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As the top answer to this post, Maximillian Laumeister claims:
"IMPORTANT NOTE: If you limit the bandwidth of Bitcoin Core far below your actual upload speed, it can actually harm the Bitcoin network instead of helping it."
It would seem to me as though every contributing full node would only help the network (regardless of ISP speed). Does limiting the bandwidth of Bitcoin Core actually hurt the network (compared to not running a full node at all), and if so, how precisely?
It would seem to me as though every contributing full node would only help the network (regardless of ISP speed). Does limiting the bandwidth of Bitcoin Core actually hurt the network, and if so, how precisely?
Not necessarily, but if everyone did it then yes.
If everyone actually trottled upload bandwidth so much that there is not sufficient bandwidth to bootstrap new nodes, then yes it is a major hindrance to future uptake.
In general, I believe the claim is applicable to the health of any peer-to-peer network, as oppose to just the bitcoin network. If the majority of users in Bitcoin are "leechers" and do not supply sufficient bandwidth to relay blocks and transactions, then clearly the bitcoin network will become less healthy as it will be harder for nodes to come into a consistent state and harder for new nodes to join the network.
It does not hurt the network; it just helps it less than the maximum potential amount you theoretically could be helping it.
The reason I added that section to my article is because Gavin Andresen, one of the Bitcoin Core developers, suggested in response to it that limiting bandwidth too much could be detrimental to the network because it slows block announcements:
gavinandresen
@maxlaumeister limiting number of connections is better for the network, limiting bwidth slows block announcements.
