How Many Full Nodes Does Bitcoin Need?

[coins101]

While conducting a casual survey into how many people use Bitcoin, the question of how many nodes do we need arose.



Here is how many reachable nodes are on the network supporting these users, along with the original version release dates:



The key question is is a little complicated: how many full nodes do we need for the current users, how many do we need for double the current users; how many do we need for 100m users; and how many do we need for double that again?

Rather than ask those questions first, I thought it would be interesting to get a common base for how many nodes do we need for the current user base of between 2m to 10m going into a growth period which might see numbers go up to 30m?

Thanks to Lauda for reminding me about this post from Gavin:


https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1scd4z/im_running_a_full_node_and_so_should_you/cdw3lrh?context=3


Lets ignore pruning; segwit, etc. Those are fantastic technological advances, that I would call tricks of the trade to make everyday users lives easier. The backbone of the network is always going to be full nodes.

[franky1]

lesson one, learn bitcoin
lesson two pruning is not fantastic as it breaks the chain by not having the evidence to back up the hashes.
lesson three if there was 100% guarantee of 3 people not colluding, having 3 nodes is better than 5000 nodes created by one group
lesson four it doesnt matter if one group made a million nodes, by one group controlling the decisions of 1mill nodes, bitcoin would be biased/colluding into the direction of that one group

now to be helpful:
the real question should be how many non colluding nodes (independent groups with independent code) should there be
which in reality of bitcoin, the answer is not a number, but a %, which most would say less than 51% of nodes should belong to any single group and atleast 3 groups, where there is a few thousand scattered across countries to avoid data loss, government shutdowns etc

emphasis 5000 nodes dominated by group A. makes bitcoin dominated by group A's decisions. thus rendering the reason for distribution near useless for its intentional purpose of avoiding collusion and instead only being used to prevent viruses hitting one location

the distribution of the blockchain is not just to have copies to avoid viruses from destroying data in one hit, its about avoiding any one group from having unquestionable control.

[coins101]

lesson one, learn bitcoin
...

I have to disagree with you on this point (I sort of agree on some of the other points, or I can understand your view).

If you have to learn a payment system before you can use it; it's never going to succeed.

It's like saying to credit card users, before you use your credit card, you need to pull up the technical architecture blueprints of our credit card network; then read the the settlement protocols documentation; then....etc.

Most users don't even read the T&C's of their credit cards; bank accounts; paypal accounts; etc.

So, rather than talking down at people for 'not getting it', you need to do a better job of being inclusive.

Anyway, please vote!

[franky1]

i edited my post to be more helpful. but to raise your point. if your going to ask a technical question the "consumers" dont need to learn. then atleast realise your asking something that is beyond the scope of the consumer(user) level and thus requires you to need to understand the background details to ask a background question.

its like consumers dont need to know the secret ingredients of the green ink and paper of a bank note, to use it. but if you want to ask a specific question about how many secret ingredients the ink and paper should have to secure a $1m bank note, its usually best to know why it has secret ingredients, know why green misture was chosen and understand a bit of the printing process. otherwise without the background knowledge all you will need to say is "green" and "paper" as your security level requirement.

[coins101]

i edited my post to be more helpful. but to raise your point. if your going to ask a technical question the "consumers" dont need to learn. then atleast realise your asking something that is beyond the scope of the consumer(user) level and thus requires you to need to understand the background details to ask a background question.

its like consumers dont need to know the secret ingredients of the green ink and paper of a bank note, to use it. but if you want to ask a specific question about how many secret ingredients the ink and paper should have to secure a $1m bank note, its usually best to know why it has secret ingredients, know why green misture was chosen and understand a bit of the printing process. otherwise without the background knowledge all you will need to say is "green" and "paper" as your security level requirement.

I enjoy reading your posts. Thanks.

Now.

You need to be a little more helpful. Here is why.

What you seek is removal of a barrier. That barrier is being put up by techincal people who don't understand business. 

The people that can resolve your problem are people who understand business but don't understand the technical details.  This is how organisations work.

We need a hard fork to grow the user base. That's a smart thing to do. No one really disagrees with that. What they disagree with is the timing. Specifically let's leave it until we exhaust all other scaling options. That's both sensible and stupid. Leaving it until the system has scaled means millions more users who can fuck up a fork later on.

