The fall of Bitcoin nodes. Why nobody talks about it ?

[RappelzReborn]

You see, each day a new thread,and  each thread make me think if I should go invest and buy at least 1 BTC or not . It will rise eventually or what guys .. if yes how much I only have 20$ worth of BTC at the moment

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[allgoodthings1]

I could miss $2 a month to support the network. But to me it looks like centralization of bitcoin nodes. Do those nodes share the same ip address? Of so, what's the benefit of running them?
Wouldn't it be better for the network if the nodes are geographically spread around the world, all using different hardware and ip addresses? Or are vps' considered "better than nothing"?
In other words, what's better? A low end home server running a node or a shared centralized node on high end hardware?

Here's the IP address on one of my VPS nodes: http://192.227.139.229/ It doesn't look shared to me. But I'm not the expert on these things. I'll let others who know more, write more. I'd say, there are things that probably make it not as good as Bitcoin Core of bitcoind running on a fast PC connection; but for $2/mo?! That's significantly less that your hardware maintenance, Internet, and electricity cost on a home or office PC.  And yes, WeLoveServers offers (I think, now) four different U.S. city locations for this special pricing.

[naplam]

$2?? their cheapest VPS at weloveservers is $4 and it has just a 15gb hdd, not enough for the blockchain to fit. It doesn't say SSD anywhere either. If they had ssds you can be pretty sure it would be written all over.

Dude it looks like you're being paid to advertise. wtf is this

[Buffer Overflow]

I don't see how there being fewer full nodes has any negative impact on decentralization.

Of course more nodes is more decentralized. More the better. Think about it, what is more likely to break? A network with just 2 nodes, or a network with 2000 nodes?

[BitcoinExchangeIndia.com]

When someone runs bitcoin-qt in his personal machine connected to the internet with default configuration, is not he running a full node ?

Not unless he also opens Port 8333 on his firewall.

Actually you are... you have the same amount of data as a business does, its that only ~ 8 people can access it .

Now to get more people to run full nodes, do like darkcoin does.. their supernoods get a % of each block that is found.. The more connections you have to your node the more of the btc fees you get.

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You can only have 8 outgoing connections which means you are connecting to others and not others connecting to you which is pretty much useless. By portforwarding 8333, you allow others to connect to you and therefore you are running a full node. That would pretty much render all ASIC miners and mining operation useless if you allow nodes to get transaction fees instead of miners.

Is there any security risk associated if I open Port 8333 on my firewall ?

[kokojie]

What is the cost of running a full node? on VPS?

Linode

https://www.linode.com/pricing

Digitalocean

https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/

That's the 2 most popular VPS provider. Few minutes to launch, very flexible.

Both of those are insufficient to run a full node. The 30GB one will be forced to shutdown in a month or two, since the current blockchain is nearly 30GB already.

[allgoodthings1]

$2?? their cheapest VPS at weloveservers is $4 and it has just a 15gb hdd, not enough for the blockchain to fit. It doesn't say SSD anywhere either. If they had ssds you can be pretty sure it would be written all over.

Dude it looks like you're being paid to advertise. wtf is this

Not paid to advertise; but, yes, inaccurate on the ssd. That's not advertised on their site. It's just 60GB Disk Space Storage.

Here's what I posted about this on September 8: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=774791.0  I've not heard from anyone that this method of acquiring a $2/mo server is no longer doable.  I do know I have 60GB on my three nodes and my monthly bill is just $6.

[findftp]

When someone runs bitcoin-qt in his personal machine connected to the internet with default configuration, is not he running a full node ?

Not unless he also opens Port 8333 on his firewall.

Actually you are... you have the same amount of data as a business does, its that only ~ 8 people can access it .

Now to get more people to run full nodes, do like darkcoin does.. their supernoods get a % of each block that is found.. The more connections you have to your node the more of the btc fees you get.

Icon

You can only have 8 outgoing connections which means you are connecting to others and not others connecting to you which is pretty much useless. By portforwarding 8333, you allow others to connect to you and therefore you are running a full node. That would pretty much render all ASIC miners and mining operation useless if you allow nodes to get transaction fees instead of miners.

Is there any security risk associated if I open Port 8333 on my firewall ?

Strictly spoken yes, any port open increases risks.
But if you keep your software updated the risk are minimal.
If the only port open is 8333, and it is pointed to bitcoind which is always the latest version, then the risk is close to zero.

