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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @dgdhr335 2 Sep \ on: While we are grumbling over other things, we might just loose Bitcoin!! bitcoin
Is it really "too small" a number though?
You can have millions of people using bitcoin and potentially billions on the various other layers eventually...but does that necessarily require a large percentage of them running nodes?
Is the number really growing slowly or stalled?
Bitnodes.io has the number of nodes online being somewhat flat around 10,000 for several years before 2021 and then the growth has been reasonably steady in the ~4.5 years since. Now over 23,000 in over 100 countries. Seems fine enough from where I'm sitting.
I'm looking at it from the standpoint of what is at stake, really. Bitcoin's protocol security is dependent on how decentralized the network is, and much of the power of protocol decision-making lies with the nodes. Think of the nodes here like the U.S. Senate.
For a system that is rapidly and drastically becoming economically valuable, the number of decision makers (a.k.a nodes that protect the integrity of the network) seems really small, especially when weighed side by side with the number of people using that network and the value vested in it.
If your numbers are accurate, then the growth rate of the nodes post 2021 is reasonably cool, cos it means there are 7+ new nodes every day from 2021 till date. However, my attention is on the general number.
We should have the least 100k nodes accounted for, while hoping that there are numerous other ones not accounted for.
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Bitcoin mining centralization is a cause for alarm, no doubt.
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