The risk of a hard fork is too great to risk doing it.  That's a techincal argument which has immensely sound judgement behind it.

We want to increase the numbers of users and increase the numbers of nodes to increase decentralisation. Thats also a smart thing to do, which again has sound judgement behind it.

But the two issues are diametrically opposed.

You won't win the technical argument without a network split. The technical guys have pulled too far into their little bunkers and have reinforced their entrenched view.

So you have to make a commercial argument that makes sense to risk a hard fork now. I'd put all my energy into that.

[franky1]

it does not require a network split.
we dont need to add in a flag to force an intentional controversial split like ethereum did "--oppose-dao-fork"

all that is needed is for the "groups" to stop saying bitcoin can only go one direction in favour of the group... and instead all groups to release differing versions
EG
core 0.13.2A - segwit 1mb base 4mb weight
core 0.13.2b - segwit 2mb base 4mb weight

that way all the core fanboys(users/miners/merchants) do not need to defect away from their religion to make a code choice. it removes the social politics/religious flock mindset out of the debate and brings it back to being a pure code upgrade debate

that way a code upgrade can be voted on based on the code. not the religions of each faction

by having lets say atleast 3 groups each with no more then 51% of the node count. and each agreeing as part of CONSENSUS to release code that matches rules they all have BIP'd(proposed) allows better chance for new consensus rules to activate without a network split, without controversy, without people having to defect away from their favourite group. purely on the bases of the new rule activating if there is enough consensus to ensure the new rule works with the most minimal headache.

[coins101]

it does not require a network split.
we dont need to add in a flag to force an intentional controversial split like ethereum did "--oppose-dao-fork"

all that is needed is for the "groups" to stop saying bitcoin can only go one direction in favour of the group... and instead all groups to release differing versions
EG
core 0.13.2A - segwit 1mb base 4mb weight
core 0.13.2b - segwit 2mb base 4mb weight

that way all the core fanboys(users/miners/merchants) do not need to defect away from their religion to make a code choice. it removes the social politics/religious flock mindset out of the debate and brings it back to being a pure code upgrade debate

that way a code upgrade can be voted on based on the code. not the religions of each faction

by having lets say atleast 3 groups each with no more then 51% of the node count. and each agreeing as part of CONSENSUS to release code that matches rules they all have BIP'd(proposed) allows better chance for new consensus rules to activate without a network split, without controversy, without people having to defect away from their favourite group.

That is a sensible technical solution. But it still needs a commercial argument to underpin why its necessary and to explain to people why they are being presented with the choice and how to make an informed decision behind supporting A, B or C.  This is partly why we have this poll 

[franky1]

it does not require a network split.
we dont need to add in a flag to force an intentional controversial split like ethereum did "--oppose-dao-fork"

all that is needed is for the "groups" to stop saying bitcoin can only go one direction in favour of the group... and instead all groups to release differing versions
EG
core 0.13.2A - segwit 1mb base 4mb weight
core 0.13.2b - segwit 2mb base 4mb weight

that way all the core fanboys(users/miners/merchants) do not need to defect away from their religion to make a code choice. it removes the social politics/religious flock mindset out of the debate and brings it back to being a pure code upgrade debate

that way a code upgrade can be voted on based on the code. not the religions of each faction

by having lets say atleast 3 groups each with no more then 51% of the node count. and each agreeing as part of CONSENSUS to release code that matches rules they all have BIP'd(proposed) allows better chance for new consensus rules to activate without a network split, without controversy, without people having to defect away from their favourite group.

That is a sensible technical solution. But it still needs a commercial argument to underpin why its necessary and to explain to people why they are being presented with the choice and how to make an informed decision behind supporting A, B or C.  This is partly why we have this poll  

first of all there are over 2 million bitcoin users. lets categorize them as consumers.
then there are under 6000 full node network involved parties. lets call them the infrastructure
then we have the dev groups. lets call them the builders.

we do not need builder PR aimed at the consumers.
we need builder PR aimed at the infrastructure about what options the builders are offering, which would usually be where the builders and infrastructure groups have the debates.
the separately we need infrastructure PR aimed at teaching consumers how they can / should become part of the infrastructure.

just having the builder PR aimed at all consumers just brings in the politics and religious ideology debates and that sidelines the infrastructure debate. where 2million people without much knowledge make alot of white noise so that nothing gets done

the funny thing is devs(builders) successfully had infrastructure debates with miners to make the 51% debate clear, thus now pools know its not safe to own a pool with too much power, and its in pools benefit for economic and security reasons to limit themselves.. yet the same devs(builders) cant even use the same reasoning for their own involvement of the infrastructure to ensure the code is not 51% dominant.

instead they are trying to go political and religious to make the crow of 2m cause white noise while the builders dictate the direction of the infrastructure without giving the infrastructure a choice.

