Some important aspects for node runners \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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763 sats \ 56 comments \ @DarthCoin 14h bitcoin

I see many people getting into this endless debate "Core vs Knots". I personally do not try to take any side, I try to use my rationale and tech experience and not follow with feelings just because X says so.

Recently I saw a tweet from Shinobi that catch my attention. I didn't know what he's talking about so I asked Kevin and Nitesh if they can give some details.

Shinobi's tweet: https://xcancel.com/brian_trollz/status/1966947159007506475

And Nitesh's answer: https://xcancel.com/nitesh_btc/status/1967235507508961590

And Kevin's precise answer:

Read more about Ephemeral anchors here: https://bitcoinops.org/en/topics/ephemeral-anchors/ and a more detailed explanation about here: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/126098/pay-to-anchor-and-ephemeral-dust

I would like also to address another aspect that I do not see it mentioned in this debate. For all those node runners signaling whatever software version of their bitcoin node, do you also know the difference between a "personal node" (aka unreachable) and a "full node" (aka reachable)?

https://bitnodes.io/what-is-a-bitcoin-node/#reachable-vs-unreachable-nodes A TLDR:

port 8333 open
bitcoin.conf configured properly for more inbound connections and mempool size if you really want to be a seeder.

maxuploadtarget=<MiB per day>
listen=1
maxconnections=<num>
minrelaytxfee=
maxmempool=2000
mempoolexpiry=672

Otherwise is just useless virtue signaling or personal nodes, not full nodes. I wonder how many of those Umbrel/Start9/mynodes/RPi nodes at home (also behind Tor) are real full nodes (reachable) that really help the network and relay properly. And please don't come up with the bullshit excuse of "I am running X node to help the network". If your node is not reachable you are not "helping the network", you are using it only for personal use. That is perfectly fine, but please do not say that your shity RPi unreachable node behind Tor is "helping the network" or is helping in this stupid debate... it is not.

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33 sats \ 0 replies \ @tsjk 2h

The release notes explicitly comments on this. Given the comments it's not really clear that Knots would drop ln fc fee-bump txs.

Ephemeral anchors is a new concept that allows a single dummy recipient in a transaction, provided the transaction is zero fee and the "anchor" is immediately sent in another transaction broadcast together with it. This allows for smart contracts such as Lightning where neither party can unilaterally increase the transaction fee, yet using an anchor can create a followup adding the necessary fee. (#30239) By default, these anchors are accepted by Bitcoin Knots if and only if they are minimal size and zero value. If you want a more flexible policy (allowing for dummy sends and/or dust amounts), or wish to reject these new anchors entirely, you can use the new -permitephemeral option. There is also a -permitbareanchor option which permits (or forbids) transaction that do not have real recipients (only an anchor). (knots#136)

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @trieska 2h

trying to read second part again and again, trying read @DarthCoin comments and I am still confuse

my node serve these services bitcoin-cli getnetworkinfo

"localservicesnames": [
    "NETWORK",
    "WITNESS",
    "COMPACT_FILTERS",
    "NETWORK_LIMITED",
    "P2P_V2"
  ]

I think that NETWORK_LIMITED is there because I have maxuploadtarget=512M

NETWORK : This indicates your node is a full node participating in the Bitcoin P2P network. It serves and relays the full blockchain data and transactions to other peers. Other nodes connect to it to download blocks and transactions. This is the baseline service that makes a node a full validating node on the network.

bitcoin-cli -netinfo show this table

         ipv4   onion     npr   total   block
in          0       0      17      17
out         2       8       0      10       2
total       2       8      17      27

I dont know why but all 17 incoming connection over TOR are listed in column npr. But I want to show that I have incoming connection and believe those nodes can download from my node blocks (well max 512M for day), yes only TOR nodes can connect to my node. And you can see that my node connected to 2 clearnet nodes and believe those can also download blocks from my node.