[btcrich]

I don't see how there being fewer full nodes has any negative impact on decentralization.

Of course more nodes is more decentralized. More the better. Think about it, what is more likely to break? A network with just 2 nodes, or a network with 2000 nodes?

Decentralization of the Bitcoin network mainly refers to the distribution of hashing power, not the number of nodes.  The Bitcoin network becomes no more or less secure with the increase or decrease in number of nodes.  

As long as two honest nodes exist, the network will function.  However, this would also most likely indicate that there are only two miners securing the network and that could be a concern.

[findftp]

As long as two honest nodes exist, the network will function.  However, this would also most likely indicate that there are only two miners securing the network and that could be a concern.

You will not stay BTC rich with only 2 nodes.

Quoted from BTCfeed:

"The main idea behind bitcoin and the reason that it took off is because of bitcoin’s decentralized nature and its peer-to-peer (P2P) network. In order to keep bitcoin running and validate transactions there need to be bitcoin nodes available on the network.

Bitcoin nodes are different from bitcoin miners or bitcoin clients. Bitcoin nodes provide security, one of which is security from double spending – when a user attempts to spend the same coin twice. The bitcoin network chooses random nodes and then has them verify the transaction and make sure the coins were not double spent.

Bitcoin not only needs nodes, it requires many functioning ones – nodes that have the bitcoin core client. Anybody can run a bitcoin node as long as you have access to a high quality server. You will need atleast 2GB of RAM and atleast 20GB of storage in order to be able to run the bitcoin client"

[btcrich]

I didn't say that having only two nodes would be a good thing.  Of course it's nice to have a lot of nodes.  While the number of nodes might have reduced, it's nowhere near a level to be concerned about.

The network does not "require many functioning nodes".  It requires two.

Even with only two honest nodes, it is possible to combat double spends 100%.

The only attack vector that could be of minor concern is if one node is connected to many or only dishonest/bad nodes.  As you say though, the connections are random by default so an attacker cannot target a specific node and would have to be really lucky to effectively impact an honest node. This still would not affect the network as a whole however.

[findftp]

I didn't say that having only two nodes would be a good thing.  Of course it's nice to have a lot of nodes.  While the number of nodes might have reduced, it's nowhere near a level to be concerned about.

The network does not "require many functioning nodes".  It requires two.

I would say Bitcoin is rotten to the core when there are only 2 honest nodes against 1 million dishonest.
Without understanding the technicals behind it many people would be scared to death.

Even with only two honest nodes, it is possible to combat double spends 100%.

Isn't this the same as saying: "if everybody on earth would be fair and honest we would not need jails?"

[Newar]

I could miss $2 a month to support the network. But to me it looks like centralization of bitcoin nodes. Do those nodes share the same ip address? Of so, what's the benefit of running them?
Wouldn't it be better for the network if the nodes are geographically spread around the world, all using different hardware and ip addresses? Or are vps' considered "better than nothing"?
In other words, what's better? A low end home server running a node or a shared centralized node on high end hardware?

Here's the IP address on one of my VPS nodes: http://192.227.139.229/ It doesn't look shared to me. But I'm not the expert on these things. [...]

192.227.139.229 is at ColoCrossing https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/nodes/?q=colocrossing. 45 nodes at that DC. If they have a power outage or worse, that's 45 nodes gone. Just an example of course and who knows how accurate bitnodes is, but different geographic locations help for sure.

If you can miss 2$ a month and plan to run a node for two years, you are getting in to Raspberry Pi territory (with an external HDD), if you're internet plan allows for it. (An indication of data volume: http://192.227.139.229/vnstat/index.php?if=venet0&graph=large&style=light&page=m )

[franky1]

anyone doing the "purchase VPN" scheme.. please realise its better to have 7000 nodes in 7000 locations rather than 20,000 in 5 VPN locations... think about it.

[johnyj]

P2Pool should become more user friendly, once it is done, every miner should move to P2Pool, ultimate decentralization is done

[Eisenhower34]

anyone doing the "purchase VPN" scheme.. please realise its better to have 7000 nodes in 7000 locations rather than 20,000 in 5 VPN locations... think about it.

It would actually be the "purchase VPS" scheme, not purchase VPN as a VPN is only a way to connect to the internet and is not capable of running a full node.

