions on how to sign up with a particular VPS service. A Bitcoin Classic supporter may wish to put a small amount of their own money where their mouth is and follow these instructions on how to run a full Bitcoin Classic node.

I would argue, counter to what the OP is implying, that if a very small number of people were running Bitcoin Classic nodes then they would buy up multiple VPS's across multiple data centers and IPSs, and geolocations.

Can you link me one of these threads please? I assume its some reddit thing I cant find shit there.

[Lauda]

Script kiddies are not DDOS'ing the likes of XT and Classic nodes (and companies that support these proposals).

No? From what I saw in the thread linked by Shorena, banning a few hundred IPs solves the problem. Seems pretty easy to mitigate.

My main point was that there are threads out there with instructions on how to run/start a full node with Bitcoin Classic that includes instructions on how to sign up with a particular VPS service. A Bitcoin Classic supporter may wish to put a small amount of their own money where their mouth is and follow these instructions on how to run a full Bitcoin Classic node.

Actually that is not the problem. The problem is the service that is being promoted offering instant setup for $10/month (IIRC). Again, if one chooses to help the network paying a few bucks more is negligible.

I would argue, counter to what the OP is implying, that if a very small number of people were running Bitcoin Classic nodes then they would buy up multiple VPS's across multiple data centers and IPSs, and geolocations.

There has actually been an analysis showing that there are less than 300 people running these nodes.

[Cryptorials]

I see this thread has been moved to Altcoins. Is classic now considered to be an altcoin?

Ridiculous isn't it? I've found it hard to make my mind up which side of this debate I'm on as both sides seem to make good points and in any case I only understand most of the technical issues on a fairly superficial level, but in the end its stuff like that and the censorship of r/bitcoin that makes me come down against core, because in every other situation I've seen these kind of tactics are only used by people who themselves don't believe they can win a fair debate. You don't try to hide nonsense from your opponents, you make it as visible as possible - its only the truth that's dangerous enough to need censoring.

[freshman777]

Classic has helped to spread awareness of altcoins and open Bitcoin supremacists eyes on the flaws of Bitcoin but these node numbers testify Classic is not going to gain ground and support from miners. Too many people just don't care. This has implications for Bitcoin - its fate as a corporate coin is sealed. The summer halving will further centralize mining and make miners compliance easier than ever to achieve. Bitcoin will be number one coin for some time because inertia and network effect. In the end, a corporate coin is an inefficient version of fiat, the advantages of decentralization will be removed, transactions will be filtered, users identified, supply inflated. Fortunately, altcoins can save the day, as long as they have no corporations backing and controlling them.

[Cryptorials]

Classic has helped to spread awareness of altcoins and open Bitcoin supremacists eyes on the flaws of Bitcoin but these node numbers testify Classic is not going to gain ground and support from miners. Too many people just don't care. This has implications for Bitcoin - its fate as a corporate coin is sealed. The summer halving will further centralize mining and make miners compliance easier than ever to achieve. Bitcoin will be number one coin for some time because inertia and network effect. In the end, a corporate coin is an inefficient version of fiat, the advantages of decentralization will be removed, transactions will be filtered, users identified, supply inflated. Fortunately, altcoins can save the day, as long as they have no corporations backing and controlling them.

I'm very sad to say I am increasingly coming to this conclusion myself. Not only will Bitcoin itself become even more centralized, but most transactions won't even use this centralized bitcoin directly, they will be on an entirely new corporate controlled 'lightning network' which will only use bitcoin where it sees fit in the background - it won't actually be bitcoin.

[freshman777]

so what, 2 pools mine over half of Ethereum too.

Nothing, Ethereum never pretended it's not a corporate coin. Corporate coins are good for short term speculation if you know when to buy and sell.