20
votes
Accepted
Can bitcoin protocol be changed to add economic incentives to validating nodes?
I don't think it is possible. There are a few problems to incentivizing the operation of nodes.
When you pay people to run nodes, people running multiple nodes provide less value but earn more for ...
- 71.7k
16
votes
What is the difference between a miner and a full node?
A 'full node' is a participant on the network that has independently validated the complete copy of the blockchain, and thus has verified all transactions since the beginning. This requires about ...
- 201
15
votes
Accepted
Will the size of a Bitcoin Core full node be too big to run on a normal computer?
Bitcoin has to maintain some balance to be able to retain the ability to be decentralized. As you've correctly established, this is partly down to making sure that the resource requirements of fully ...
- 15.3k
13
votes
Accepted
How long does block validation take?
There are several questions here.
Please correct me if I'm wrong: The miner validates the newly received block before using it themself and sending it to their other connected peers.
Yes and no. ...
- 99.2k
10
votes
Accepted
How can I benefit by running a full Bitcoin node?
No, full node operators are not compensated in any way. If you run a full node, you will receive no monetary benefit.
However running a full node does benefit you. It means that you are contributing ...
- 67.4k
9
votes
Accepted
Can Bitcoin full nodes pinpoint the true source of a transaction which they've relayed?
In the bitcoin data directory there is a file called debug.log.
This file as noted in the bitcoin documentation:
May contain IP addresses and transaction ID's.
This does not indicate that a ...
- 2,680
8
votes
Accepted
How many peers do you need to securely synchronize with the blockchain?
One! Your full node will check every transaction and every block for validity while synchronizing. You therefore can be sure that whatever blockchain data your node accepts follows all rules of ...
- 71.7k
7
votes
Accepted
What is the meaning of the term "full-node"?
Fully validating nodes ("full nodes") are clients that have validated the whole blockchain self-sufficiently and enforce all of the rules of Bitcoin on any data they receive. Therefore, they cannot be ...
- 71.7k
7
votes
Accepted
Do I need to keep all blocks when running Bitcoin Core?
Full nodes keep all blocks by default, but this is not necessary to achieve full node security. Full nodes validate the complete blockchain and enforce all consensus rules regardless of whether a full ...
- 71.7k
7
votes
Accepted
Would more Full Nodes help scaling and transaction speed?
No, the number of full nodes is decoupled from capacity and fees.
Transaction capacity is a function of transaction size and blocksize. Blocks occur roughly every 10 minutes and have a fixed size. ...
- 71.7k
7
votes
What are the advantages to become a bitcoin node?
There benefit is that you operate a full node in the Bitcoin network. Yes, this is your premise but it's also the consequence of it. You merely seem to not understand what operating a full node means.
...
- 3,214
7
votes
Is there incentive for those who run lightning nodes?
Yes, but just running a lightning node is not enough.
In order for your node to be able to earn fees, it has to have payments passing through it. For this you need to have a routing node, which has ...
- 639
7
votes
Accepted
Does a 2009 node sync the whole bitcoin blockchain
In theory it can as the explicit consensus rules have not changed. However in practice, it will not be able to sync without some special modifications.
First of all, the network version is so old ...
- 67.4k
7
votes
Accepted
Can non mining full nodes prevent 51% attack? Does it actually strengthen the network? I am confused of its real purpose
Non-mining full nodes cannot prevent a 51% attack, but they are essential in preventing other attacks.
In particular, full nodes verify that the chain produced by miners is valid. This means that no ...
- 99.2k
7
votes
Running lightning in prune mode
Update(2021): Since version 0.13 pruned nodes are officially supported although they cause performance penalty and higher network usage.
It is possible to run Lightning (both LND and c-lightning) with ...
- 546
7
votes
If pruning is so safe, why aren't 100% of the Bitcoin nodes pruning? Why keep the unnecessary data?
There are three things pruned Bitcoin Core nodes (as of version 0.21.0) cannot do:
Serve historical blocks to new nodes that are trying to bootstrap.
Rescan for old wallet transactions after ...
- 99.2k
7
votes
Accepted
What does an un-upgraded node see when new Taproot transactions are on chain?
Yet, if the transactions are valid, the old nodes have no idea where those coins got spent. Are they seen as lost coins?
Old nodes do know where the coins are going, as the transaction format didn't ...
- 99.2k
6
votes
Accepted
How to check if my node is fully sync'ed
Calling getblockchaininfo is your best bet. It includes a field called verificationprogress, which is an estimate of how much of the chain you have validated.
Alternatively, compare headers to ...
- 8,812
6
votes
Accepted
How do I still have connections without forwarding port 8333?
When your node is not accepting inbound connections (either because there's NAT in the way or because you passed -listen=0 to Bitcoin) it still makes "outbound connections." These are connections to ...
- 29.2k
6
votes
Accepted
How is scalability of walletnotify of the full node wallet
Using walletnotify has proven to work and is used by a lot of scalable apps today. I would not rely on it completely though. walletnotify's job is to execute a shell command every time it receives a ...
- 1,334
6
votes
Accepted
Can I send almost 1MB transaction?
Can I send almost 1MB transaction?
To be able to send a transaction that a miner will accept, that transaction has to be a standard transaction. As defined in policy.h
/** The maximum weight for ...
- 10.1k
6
votes
Accepted
No inbound connections on my bitcoin full node with TOR
It generally takes a long time before the network "discovers" you're a good peer to connect to. It may be a few days before you get inbound connections.
I'm able to connect to you.
- 99.2k
6
votes
Does every node have a whole copy of the blockchain?
To join the network, a Bitcoin full node will work its way through the network history, independently verifying the state of the network through time. So yes, each node will have downloaded and ...
- 17.9k
6
votes
Accepted
Does Bitcoin Core validate signatures by default?
Bitcoin Core does validate all signatures after a certain point, and can be configured to validate all signatures in history if so desired.
The assumevalid feature only disables signature validation ...
- 67.4k
6
votes
Accepted
Is an SSD required to run a bitcoin full node and a lightning node?
A SSD is not required for running Bitcoin, but it certainly helps. You would definitely want one if you were running a production service using Bitcoin, but for something you're using personally it ...
- 15.3k
6
votes
Accepted
Bitcoin Core uploads much more than it downloads
While nodes are set to be listening by default, the vast majority does not permit inbound connections either because listening has been disabled or their network setup doesn't make the necessary port ...
- 71.7k
6
votes
Accepted
Does running a standard Bitcoin full node mean your node verifies transactions of other members?
The purpose of a full node in Bitcoin is to independently verify the consensus rules for transactions and blocks. This means your node will check every transaction and every block before accepting it ...
- 651
6
votes
Accepted
Why is my sync slow even with a dbcache of 16000?
Although you've set a dbcache large enough to contain the entire UTXO set, at some point you've restarted. This means that the cache will begin empty and so UTXOs will need to be fetched from the ...
- 67.4k
6
votes
Accepted
Security risks in running a full node on my personal computer that I use for banking, work, etc
You run a risk from co-mingling different activities. Your other activities pose a risk to your Bitcoin, and your Bitcoin node poses a theoretical risk to those other activities. The less activities ...
- 186
5
votes
Accepted
How can the transaction history be checked when new addresses are generated?
One thing you might be missing is "there are no balances". The network doesn't know about wallets or balances, it only knows about outputs. These outputs are either spent or unspent. Once you have ...
- 491
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