I'm trying to encourage more people to make nodes. What's missing?

[Shermand100]

** My last post like this got moved to marketplace, so I'll try to keep this generic and as a discussion. And to clarify, I don't sell Nodes, I don't benefit from them financially and I don't offer this as a service. I'm just curious as to why others don't run them. What's missing? There are user benefits. **

Hi again all,

I feel Nodes are often the unsung hardware behind Bitcoin. They hold and transmit the tx mempool and ensure everyone is following the rules and are vital to the network. However don't offer financial reward to their owners. I think it is for this reason that people are disinterested in running one.

It has been a hobby of mine for the past 3 months to make nodes and develop incentives. My first build was very well received on reddit and it encouraged me to make more nodes, document the builds, and host guides, however I'm only aware of 2 or 3 others that have proceeded to make one themselves. This surprised me.


To help the community I've tried to make nodes as appealing as possible. If a user had one on their desk, I certainly think it would be a talking point.

The nodes I run feature:

• Full Bitcoin node
• 3.5" LCD touchscreen display to display bitcoin price/network stats
• Broadcast over the Tor network, (a configurable option)
• Generate cool personalized vanity addresses
• Sync my desktop wallet to my node for instant wallet availability on unlock

Multiple webpages can be displayed in a scrolling mode, eg. Network stats, Bitcoin price, News, Weather, traffic updates for your commute (google maps) or anything to brighten up my desk, pictures etc

** Again, I don't sell Nodes, I don't benefit from them financially and I don't offer this as a service. I'm just trying to encourage others to build nodes and discuss what other incentives are needed. Also trying to fill a gap online and replace some of the very outdated information on sites such as raspnode.com which are no longer maintained.


I look forward to hearing your thoughts, feedback, or sugestions on further development on how else to encourage more people to build full-nodes
Dan
http://pinode.co.uk

[eckmar]

Well i think you answered your question in that post. Why would someone do that if there are no benefits ? You mentioned wallet sync etc, there is electrum wallet. Really there is no benefit for someone to allocate resources towards running node.

[Emoclaw]

Well i think you answered your question in that post. Why would someone do that if there are no benefits ? You mentioned wallet sync etc, there is electrum wallet. Really there is no benefit for someone to allocate resources towards running node.

There is complete trustlessness when making transactions, instead of relying on a 3rd-party like Electrum does.
Most people don't care about that though.

Really, the majority of people find the resources required in storage and bandwidth to be too much compared to what running a full node offers.

[Shermand100]

So you think the barriers are encountered simply by running the node? Regardless of the features or aesthetics that are added.

In the UK most internet plans are unlimited which helps. And limits can be placed on the node with -maxconnections=<num> or -maxuploadtarget=<n>

Would you think the node distribution of the 9000 available (https://bitnodes.21.co/) is reflecting where similar unlimited internet plans are available worldwide?

[Red-Apple]

However don't offer financial reward to their owners. I think it is for this reason that people are disinterested in running one.

in my opinion if anyone has higher than 1 bitcoin and is not running a full node then they have never understood what bitcoin is. you don't run a node to make money you run a node because you are using a decentralized network and a decentralized network will only work as well as its users.

It has been a hobby of mine for the past 3 months to make nodes and develop incentives.

what are those incentives?!!

The nodes I run feature:

• Full Bitcoin node
• 3.5" LCD touchscreen display to display bitcoin price/network stats
• Broadcast over the Tor network, (a configurable option)
• Generate cool personalized vanity addresses
• Sync my desktop wallet to my node for instant wallet availability on unlock

Multiple webpages can be displayed in a scrolling mode, eg. Network stats, Bitcoin price, News, Weather, traffic updates for your commute (google maps) or anything to brighten up my desk, pictures etc

none of these are features of a "node".
tell us the system specs (CPU,RAM, storage, network speed and traffic it uses,...)
all the things you listed are done with other stuff with a couple of lines of code.

if these are your incentives then i think you were doing it wrong.

