Why do full nodes over TOR have a less ASN index score and clients connected?

[xdrpx]

Hi All,

I've been running a Bitcoin Core full node over TOR and was browsing through the leader board https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/leaderboard/

I've noticed that majority of the TOR nodes have a low ranking and a low ASN Index score (somewhere around 0.37 to 0.388).

According to Bitnodes the formula for deriving ASN Index score is:

Code:

AI = ASN index
 AI = ln((1 / n) x N) / ln(N)
    N = number of reachable nodes
    n = number of nodes from N with the same ASN  

I've also noticed that a max of running my TOR node for 1 week continuously, I've had a total of 12-13 connections with about 8 outgoing and 3-5 Incoming. Hence my bandwidth consumption has been pretty low running a full node over TOR. The max bandwidth used is about 1.6 GB (sent / received summed up).

Hence, I was wondering does this make Full nodes over TOR in anyways less reliable for the network? I've noticed when I was able to run a full node without TOR (a couple of months back before I switched my ISP. My current ISP doesn't allow forwarding ports, hence I'm running over TOR to get incoming connections) a lot of clients would connect (At about 40-50 connections). I'm running this node on a high-end CPU (8 cores, 16 threads), 16 GB RAM and a decent internet connection speed (about 10 MBPS up and down).

Kindly share your thoughts on what could be the possible reason for low ASN index scores / node connectivity over TOR?

Thanks for helping.

[miguelmorales85]

I'm bumping this post because I have the same questions.

Specially on this part:

I was wondering does this make Full nodes over TOR in anyways less reliable for the network?

I did activate myself a TOR node because I was told that it will definitely help the bitcoin network and I have seen on bitnodes21.co that TOR node are a minority (I know not EVERY one is published there but its still a good picture of the whole network)

[xdrpx]

I'm bumping this post because I have the same questions.

Specially on this part:

I was wondering does this make Full nodes over TOR in anyways less reliable for the network?

I did activate myself a TOR node because I was told that it will definitely help the bitcoin network and I have seen on bitnodes21.co that TOR node are a minority (I know not EVERY one is published there but its still a good picture of the whole network)

It's good to hear that you've setup your own node over the TOR network. Judging by the lack of response, I kind of feel the same thing. There are only a handful node operators who run it over TOR. I have attempted to research more on this but haven't found a solution as to why there are very less inbound connections for TOR nodes. Based on my recent reading on the Dandelion project, (although it's a BIP for a completely different topic i.e.; Privacy by means of masking the IP of the transactor) I got to the 2nd page of the paper (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1701.04439.pdf) which mentioned about low latency being a desirable network property for nodes that communicate messages. This got me pondering about 'Latency' with TOR nodes which I've read could play an important role for nodes (mainly important for miners, but also for node operators in a way).


This could mean that since TOR nodes typically tend to have high latency and lower speeds and it could hinder your Bitcoin Node from achieving more number of multiple incoming connections. I'm not sure if there's a setting somewhere in torrc or elsewhere to override this or even if it's possible to do so.

This was when I also noticed that in order to calculate the ranks for the nodes on the leaderboard (on bitnodes.21.co) Daily, weekly and monthly Latency Index values were also taken into factor. This could thus prove that latency again plays an important role for nodes to communicate messages quickly and indirectly maybe (just maybe) affect how many incoming nodes can connect to you. This should also explain why the leaders on the leaderboard all have very low latency. Also, the benefit of TOR nodes is anonymity and the ability to bypass the need to have open ports. This in a way does still help the Bitcoin network since it at least helps in transmitting information between few the nodes that are connected.

Do note, this is just something I've researched myself and I could certainly be wrong. But hey! I'm at least running my TOR node 24 hours keeping in mind the fact that I'm still contributing in a way and that I also transact using the Bitcoin core wallet.