[Lauda]

lesson three if there was 100% guarantee of 3 people not colluding, having 3 nodes is better than 5000 nodes created by one group

Not if we are talking about Sybil attacks, DDoS and other potentially dangerous vectors. Most of the rest which was written by you is either wrong, off-topic or not worth addressing.
There was an (albeit currently old) interesting article regarding this. Now, I have no idea why some people are voting for such a low number (1-1000).

[franky1]

lesson three if there was 100% guarantee of 3 people not colluding, having 3 nodes is better than 5000 nodes created by one group

Not if we are talking about Sybil attacks, DDoS and other potentially dangerous vectors. Most of the rest which was written by you is either wrong, off-topic or not worth addressing.
There was an (albeit currently old) interesting article regarding this. Now, I have no idea why some people are voting for such a low number (1-1000).

here we go again..the doomsday dreamer not reading the point.

i personally prefer thousands of independent and moral nodes where everyone is honest.. to avoid such issues as lauda raises, and other issues lauda has not raised..
but in a scenario of no sybil attack ability.. 3 nodes could functionally allow the network to continue.

because 3 moral and independent nodes is better and more secure then 5000 nodes run by one group(a form of sybil)
but lauda wont accept group dominance being a technical form of sybil, because he cant take off the fanboy hat to think logically that his groups dominance has technical negatives of being the attack he is doomsdaying.

but im digressing.
to avoid sybil is simple

the answer is not a number, but a %, which most would say less than 51% of nodes should belong to any single group and atleast 3 groups, where there is a few thousand scattered across countries to avoid data loss, government shutdowns etc

[Kevin77]

Having more number of full nodes around the world will ensure more integrity and security of bitcoin network. Full nodes ensure and enforce basic bitcoin protocols, so continuously increasing in numbers is essential for relaying information among full nodes.

[Kprawn]

Do we really want to exclude "common people" without technical knowledge? Should we not make "hosting a node" as easy as possible, for

everyone to be able to run a node? The more nodes we have, the stronger the decentralization. In the P2P Torrent networks, the software are

made very simple, and anyone can participate. I say, bring on the "user-friendly" one click solution, for the non-technical people out there. 

My guess, 10 000 nodes would be a good start..

[franky1]

Do we really want to exclude "common people" without technical knowledge? Should we not make "hosting a node" as easy as possible, for

everyone to be able to run a node? The more nodes we have, the stronger the decentralization. In the P2P Torrent networks, the software are

made very simple, and anyone can participate. I say, bring on the "user-friendly" one click solution, for the non-technical people out there.  

My guess, 10 000 nodes would be a good start..

i agree, we should have many varients of nodes.
technical ones that dont have much of a GUI because API calls and command prompts are better- for technical people
friendly ones that have GUI with one click solutions because they are better- for average joe

along with ensuring that no dev team dominates.

just having "core" nodes as the dominant node doesnt solve anything for security or usability
or on the flipside
just having "user-friendly" nodes as the dominant node doesnt solve anything for security or usability

[Lauda]

here we go again..the doomsday dreamer not reading the point.

Having 3 genuine node operators has nothing to do with Sybil attacks. They're likely going to come afterwards with third party actors.

but in a scenario of no sybil attack ability.. 3 nodes could functionally allow the network to continue.

They could, in a optimal scenario where we are living under a rainbow.

but lauda wont accept group dominance being a technical form of sybil, because he cant take off the fanboy hat to think logically that his groups dominance has technical negatives of being the attack he is doomsdaying.

Misleading.

Should we not make "hosting a node" as easy as possible, for everyone to be able to run a node? The more nodes we have, the stronger the decentralization.

I'd like to see a user-friendly, node-only client that is as secure as Bitcoin Core. We could surely diversify the network with such a client. I don't need the wallet functionality on mine (I did disable it).

[jbreher]

Do we really want to exclude "common people" without technical knowledge? Should we not make "hosting a node" as easy as possible, for
everyone to be able to run a node?