[Shermand100]

in my opinion if anyone has higher than 1 bitcoin and is not running a full node then they have never understood what bitcoin is. you don't run a node to make money you run a node because you are using a decentralized network and a decentralized network will only work as well as its users.

I totally agree, and that is the core of this post. There should be more people running nodes if they hold/use bitcoin.

However my hands are "tied" when it comes to adding features to the actual node software (Bitcoin core). If I were to mess about with the bitcoin core code and asked others to download a run it for their wallet to link to, would anyone trust me? Certainly not, and for good reasons.

The "features" I've added to my nodes are aesthetic and simple. Simple because not all bitcoin users are tech experts, and the guides are supposed to be reasonably beginner friendly. And aesthetic because most other stand-alone node units are just black boxes to put behind a desk. I was thinking if it could have a secondary purpose (LCD display, Vanity addresses etc) and be pleasant to look at, it may attract others to make one? That was my logic, but I'm keen to hear other ideas. That's why I'm saying what I've done and asking for feedback.

[induktor]

Hello
Very interesting what you did, i will follow it.

it is true that the primary concern is trust, i only trust CORE because well, it's the primary wallet.

but I don't like that it has no stats!, I will love to see how many blocks are remaining and what blocks are updating.
what exactly is it doing, if there are rejecting blocks showme how many and why they are being rejected.

in short, STATS!, to see what the network is doing, how it is doing, after all IT IS A FULL NODE! ACT LIKE IT!

like someone here said before, people who don't give a damn, uses electrum or some other light wallet, people that DID care and understand what a P2P network is, runs a full node.

but a full node, should display stats!

perhaps what is missing is some sort of API that can extract real time data from the node and show it on a different program, so you don't need to trust that program, it is outside the wallet, but dunno if the API is powerful enough to output that kind of info, never actually research it, i am more an electronics guy than a software one .

I will investigate your project and probably build one I have PIs al over the place doing all sort of crazy stuff with arduinos so why not

cheers
Indkt.

[Shermand100]

Yeah I'm more electronics based too.
I've currently got around the stats problem by displaying multiple webpages. A Chrome extension called Revolver skips between tabs at pre-set times. My display on my node skips between

• http://realtimebitcoin.info/     -for Bitcoin Price and general network info, live transactions scroll across the screen
• https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/176.241.243.15-8333/     -displays the bitcoin-cli status
• http://bitcoinglobe.com/     -looks awesome, shows origins of transactions in mempool

But someone that knows their way around API could make a great all-in-one display for these. Or maybe leaving it modular like this works fine for people?

[krishnapramod]

However don't offer financial reward to their owners. I think it is for this reason that people are disinterested in running one.

in my opinion if anyone has higher than 1 bitcoin and is not running a full node then they have never understood what bitcoin is. you don't run a node to make money you run a node because you are using a decentralized network and a decentralized network will only work as well as its users.

It has been a hobby of mine for the past 3 months to make nodes and develop incentives.

what are those incentives?!!

The nodes I run feature:

• Full Bitcoin node
• 3.5" LCD touchscreen display to display bitcoin price/network stats
• Broadcast over the Tor network, (a configurable option)
• Generate cool personalized vanity addresses
• Sync my desktop wallet to my node for instant wallet availability on unlock

Multiple webpages can be displayed in a scrolling mode, eg. Network stats, Bitcoin price, News, Weather, traffic updates for your commute (google maps) or anything to brighten up my desk, pictures etc

none of these are features of a "node".
tell us the system specs (CPU,RAM, storage, network speed and traffic it uses,...)
all the things you listed are done with other stuff with a couple of lines of code.

if these are your incentives then i think you were doing it wrong.

+1

Full node operators are the ones who keep bitcoins decentralization intact and keep in check the malicious miners. They are the enforcers. I do agree, people who have resources should run full nodes, no incentive, but bitcoin ain't banks printing out notes, if you have invested in a decentralized currency then you are liable to work towards that decentralization at least for the sake of what you have invested.

As far as incentives, if a miner is running a full node then obviously incentive. I don't know how stand alone node operators get  
incentivized, they are doing a service, free-of-cost.

