That is never going to work. Theres nothing stopping us from setting up as many nodes as we want.
Its being widely done right now as well. Just to cover tracks on the coins "richlists."
If you will try to restrict by IP, then this is easy to overcome too.
Could you elaborate on this - richlists are becoming a very valuable tool to monitor what devs/big-fish are doing with a coin. Are you saying this is going to become a less usable measure going forward because of masternodes?
Richlist has never been and will never be a "valuable tool". Its made up to fool the ingorants. All you see is a single account balance. Any user can have several accounts and wallets running on a single machine.
Anyone with a basic knowledge of how wallets work, know how to do this. Most whales do this because they dont want to show that they have huge amount of coins, which can be used to manipulate the price when they want to.
this is true. i have seen many trying in their own ways to assess what really drives crypto value. some try to do it by observing top wallets. but as you said, a big holder only needs to split his holdings into multiple wallets to throw that off. the idea of monitoring richlists is hardly feasible except for knowing when coins are being moved. but while they are holding in a wallet they contribute to rise in value of the coin.
as ive said before i believe in the possibilities for using crypto as a means of barter and trade for a small change to the way commerce is handled.
example.. in a coin with 1000 coins. i hold 400 and allow the price to rise to 25,000 satoshi. if i sold all down i could set the price back to maybe 9,000 satoshi and investment demand will have to generate enough investment to push what was 600.. now 1000 coins on the market back to the price of 25,000 satoshi. but if i didnt sell and i bought more that could set the price now to 26k satoshi and if i buy more then we go up to 30k satoshi.. and noone can dump my stock enough because im responsibly holding. "some will say, but u lose why buy all this worthless coin?" simple...
because if i bought 400 coins at the price of 1000 satoshi and then it rises to 25k that effectively means that if i go to barter/trade/purchase an item or a service with the coin then i just made my purchase at a 96% discount. many will take a while to wrap their heads around the math. but as market cap increases the value of each and every coin on the market increases. the currency for the community as a whole grows value. and builds in strength as long as you dont undersell. just use for barter and trade for goods and services.
selfish underselling is what ruins markets, slows down investment and drives investors to speculation instead of commitment. then someone has to create a new coin for you to rape so you can make a little profit again.
this coin will be built around allowing large hash.. hash raping will and can even be encouraged. the way i see it, trying to kick off large hashpower is the wrong idea. new ways will always be invented so that asics etc can utilize new anti-asic technology. so im taking a head-on reverse approach. either large hash will join the community, causing a boost in value of the coin. or they will stay away from the coin allowing small hashers to struggle to meet market demand. as stated before.. the coin will be designed to increase in value with hash. the algorithm will encourage investors to join and stay with the community once they join. the mission will be worldwide merchant acceptance, which considering resources at our disposal will not be too hard once the coin performs as expected on the markets. a full strategy for the markets and trading advice will be offered to community members so that they can more effectively participate in the vision and goal of the coin.
the idea is the coin will make each miner lots of money/investment capital.. without selling for fiat or even btc. also because of the design, swift worldwide adoption by miners the coin will require no pegging to btc as it's deciding factor of value. it will in effect be it's own independent currency.. and all holders of the coin will effectively be, their own bank.