I think that doesnt matter if connection is inbound or outbound, your node is relaying / sharing blocks.

reading https://bitnodes.io/what-is-a-bitcoin-node/#reachable-vs-unreachable-nodes

"... node is considered as a reachable node if it accepts incoming connections from its peers..." I think any incoming connection, whether via clearnet, tor, or i2p, counts.

also : While the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network requires reachable nodes to allow new nodes to bootstrap themselves, unreachable nodes do not negate their importance as they still form part of the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network and enforce the same consensus rules through their outgoing connections.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 2h

I think people are misinterpreting that table. The "in" column is what you receive (leech/download). The "out" column is what you send (seed/upload/share).

In other words, you are syncing /downloading from 17 peers and giving to 10 peers.

20 sats \ 34 replies \ @88b0c423eb 9h

"A Bitcoin node is considered as a reachable node if it accepts incoming connections from its peers." So if one has incoming connections, but only from tor and i2p it's still considered a reachable node, right? $ bitcoin-cli -netinfo Bitcoin Core client v28.2.0 - server 70016/Satoshi:28.2.0/

    onion     i2p     npr   total   block

in 13 5 1 19 out 7 3 0 10 2 total 20 8 1 29

0 sats \ 32 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 9h

Yes, but is limited only to those networks and specific peers, not the whole network.

Here is another interesting explanation by Eric Voskuil (source: https://xcancel.com/evoskuil/status/1960721620273684618)

Some people are better with observation than theory, and need to think through problems by way of examples.

So consider a case where there are 100 million full nodes, and only 100 of them support all economic activity in the world. All others only validate and relay valid blocks.

To function, the 100 do not require the others. They require only to obtain blocks, which of course arise only from each other. They connect and relay with the others, but get no actual information from them.

At some point the others all decide to hard fork, resulting in their nodes rejecting the 100’s blocks. The 100 continue to operate unaffected.

Or at some point the 100 decide to hard fork, resulting in the others rejecting their blocks. The 100 continues to operate unaffected.

Now consider the case in which economic activity, measured as the value of coin being accepted in trade on average over time, is evenly distributed among the 100. And in the case where the 100 hard forks, 1 of them (representing 1% of their economy) decides to not adopt the fork. This one remains with the others, the 99% continue. Also consider a scenario where 99% reject the fork, and 1 forks himself off.

In these cases, the 1 has 1% of the economic power, to either compel a fork, or resist one, and the 99 have 99%. This is not hash power, this is economic power. There is no implied majority control outcome, but there is outcome driven by power.

And now consider the 999,999,900 other nodes. They have zero impact on either scenario. They are totally irrelevant. The 100 doesn’t benefit from them in any way. In fact, they end up representing a Sybil against the economy.

10 sats \ 5 replies \ @028559d218 5h

This is what the configuration page looks like for an Umbrel node (out of the box) with their latest UI.

What should I be doing differently? Best I can tell I have ~ 50 peers over Clearnet/Tor/I2p but all my inbound connections appear to be Tor/I2p.

This is not the only node I run but it is the easiest to get 'configured' what do you think?

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @88b0c423eb 5h

@DarthCoin thinks it's best for you to use clearnet and forward port 8333 with a fixed public IP. Total nonsense.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin OP 4h

I didn't say is the best for you. I only point out the differences.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @88b0c423eb 4h

It's best for you to have both inbound and outbound connections for a better network, you incorrectly wrote that tor nodes don't have inbound connections or at max. 8 peers connections.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 5h

Best I can tell it's already configured... to connect over clearnet inbound to 'Listen'. Right?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @88b0c423eb 5h

Correct, using tor and i2p there's no need to open any port. i2p has no exit nodes so it will not conenct outside of i2p network, but tor will. I2p is much faster than tor though as every client is also a node.

0 sats \ 24 replies \ @88b0c423eb 8h

Why only the 100 support all economic activity in the world and the others million nodes don't?

0 sats \ 18 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 8h

because those 100 nodes opened their inbound port.

0 sats \ 17 replies \ @88b0c423eb 8h

So lets say there are no more nodes with inbound port open, what happens then?

0 sats \ 16 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 8h

then every node is limited to those 8 peers near by, even that the whole network is like 100k nodes.

