Topic: Why do average people run full nodes - page 2. (Read 2526 times)

Just a quip -- you can run armoryd/bitcoind and limit bandwidth consumed to ~8kb/s down, 2kb/s up with it still being fully functional and up-to-date (req's should be significantly lower than that, but I haven't checked in a while and wanted to be conservative) using an application-level bandwidth throttler like NetLimiter.

I think the disk space by today's standards is very small. By 5 years ago standards it would be a lot. At the rate the blockchain is growing and the rate that HD capacity is increasing the blockchain size will never be large in terms of possible hard drive space.

I run Bitcoin Core (with limited incoming connections) and Armory. It takes a big one-time download that took a few hours, ~50GB of disk space (with plenty free), ~650 MB of RAM out of 16GB, ~1 CPU hour out of 400 (based on current uptime and CPU time usages), and minimal bandwidth requirements. The last few of those I can pause any time I want to reclaim the extra resources.
In return, I get to use a good, secure client (Armory) that's connected to the network independent of any external service or undue reliance on peers (to tell the truth about the state of the blockchain, or to protect my privacy). And having powerful local clients, instead of overly-simplified ones, helps me learn more about the technologies behind it. I also like helping secure the network.

For me, that's an agreeable trade, so I run a full node. For some people, the requirements are relatively larger, and the rewards are less important to them, so the balance does not tip in the "run a full node" direction.

Self-interest can, in fact, be sufficient, including in my case. Altruism is a small part of why I run a full node, but is not sufficient nor necessary in my case.

And I know how average users can hurt the network. If we had fewer average users, I'm sure I could bump up my max number of connections substantially. I have to keep it low because I'll occasionally have someone want to download a huge number of blocks from me, and I have little upload bandwidth, so it interferes with anything else I'm trying to do.

Yep, it's an interesting conglomeration of rational self-interest and idealistic altruism.

I do it because it helps to increase the network security. It just feels right.

I do it simply to help the network. It doesn't seem to use a lot of resources on my computer.

Ah yeah sorry... I just saw your post and was intrigued so I clicked the reply button without reading further.

Thanks for that.

I did a few posts ago...

Not arguing or anything, but can you explain why it harms the network ??

Right now it's taking up 24,6 GB (one of the folders) of space for me.
I have 4x4TB configuration.
How is this a lot of disk space? The RAM usage was less than 10% at any time.

It's the collegiality, selflessness and public spirited ness that characterises the crypto community
Self interest alone cannot explain why it works

Because they don't open all the necessary ports to run a full node and so they end up being leechers slowing down the hole network.

I agree that thin clients are much better for 99.9% of people. I think that is clear and also intended considering it was in the Satoshi's white paper as well.

But I'm not clear on how an average user running bitcoinqt actually harms the network. How so?

People want to be part of the whole experiment. They love Bitcoin and thus want to contribute to it. Running a full node is the easiest way of doing that. If you want to mine, you have to invest a lot in mining hardware, also you're paying a lot for electricity. Running a full node is the perfect trade-off for many people, I guess!

Full nodes aren't for average users. Most average users that are running the reference client actually harm the network.

99.9% of the people should stick with a light version as their wallet and never care about how the network works.

It takes up a lot of bandwidth as many people are downloading the blockchain from you. Also you must keep the computer on at all times which uses up electricity.

I agree. Not much CPU. But ram and disk space. yeah.

"Without a hassle"

What about the really huge blockchain? Some people are complaining about it (not me) and are slowly switching to SPV wallets.
What about those with limited bandwidth?

Just asking 

I'm really learning a lot here.

So basically, they do it because they can. They want to do it. And as a result, it makes the Bitcoin infrastructure more decentralized than ever.

Amazing 

There is no harm running full node, actually that's good for decentralization. Satoshi think about it when he invent this. Besides big miners, everybody have ability to use core client without a hassle.