Number of nodes is not a problem. At least for security of the system. What could they do? Transmit invalid transaction / do not transmit a valid transaction.
Honest nodes and miners will ban those nodes straight away. They only good to spread the FUD across the system. And they already tried it with BitcoinXT. However, it is a psychological (social-engineering) attack not a technical one. What they tried to do, is give an impression that a lot of people moved to their client. And probably, most of those nodes were running on single server.
Could similar attack happen in the future? Yes, possible. Maybe, it's already underway with Bitcoin Classic. But those attacks not stand a chance against bitcoin protocol.
Topic: Incentivizing Bitcoin Nodes - page 6. (Read 15188 times)
Like I've said before that seems like a paradox in Bitcoin. We want Work that is nontrivial, to prevent attacks, while also wanting nodes to be trivial to start and operate, to prevent other sorts of attacks. Seems to me as long as mining is profitable it will always struggle toward centralization, and Work minimization, which is always economically optimal. The only way for Bitcoin to remain secure is by being economically unoptimal, which would require charitable node operation, which has become more and more unfeasible as operation has gotten more expensive and tedious.
I expect we'll see even more centralization when we hit the next reward halving, which isn't exactly prescient, that's been the norm. Unless someone can find a clever way to incentivize node distance (node anarchy), which seems like a pretty hard problem, or we start pouring wine on the ground for the Bitcoin gods, we're going to see the slow death of Bitcoin as a decentralized trustless currency, though it may survive as some other sort of abomination.
I expect we'll see even more centralization when we hit the next reward halving, which isn't exactly prescient, that's been the norm. Unless someone can find a clever way to incentivize node distance (node anarchy), which seems like a pretty hard problem, or we start pouring wine on the ground for the Bitcoin gods, we're going to see the slow death of Bitcoin as a decentralized trustless currency, though it may survive as some other sort of abomination.
Zero transaction fees would make it unprofitable when most of the coins have been found and you can say "so long and thanks for all the fish" to the farms. You just need to convince the devs to remove the fees.
It's not nodes that need to be incentivized, that's really easy to do. It's also not latency we're looking for either. What we really want is a way to decentrally, and trustlessly, prove that nodes are geographically distant (as a proxy for node anarchy), and incentivize it. It's pretty easy to prove that any two nodes are closer than or equal to a certain distance, but I don't see how to do any better than that.
We could have 3 trusted centers, which would triangulate a node and mining rewards could then be adjusted based on how geographically separated they are, but that's neither trustless nor decentralized.
We could have 3 trusted centers, which would triangulate a node and mining rewards could then be adjusted based on how geographically separated they are, but that's neither trustless nor decentralized.
The count of nodes matters too, because it decreases the probability of hostile nodes and the concentration of them. If there are 100 hostile nodes, and you add 100 honest nodes, then their power gets diluted.
And yes the political (not geographic) distribution counts as well. The political distribution is what matters. If there is 1 node in north Brazil and 1 in south Brazil that is still worth like 1. But if there is 1 in Iceland and 1 in Brazil that is much better.
Probably looking at thei IP/country should show you how politically distributed nodes are.
Like I've said before that seems like a paradox in Bitcoin. We want Work that is nontrivial, to prevent attacks, while also wanting nodes to be trivial to start and operate, to prevent other sorts of attacks. Seems to me as long as mining is profitable it will always struggle toward centralization, and Work minimization, which is always economically optimal. The only way for Bitcoin to remain secure is by being economically unoptimal, which would require charitable node operation, which has become more and more unfeasible as operation has gotten more expensive and tedious.
I expect we'll see even more centralization when we hit the next reward halving, which isn't exactly prescient, that's been the norm. Unless someone can find a clever way to incentivize node distance (node anarchy), which seems like a pretty hard problem, or we start pouring wine on the ground for the Bitcoin gods, we're going to see the slow death of Bitcoin as a decentralized trustless currency, though it may survive as some other sort of abomination.