Your point is true, however there are a large number of both data centers and VPS providers so as long as you do not buy up a bunch of VPSs at one location from one provider this would not be that big of an issue

[bee7]

As long as two honest nodes exist, the network will function.  However, this would also most likely indicate that there are only two miners securing the network and that could be a concern.

You will not stay BTC rich with only 2 nodes.

Quoted from BTCfeed:

"The main idea behind bitcoin and the reason that it took off is because of bitcoin’s decentralized nature and its peer-to-peer (P2P) network. In order to keep bitcoin running and validate transactions there need to be bitcoin nodes available on the network.

Bitcoin nodes are different from bitcoin miners or bitcoin clients. Bitcoin nodes provide security, one of which is security from double spending – when a user attempts to spend the same coin twice. The bitcoin network chooses random nodes and then has them verify the transaction and make sure the coins were not double spent.

Bitcoin not only needs nodes, it requires many functioning ones – nodes that have the bitcoin core client. Anybody can run a bitcoin node as long as you have access to a high quality server. You will need atleast 2GB of RAM and atleast 20GB of storage in order to be able to run the bitcoin client"

There is one more reason - the possibility of the DoS: the fewer full nodes you have the higher chances the network would be killed if someone attempts to DoS it.

[btc-facebook]

As long as two honest nodes exist, the network will function.  However, this would also most likely indicate that there are only two miners securing the network and that could be a concern.

You will not stay BTC rich with only 2 nodes.

Quoted from BTCfeed:

"The main idea behind bitcoin and the reason that it took off is because of bitcoin’s decentralized nature and its peer-to-peer (P2P) network. In order to keep bitcoin running and validate transactions there need to be bitcoin nodes available on the network.

Bitcoin nodes are different from bitcoin miners or bitcoin clients. Bitcoin nodes provide security, one of which is security from double spending – when a user attempts to spend the same coin twice. The bitcoin network chooses random nodes and then has them verify the transaction and make sure the coins were not double spent.

Bitcoin not only needs nodes, it requires many functioning ones – nodes that have the bitcoin core client. Anybody can run a bitcoin node as long as you have access to a high quality server. You will need atleast 2GB of RAM and atleast 20GB of storage in order to be able to run the bitcoin client"

There is one more reason - the possibility of the DoS: the fewer full nodes you have the higher chances the network would be killed if someone attempts to DoS it.

I think the number of nodes would need to decrease substantially before this would become any kind of serious risk. When a "normal" site is DDoSed, their network infrastructure will be stressed, however when someone attempts to DDoS a decentralized network, the attacker will need to use much more resources to put a similar level of stress on the network

[bee7]

As long as two honest nodes exist, the network will function.  However, this would also most likely indicate that there are only two miners securing the network and that could be a concern.

You will not stay BTC rich with only 2 nodes.

Quoted from BTCfeed:

"The main idea behind bitcoin and the reason that it took off is because of bitcoin’s decentralized nature and its peer-to-peer (P2P) network. In order to keep bitcoin running and validate transactions there need to be bitcoin nodes available on the network.

Bitcoin nodes are different from bitcoin miners or bitcoin clients. Bitcoin nodes provide security, one of which is security from double spending – when a user attempts to spend the same coin twice. The bitcoin network chooses random nodes and then has them verify the transaction and make sure the coins were not double spent.

Bitcoin not only needs nodes, it requires many functioning ones – nodes that have the bitcoin core client. Anybody can run a bitcoin node as long as you have access to a high quality server. You will need atleast 2GB of RAM and atleast 20GB of storage in order to be able to run the bitcoin client"

There is one more reason - the possibility of the DoS: the fewer full nodes you have the higher chances the network would be killed if someone attempts to DoS it.

I think the number of nodes would need to decrease substantially before this would become any kind of serious risk. When a "normal" site is DDoSed, their network infrastructure will be stressed, however when someone attempts to DDoS a decentralized network, the attacker will need to use much more resources to put a similar level of stress on the network

Yes, I agree that Bitcoin network is far from this situation. It was an argument for two nodes network.

[LiteCoinGuy]

iam running a full node. its a nice way to support the network. i guess when the price rises again we will see more full nodes. and also we sill see some improvements with the sync of the bitcoin core client (3days to 3 hours).

25 GB is not a problem in my view.


2 Terabyte - 90 USD:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Station-External-Desktop-Drive/dp/B00C9TEL46/ref=sr_1_1/275-3057177-7963732?ie=UTF8&qid=1414215364&sr=8-1&keywords=2+terabyte