Basic requirements to run a node:

Desktop or laptop hardware running recent versions of Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux.

145 gigabytes of free disk space

2 gigabytes of memory (RAM)

A broadband Internet connection with upload speeds of at least 400 kilobits (50 kilobytes) per second

An unmetered connection, a connection with high upload limits, or a connection you regularly monitor to ensure it doesn’t exceed its upload limits. It’s common for full nodes on high-speed connections to use 200 gigabytes upload or more a month. Download usage is around 20 gigabytes a month, plus around an additional 140 gigabytes the first time you start your node.

6 hours a day that your full node can be left running. (You can do other things with your computer while running a full node.) More hours would be better, and best of all would be if you can run your node continuously.

https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#minimum-requirements

As far as OP what's missing is lack of understanding how bitcoin works. Most of the recent investors and future investors would just dive in for the sake of speculation, profits and not at all bothering about how the foundation works.

If you have a PC lying here and there, connect it and contribute to the decentralization of bitcoin in a selfless manner.

[hatshepsut93]

Well i think you answered your question in that post. Why would someone do that if there are no benefits ? You mentioned wallet sync etc, there is electrum wallet. Really there is no benefit for someone to allocate resources towards running node.

If you are accepting transactions, especially in high amounts, then running a node is a matter of security, since lightweight clients like Electrum have to trust full nodes they connect to to some degree. Running a full node also makes Bitcoin more decentralized and secure, which contributes to it's price, and the higher the price of Bitcoin, the more security we need, to discourage attackers from launching their attacks. Anyone who has spare disk space and bandwidth should run a full node on their computer, you don't need to run it 24/7 to contribute to Bitcoin, just leave Core wallet open in the background when you are using computer.

[skyline247]

Recently there is a lot of talk about running nodes.

I find it strange considering how little I heard about them until last week. lol

Anyways, I am going to look into it and maybe give it a go, but my current setup is not very powerful so most likely won't for the time being.

[Kprawn]

Recently there is a lot of talk about running nodes.

I find it strange considering how little I heard about them until last week. lol

Anyways, I am going to look into it and maybe give it a go, but my current setup is not very powerful so most likely won't for the time being.

You do not need a powerful computer to run a node. There are people running nodes on Raspberry Pi  

http://www.instructables.com/id/Bitcoin-Mining-using-Raspberry-Pi/

We have discussed this here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1736096.0  

[Shermand100]

The biggest perk to running a node is most certainly security, the age old phrase "If you don't hold your private keys, you don't hold your funds" is true,  It'd be great if more people ran nodes and kept clear from web-wallets. Just link your desktop wallet program to your node on your local network.

As for Raspberry Pi's, they are more than capable of running a Node at this time. We're yet to see if they are future proof with lightning network and an increased TX/sec.
________________________________________________

Perhaps my original question is lost a little as I didn't want to be intentionally plugging my own site and get this thread banished to another topic, it seems a healthy discussion here so far. I am still looking for recommendations of what to add to a stand-alone node. Not necessarily on a Raspberry Pi, but anything that will add appeal to a user running one.

We've covered that the bitcoin core software itself can't be altered without fear of serious security issues. But what else is missing from a stand-alone node unit that may entice other users from running one?

My site is http://pinode.co.uk and is a free library of guides to try and entice members of the bitcoin community to run their own node. For the benefit of the network, I don't benefit from this financially, it's just a hobby. what could be added?

[william8829]

"I'm proud to be part of the 99+% not running a full node. Zero reason for me to waste bandwidth monitoring other people's transactions."

               ---Gavin Andresen

[KingdomHearts]

Hello
Very interesting what you did, i will follow it.

it is true that the primary concern is trust, i only trust CORE because well, it's the primary wallet.

but I don't like that it has no stats!, I will love to see how many blocks are remaining and what blocks are updating.
what exactly is it doing, if there are rejecting blocks showme how many and why they are being rejected.

in short, STATS!, to see what the network is doing, how it is doing, after all IT IS A FULL NODE! ACT LIKE IT!

like someone here said before, people who don't give a damn, uses electrum or some other light wallet, people that DID care and understand what a P2P network is, runs a full node.

but a full node, should display stats!

perhaps what is missing is some sort of API that can extract real time data from the node and show it on a different program, so you don't need to trust that program, it is outside the wallet, but dunno if the API is powerful enough to output that kind of info, never actually research it, i am more an electronics guy than a software one .