I expect we'll see even more centralization when we hit the next reward halving, which isn't exactly prescient, that's been the norm. Unless someone can find a clever way to incentivize node distance (node anarchy), which seems like a pretty hard problem, or we start pouring wine on the ground for the Bitcoin gods, we're going to see the slow death of Bitcoin as a decentralized trustless currency, though it may survive as some other sort of abomination.
Of course centralization is inevitable to some degree, but we should still try to slow it down as much as possible until we can reach market equilibrium.
If the demand of security and decentralization remains high, then the centralization will only go as far and reach market equilibrium.
It's not nodes that need to be incentivized, that's really easy to do. It's also not latency we're looking for either. What we really want is a way to decentrally, and trustlessly, prove that nodes are geographically distant (as a proxy for node anarchy), and incentivize it. It's pretty easy to prove that any two nodes are closer than or equal to a certain distance, but I don't see how to do any better than that.
We could have 3 trusted centers, which would triangulate a node and mining rewards could then be adjusted based on how geographically separated they are, but that's neither trustless nor decentralized.
Like I've said before that seems like a paradox in Bitcoin. We want Work that is nontrivial, to prevent attacks, while also wanting nodes to be trivial to start and operate, to prevent other sorts of attacks. Seems to me as long as mining is profitable it will always struggle toward centralization, and Work minimization, which is always economically optimal. The only way for Bitcoin to remain secure is by being economically unoptimal, which would require charitable node operation, which has become more and more unfeasible as operation has gotten more expensive and tedious.
I expect we'll see even more centralization when we hit the next reward halving, which isn't exactly prescient, that's been the norm. Unless someone can find a clever way to incentivize node distance (node anarchy), which seems like a pretty hard problem, or we start pouring wine on the ground for the Bitcoin gods, we're going to see the slow death of Bitcoin as a decentralized trustless currency, though it may survive as some other sort of abomination.
We could have 3 trusted centers, which would triangulate a node and mining rewards could then be adjusted based on how geographically separated they are, but that's neither trustless nor decentralized.
Like I've said before that seems like a paradox in Bitcoin. We want Work that is nontrivial, to prevent attacks, while also wanting nodes to be trivial to start and operate, to prevent other sorts of attacks. Seems to me as long as mining is profitable it will always struggle toward centralization, and Work minimization, which is always economically optimal. The only way for Bitcoin to remain secure is by being economically unoptimal, which would require charitable node operation, which has become more and more unfeasible as operation has gotten more expensive and tedious.
I expect we'll see even more centralization when we hit the next reward halving, which isn't exactly prescient, that's been the norm. Unless someone can find a clever way to incentivize node distance (node anarchy), which seems like a pretty hard problem, or we start pouring wine on the ground for the Bitcoin gods, we're going to see the slow death of Bitcoin as a decentralized trustless currency, though it may survive as some other sort of abomination.
Maybe miners and nodes could vote to use half the satoshi's coins to provide long term nodes system for bitcoin?
I think he(they) can survive with the other half imao.
I think he(they) can survive with the other half imao.
sorry but that is a terrible idea, protocol changes should not happen
We'd need a way to verify that these full nodes are really full nodes to be rewarded. We should find some way of having a full node perform some work to prove they're not just a fake node. Maybe they could perform some sort of mathematical computations to prove they're real. And then when they find the right solution to this mathematical problem, we reward them with, say, 25 bitcoins. I think this would work. People would love such a reward and so they will run lots of full nodes!
I just leave that to the devs, they know more about nodes and how to identify them on the network. I`m just putting out my thoughts.
Electrum servers are full nodes, Electrum wallets download the block headers and verify them. So Electrum wallets also completely trust the miners and whichever server they connect to.
Also Electrum wallets send all their addresses to the server, so an Electrum server can spy on everyone who connects to it.
Also Electrum wallets send all their addresses to the server, so an Electrum server can spy on everyone who connects to it.
How so? If the electrum servers are nodes, then the wallet only needs to trust the servers, because the servers are already verifying if the blockchain is good or not.
