Topic: Incentivising Full Nodes (Read 359 times)

As costs / resources required to run a full node increases node count decreases. even if these cost are minimal to most users, the fact there is no direct incentives to run a full node means most users won't. a lot of users probably rationalize not running a node by thinking "there is already enough nodes on the network what's 1 more going to do."

how do we fix this?

first off the main cost to run a node is bandwidth, not everyone can consume GB's of bandwidth daily and so not everyone can participate. why not make different types nodes to accommodate more users.

limited-full node:
configured to use minimal bandwidth, it would not make its blockchain available other nodes to sync from, and limit the number of connections.

full node:
configured to do everything but with some limits to make sure bandwidth it uses will never exceed a typical home connection's capacity, with some limits on number of connection, and limits for the kb/s it allows peers to download its blockchain.

super node:
configured to utilize above average internet connections, to connect to as many peers as possible, and allow peers unlimited kb/s blockchain syncing.

All these settings could be available on the GUI bitcoin-core, and fully configurable ( number of peers, max kb/s, blockchain pruning etc.). this way it's possible for a low end users to still participate in the bitcoin network.

To further incentivise nodes we could ( maybe in a decentralized trustless way) pay out some BTC amounts to node proportional to their level of participation. Sort of like crowd funding, but directly built into the protocol. users who wish to incentivise the network could make a donation to a BTC address whose funds are used to periodically reward nodes on the network.