Now ask yourself: what happen if you seed blocks from your node only to 8 peers, and you cannot get new blocks from others that are not in your network/area ? It means some nodes will not have the whole blockchain correctly seeding it. Quite a mess, right?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @02d769cb73 8h

but if even one of the tor/i2p nodes also accepts connections over ipv4/6, then the tor/12p nodes would still see the wider network through connection to that node - the config can allow any combination of connections to be active

0 sats \ 14 replies \ @88b0c423eb 8h

Do tor and i2p work only in my network/area?

0 sats \ 13 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 8h

is more about your latency

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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 8h

Each node behind Tor or 12p it falls under default rule of max 8 - 10 peers. That means only max 8-10 other new nodes can IBD from you or others to sync latest blocks. Due to the latency of Tor and i2p half of those will get kicked from connection several times.

To have more inbound you must define that in bitcoin.con file and open the port 8333. But this imply to have a really good connection, good hardware, public IP, good networking knowledge etc. things that many Umbrel or Start9 users do not have.

Let's say you create in the end a network only with a bunch of 100 nodes over Tor, ok you sync from each others just fine. But in fact you are isolating yourself from the rest of the network. Think about that.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @88b0c423eb 8h

You can much more than 8-10 peers over tor and i2p, I have 18 right now. But I could also use ipv4 and ipv6 over tor to connect to clearnet nodes without opening port 8333. Or am I missing something?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 8h

If you are NOT "listening" on port 8333 (or can be any other you want) for inbound connections, your node will randomly kick out peers from those max 8-10 connections.

That doesn't mean your node is not working properly. No, is OK to not open the port 8333, only that your node is not a full public node, but just a personal node.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @88b0c423eb 8h

you say max 8-10 connections, why I have 18 connections right now?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 8h

how many of those 18 are really active, downloading from you? Just because are connected it doesn't mean that you are really seeding to them.

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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @88b0c423eb 8h

but there are more nodes over tor and i2p than on clearnet afaik

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 9h

🤠

	onion	i2p	npr	total	block
in	13	5	1	19
out	7	3	0	10	2
total	20	8	1	29

👀 #1222611/edit

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 13h

good catch, thanks!

121 sats \ 3 replies \ @LibreHans 12h

I personally do not try to take any side

Darthcoin is a liar and a troll, #1219333

27 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 12h

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @standardcrypto 8h

All you are doing is punching yourself in the nuts.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @standardcrypto 8h

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0 sats \ 12 replies \ @02ad8239c2 13h

so knots can relay that stuff if users choose it, by adding the options to config ?

so why is that troll guy whining ?

just more stirring and smearing ?

0 sats \ 11 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 13h

The right question is: do all node runners (no matter what software they run) know these details or are just virtue signalers?

Just by saying (virtue signaling) "I am running Knots or Core or whatever" it is not helping the network in any way.

0 sats \ 10 replies \ @02ad8239c2 13h

i spose, all i know about knots nodes is that they have more config options than core nodes - also, looking at the xcancel link, maybe the core crowd are getting nervous about how many knots users there are if they have switched their position from 'it's useless' to 'it's a problem'

0 sats \ 9 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 13h

It really doesn't matter how many knots or core nodes are running. The only thing that matter for the Bitcoin network is the reachable nodes not the virtue signaling (personal) nodes. Anybody is free to run whatever they like (for personal use), I really do not care. What I do care is about those who says "to help the network" b ut in fact they have no idea what they are doing.

But if they do not configure properly their nodes, and also have LN channels, they could get rekt. Is like shooting yourself in your own foot.

0 sats \ 8 replies \ @_HUX13Y_ 11h

Does this mean that all Start9 nodes, which only run over Tor, are unreachable?

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 11h

yes. All those doesn't matter for the network, are just personal nodes (virtue signaling). Is like all those adding a flag to their twatter handle :)

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @_HUX13Y_ 11h

Another point is whether the node is even connected to a wallet. Many Knots users have the machine running but havent connected to Sparrow so there havent been any transactions through the node and it is not an 'economic' node. Is that correct?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin OP 11h

That is another aspect that is not important/related in this debate. What they do with their own personal nodes is their problem.

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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @_HUX13Y_ 11h

OK, interesting. That's a huge number of operators I imagine.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin OP 11h

Watching them how soon they will start complaining that their LN channels got rekt in FC. Making popcorns... and waiting for the mess.

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