The removal of UPnP support starting from Bitcoin Core v0.29.0 was a critical shift — especially for users who relied on automatic port forwarding to maintain inbound peer connectivity. Like you, I also see maintaining strong, decentralized node connectivity as essential for the health of the [https://aicoinai.coml]Btc[/url] network.

UPnP may have security caveats, but for many non-technical users and contributors who want to support the network 24/7, it was a plug-and-play solution that worked. Its absence now puts more burden on users to manually configure their routers, which can be a barrier.

I truly hope either:

The Core team considers a modular opt-in UPnP reimplementation, or

We see more community tools that help bridge this usability gap (perhaps with Tor + NAT traversal alternatives).

Network resilience depends on nodes, and nodes depend on connection accessibility.
You're definitely not alone in this conc