I will investigate your project and probably build one I have PIs al over the place doing all sort of crazy stuff with arduinos so why not

cheers
Indkt.

Apparently, I don’t know why there are no figures or as you have said stats available. They are essential for the users. Whether to go use light wallet or go for p2p network is everyone's own free choice. If somebody asks me, then my vote is for p2p network. At last, extracting data from real life involves many problems because most of the data is just bogus, not much of a help. But I like enthusiasm in regards of the mentioned project and wish them best of luck.

[xplorer79]

I'm a big fan of Raspberry Pi (and bitcoin). I am currently towards making it my day job.
Your project is great, and very well documented. But one problem I see with it : it is just a "monitor to bitcoin". I costs some money to build it, and it does not bring some (we both know 1 raspberry can not mine).
Maybe if you could add some trading features to it, or altcoins bounty hunting (just some wild ideas), it would attract more.
Also, I advise you to 3d model a real enclosure, and post it to thingiverse. Many tech-versed people (including me) now own 3D printers, and would prefer printing a real enclosure. Tinkering (no offense here) is very nice, but showing a beautiful device with nice charts on a desk is way better.
Really, no offence in my comment, this is a great project, but been there, done that

(if you need something about raspberry pi or 3d printing, please visit hardware-libre.fr and send me a comment. I will help)

[Rizky Aditya]

"I'm proud to be part of the 99+% not running a full node. Zero reason for me to waste bandwidth monitoring other people's transactions."

               ---Gavin Andresen

Lol, sounds a little mean of you! But everyone has his own point of view.
Every behaviors has a reason behind it. It is pretty okay if you do not want to waste your bandwidth for other people's transactions because you are helping them but also you are not creating obstacles in other ways.

[Shermand100]

I'm a big fan of Raspberry Pi (and bitcoin). I am currently towards making it my day job.
Your project is great, and very well documented. But one problem I see with it : it is just a "monitor to bitcoin". I costs some money to build it, and it does not bring some (we both know 1 raspberry can not mine).
Maybe if you could add some trading features to it, or altcoins bounty hunting (just some wild ideas), it would attract more.
Also, I advise you to 3d model a real enclosure, and post it to thingiverse. Many tech-versed people (including me) now own 3D printers, and would prefer printing a real enclosure. Tinkering (no offense here) is very nice, but showing a beautiful device with nice charts on a desk is way better.
Really, no offence in my comment, this is a great project, but been there, done that

(if you need something about raspberry pi or 3d printing, please visit hardware-libre.fr and send me a comment. I will help)

Yeah, a proper enclosure would be great and simple to design. I'm surprised there isn't an enclosure already that holds a 2.5" HDD, Pi and display. So many uses, not just for nodes.

I'm working on other uses in the background to make the whole unit more attractive to make nodes. My next step is to use vanity gen for creating cold storage bitcoin wallets, and a couple of methods of stamping/engraving the key+address into metal for long term storage. It's kind of getting away from the point though. Is the interest really low for vanity addresses or offline address/key generation and backup?

So far the requests from here are

* Data stats
* Financial gain using CPU for an altcoin
* 3d printable enclosure?

Anything else?

[Shermand100]

Hi all, bit of an update...


I've found that adding guides for Proof of stake coins now adds earning potential. Proof of stake guides available for

* BlackCoin
* PIVX
* Pinkcoin
* Dash

Also nearly all guides are compatible with Pine64 device which has higher RAM specs.

Guides work with any ARM Cortex A-53 processor listed here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_single-board_computers#CPU,_GPU,_memory

Any further ideas to make nodes more appealing?

Dan[/list]