However trusting the electrum servers is easy, just restart the client a couple of times and you get a new RANDOM server each time. If the TX data is the same every time, then it proves that the blockchain you are on is genuine.
We'd need a way to verify that these full nodes are really full nodes to be rewarded. We should find some way of having a full node perform some work to prove they're not just a fake node. Maybe they could perform some sort of mathematical computations to prove they're real. And then when they find the right solution to this mathematical problem, we reward them with, say, 25 bitcoins. I think this would work. People would love such a reward and so they will run lots of full nodes!
Electrum servers are full nodes, Electrum wallets download the block headers and verify them. So Electrum wallets also completely trust the miners and whichever server they connect to.
Also Electrum wallets send all their addresses to the server, so an Electrum server can spy on everyone who connects to it.
Also Electrum wallets send all their addresses to the server, so an Electrum server can spy on everyone who connects to it.
What do you mean by stopping miners to print infinute bitcoins? You need a hardfork for that with 95%+ consensus. And that is mining.
SPV wallets like Android Bitcoin Wallet or Multibit have a looser security model than full nodes. They don't fully verify the blockchain so they completely trust the miners. Which means if the miners print infinite bitcoins these wallets will happily accept them.
The reason it doesn't happen today is that much of the bitcoin economy is actually backed by full nodes, so if miners did create invalid blocks they would find it hard to find anybody to sell them to.
Read this post https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinBeginners/comments/3eq3y7/full_node_question/ctk4lnd
95% miner signaling is for soft forks, which are unrelated to this.
Interesting I didnt know that, that gives me some things to think about.
What about the ELECTRUM wallet model? They have an electrum server, which must be connected to their self hosted node, therefore 1 electrum server= 1 bitcoin node.
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum-server
So it is just like connecting to a bitcoin node, but through a 3rd party. You still have to trust the servers, but to my understanding, it connects to multiple ones to fetch the data ,so the probability of sybil attacks there is almost the same.
What's your take on that?
Maybe miners and nodes could vote to use half the satoshi's coins to provide long term nodes system for bitcoin?
I think he(they) can survive with the other half imao.
I think he(they) can survive with the other half imao.
What do you mean by stopping miners to print infinute bitcoins? You need a hardfork for that with 95%+ consensus. And that is mining.
SPV wallets like Android Bitcoin Wallet or Multibit have a looser security model than full nodes. They don't fully verify the blockchain so they completely trust the miners. Which means if the miners print infinite bitcoins these wallets will happily accept them.
The reason it doesn't happen today is that much of the bitcoin economy is actually backed by full nodes, so if miners did create invalid blocks they would find it hard to find anybody to sell them to.
Read this post https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinBeginners/comments/3eq3y7/full_node_question/ctk4lnd
95% miner signaling is for soft forks, which are unrelated to this.
What's the point? Say if one person rents lots of hosting on many different subsets, then they use an SPV wallet for their actual bitcoin usage.
Their nodes with open ports on rented hardware will do nothing to stop miners printing infinite bitcoins. The miners would just transfer their coins to an SPV wallet user and get goods and services in return.
The real problem is economically-active wallets not being backed by full nodes. Nodes on rented hardware that nobody uses as a wallet do nothing to remedy that.
Their nodes with open ports on rented hardware will do nothing to stop miners printing infinite bitcoins. The miners would just transfer their coins to an SPV wallet user and get goods and services in return.
The real problem is economically-active wallets not being backed by full nodes. Nodes on rented hardware that nobody uses as a wallet do nothing to remedy that.
What do you mean by stopping miners to print infinute bitcoins? You need a hardfork for that with 95%+ consensus. And that is mining.
I am talking about nodes, which may be controlled by miners, but may be not.
There are more bitcoin users than miners, and more individual nodes can be setup by honest people than by miners. So i dont understand how can the miners control all nodes in your scenario?
What's the point? Say if one person rents lots of hosting on many different subsets, then they use an SPV wallet for their actual bitcoin usage.
Their nodes with open ports on rented hardware will do nothing to stop miners printing infinite bitcoins. The miners would just transfer their coins to an SPV wallet user and get goods and services in return.
