There are multiple entities and open-source software that crawl the Bitcoin P2P network to discover and monitor nodes for various purposes (statistics, surveys, academic papers etc.)
Some of those I am aware of:
btc_node_scanner
dsn.tm.kit.edu
nodes.multiven.io
bitnodes.earn.com
bitnodes.io
Banning such nodes would free my connection slots for real useful nodes that actually provide consensus sourcing. But, is there any downside to banning such crawler nodes?
Also, what about banning
btc-seeder
nodes? Would that affect negatively the health of the P2P network?
I think the ideal answer could provide the effects to two cases:
- banning done by one user and how they are affected
- banning done by a grand/meaningful number of users and how the overall network would be affected
Thank you