"...should be a simple as possible, and no simpler than that" - A. Einstein

The more nodes we have, the stronger the decentralization.

Agreed, but...

In the P2P Torrent networks, the software are made very simple, and anyone can participate.

Of course all can participate - and the leechers far outnumber the seeders. This, in a use case that by necessity makes fewer demands on the operator than does Bitcoin.

I say, bring on the "user-friendly" one click solution, for the non-technical people out there. 

Sure - wake me when it occurs. (protip: if you're seeking a solution that incentivizes a higher percentatge of users to become nodes, it ain't never gonna happen [<-double negative employed in ironic fashion])

My guess, 10 000 nodes would be a good start..

My view is all is fine as long as there are no prohibitions upon anyone firing up a node.  As long as participation is not barred, I am unconcerned about how many participate. As I can always fire one up (actually, I already do, but that's another matter).

[coins101]

High bandwidth needs and overall size is becoming a barrier to firing one up - not yet, but every day we move closer to that position.

[Velkro]

While conducting a casual survey into how many people use Bitcoin, the question of how many nodes do we need arose.

This is scientific question, not smth u can ask anyone for his opinion. Well u can like u did, but results will be worthless.
Simple answer is as many as possible.
But how many Bitcoin actually NEED? We can calculate that and there is only one true answer.

[Yakamoto]

While conducting a casual survey into how many people use Bitcoin, the question of how many nodes do we need arose.
<snip>
Here is how many reachable nodes are on the network supporting these users, along with the original version release dates:
<snip>
The key question is is a little complicated: how many full nodes do we need for the current users, how many do we need for double the current users; how many do we need for 100m users; and how many do we need for double that again?

Rather than ask those questions first, I thought it would be interesting to get a common base for how many nodes do we need for the current user base of between 2m to 10m going into a growth period which might see numbers go up to 30m?

Thanks to Lauda for reminding me about this post from Gavin:

<snip>
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1scd4z/im_running_a_full_node_and_so_should_you/cdw3lrh?context=3


Lets ignore pruning; segwit, etc. Those are fantastic technological advances, that I would call tricks of the trade to make everyday users lives easier. The backbone of the network is always going to be full nodes.

I think that in total we're going to need in excess of 16,000 nodes, similar to what the survey is saying, however for now I think having between 1,000 and 2,000 is pretty good overall for the network. If we can kick it up a notch from there it'll be even better, but it will make sure nothing is getting overworked.

[coins101]

While conducting a casual survey into how many people use Bitcoin, the question of how many nodes do we need arose.

This is scientific question, not smth u can ask anyone for his opinion. Well u can like u did, but results will be worthless.
Simple answer is as many as possible.
But how many Bitcoin actually NEED? We can calculate that and there is only one true answer.

What's your calculation method, if you don't know how many users there are?

[franky1]

the issue is not about node count. its about decentralization. which the only solution is stopping one codebase dominating.
which in a utopian dream of living under a rainbow, would be preventing any single codebase from dominating the rules.

at the moment the only mechanism is by having lots of nodes to stop competing nodes dominating. but by the lack of understanding by most, who only trust one codebase they are actually causing domination.

so bitcoins decentralization is not technically decentralized.

the other issue is the 6th degree of separation theory.
which is important because if it takes 2 seconds to send a block of data(slow connection), where each second is critical to the mining race of which block gets accepted as the new blockheight. then we shouldn't delay all nodes from getting the data asap.
EG
say there are only 3100 nodes
if each node had 5 connections. then within 5 hops of relaying data, all 3100 nodes would get it(atleast 10seconds relaytime)
if each node had 8 connections. then within 4 hops of relaying data, all 3100 nodes would get it(atleast 8seconds relaytime)
if each node had 15 connections. then within 3 hops of relaying data, all 3100 nodes would get it(atleast 6seconds relaytime)
if each node had 56 connections. then within 2 hops of relaying data, all 3100 nodes would get it(atleast 4seconds relaytime)

but if there were 16,000 nodes
each node would need 127 connections to get the data relayed to all nodes in 2 hops(atleast 4seconds relaytime)
each node with 6 connections to get the data relayed to all nodes in 6 hops(atleast 12seconds relaytime)

so again amount of nodes does not make the network more secure.

its not an amount, its diversity that we should be concentrating on.