The real problem is economically-active wallets not being backed by full nodes. Nodes on rented hardware that nobody uses as a wallet do nothing to remedy that.
Their nodes with open ports on rented hardware will do nothing to stop miners printing infinite bitcoins. The miners would just transfer their coins to an SPV wallet user and get goods and services in return.
The real problem is economically-active wallets not being backed by full nodes. Nodes on rented hardware that nobody uses as a wallet do nothing to remedy that.
Giving money to anyone running a node with an open port will incentivize sybil attacks, that's a serious problem with your proposal you haven't dealt with. It will be hard to convince people to give money to something that has this problem.
No, sybil attacks can happen regardless. If an enemy wants to destroy bitcoin , they buy up a bunch of VPS and do the sybil attack.
If you give money to strangers, obviously multiple people, who dont know eachother, they will start hosting nodes.
If the proposal is implemented well, to limit the profit to 1 IP/ 24hours, or some other limitation, then they wont spam the network up with nodes.
However those people that dont host nodes currently, will start doing it.
Likely closer to 30k full nodes but ok. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Clearing_Up_Misconceptions_About_Full_Nodes#Myth:_There_are_only_about_5500_full_nodes_worldwide
As long as the majority of the liquidity and investment capacity uses full nodes, we'll be okay. Kids buying $10 in bitcoin to spend on steam games don't matter much in terms of miners trying to print infinite bitcoins.
Giving money to anyone running a node with an open port will incentivize sybil attacks, that's a serious problem with your proposal you haven't dealt with. It will be hard to convince people to give money to something that has this problem.
As long as the majority of the liquidity and investment capacity uses full nodes, we'll be okay. Kids buying $10 in bitcoin to spend on steam games don't matter much in terms of miners trying to print infinite bitcoins.
Giving money to anyone running a node with an open port will incentivize sybil attacks, that's a serious problem with your proposal you haven't dealt with. It will be hard to convince people to give money to something that has this problem.
Thats not much. I doubt more than 1-2% of bitcoin users care about those 3 points.
98% of bitcoin users however rely on convenience, comfort , and ease of access. Therefore from the perspective of 98% of users, they do not have incentive.
The only real and effective incentive is financial incentive.
I disagree, I think almost all bitcoin users care about privacy. I think you also just invented those percentages right now.
With fees going to nodes, all you do is incentivize sybil attacks.
Yes the percentages are invented, but look how bitcoin becomes mainstream.
First the tech guys joined, then the speculators, and now it's full of trendy people who dont give a shit about bitcoin, they just want to gamble or buy videogames with it.
Bitcoin's demographics is getting diluted as it gets mainstream. Do you seriously think that 100% of bitcoin users are loyal to bitcoin? Or care about bitcoin's long term? So the 1% is really as close as it gets.
For the 10 million bitcoin users you have only 5668 nodes, there is your proof how much the people care about bitcoin.
Most of them cant even backup a wallet normally.
So you need incentive to get more nodes, altruism can only provide 5668 nodes.
Thats not much. I doubt more than 1-2% of bitcoin users care about those 3 points.
98% of bitcoin users however rely on convenience, comfort , and ease of access. Therefore from the perspective of 98% of users, they do not have incentive.
The only real and effective incentive is financial incentive.
I disagree, I think almost all bitcoin users care about privacy. I think you also just invented those percentages right now.
With fees going to nodes, all you do is incentivize sybil attacks.
I agree, there should be some kind of financial incentive for node owners. Maybe 1% of fees should be given to nodes ?
But since this is not an actual problem, I really doubt anything will be done about it. In the future maybe, when nodes are rare.
But since this is not an actual problem, I really doubt anything will be done about it. In the future maybe, when nodes are rare.
Thats not much. I doubt more than 1-2% of bitcoin users care about those 3 points.
98% of bitcoin users however rely on convenience, comfort , and ease of access. Therefore from the perspective of 98% of users, they do not have incentive.
The only real and effective incentive is financial incentive.
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