Bitcoin Node Count Falls to 3-Year low

[dfmb]

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-node-count-falls-to-3-year-low-despite-price-surge

When will this become a serious problem ? Some devs like Luke, argue that blockchain is growing at a rate faster than technology can keep up with, and users have to turn off their full nodes cause each day it becomes more harder to run a full node with your own hardware. Imo, people are really missing the whole point of all of this, everyone is focusing on non problems like "scalability" and want bigger blocks and lower fees, while its clear L2 solutions will solve that issue sooner or later. Now my question relies on when will people start worrying about the real problem and that is blockchain size becoming to big for the average J0e to run a full node in their homes and the centralization that will come as a consequence?

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[pooya87]

blockchain size itself is not the main problem since they don't have to store it if they feel like they are running out of storage space. not to mention it is a one time download and verify process. it is what happens daily that could be problematic and with current bitcoin design that blockchain grows about 170-200 MB per day and the number of transactions that nodes verify it doesn't seem that bad to me to be honest. that is not even as big as a youtube video that people watch!

in any case i wonder how accurate Luke's counting is since i have never seen any other source that counts all bitcoin nodes. every other source only counts listening nodes such as https://bitnodes.earn.com/nodes/ speaking of which it shows no change and if anything there is a small increase from lower 9k range to upper 9k range (9933)

[Wind_FURY]

OP, it becomes a serious problem once only data-centers/really "expensive computers" can sync a node.

It's because users aren't incentivized to run full nodes, that's why the decrease. Maybe that will change if the theory about higher fees in Lightning is found practical in reality.

blockchain size itself is not the main problem since they don't have to store it if they feel like they are running out of storage space. not to mention it is a one time download and verify process. it is what happens daily that could be problematic and with current bitcoin design that blockchain grows about 170-200 MB per day and the number of transactions that nodes verify it doesn't seem that bad to me to be honest. that is not even as big as a youtube video that people watch!

But it is becoming a problem for the initial-blockchain-download. That's the reason why full nodes are decreasing, not increasing.

[stompix]

it is what happens daily that could be problematic and with current bitcoin design that blockchain grows about 170-200 MB per day and the number of transactions that nodes verify it doesn't seem that bad to me to be honest. that is not even as big as a youtube video that people watch!

I'm also curious how 150GB in Jan 2018 was not a problem but 275GB now are preventing people to run a full node.
Was half of the nodes network running on 250GB HDDs? 

Now my question relies on when will people start worrying about the real problem and that is blockchain size becoming to big for the average J0e to run a full node in their homes and the centralization that will come as a consequence?

In the last year (365days), the chain has grown by 60GB, assuming the same growth it will take another 4 years till it goes over the capacity of a 100$ Samsung SSD.  And even right now you can still get an M2 1TB for around ~230$, the prices will be much lower in 2024.


 

[pooya87]

But it is becoming a problem for the initial-blockchain-download. That's the reason why full nodes are decreasing, not increasing.

that doesn't make any sense. if you said the growth has stopped then it was reasonable but if a node has already gone through the initial blockchain download then it doesn't have to do it again since it is a one time thing so even if it becomes harder the full node that has already done it will remain and the numbers should not decrease for this reason.

[DooMAD]

Bitcoin's network still has a much healthier nodecount compared to any other altcoins out there.  It only becomes a problem if the network isn't sufficiently decentralised.

Also, how many other coins have nodes in space?  Remember how everyone used to believe a global Internet shutdown would wipe out Bitcoin?  Not anymore.

[Wind_FURY]

But it is becoming a problem for the initial-blockchain-download. That's the reason why full nodes are decreasing, not increasing.

that doesn't make any sense. if you said the growth has stopped then it was reasonable but if a node has already gone through the initial blockchain download then it doesn't have to do it again since it is a one time thing so even if it becomes harder the full node that has already done it will remain and the numbers should not decrease for this reason.

My post was incomplete, sorry. But higher bandwidth/storage costs = lesser users maintain/run their nodes, AND lesser new users who go through the process of the initial blockchain download.