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?
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.
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?
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.
