Quote from: TiceOwil on August 09, 2018, 09:56:05 AM

The innovation in Bitcoin is decentralized consensus. Because of this, we are able to have a decentralized network that transfers value. I believe we all agree that a good number of full nodes (whether that be owned by miners or by users) are needed to keep the decentralized nature of this network.

However, there are plethora of disagreements on how much is needed to keep this network decentralized. In my opinion, we should aim high in order to keep the network decentralized and thus should do all we can to make it easier for anyone to have full nodes. If the cost of running a full node is so cheap and so fast, SPVs wouldn't even be needed; this removes the need for many things such as the inefficient (and not working) Bloom filters. The thing that stops individuals from running full nodes is how long it takes for the initial synchronization process. To conclude, imo, cost of full nodes should be so cheap that every wallet would be a full node that has its own full copy of the blockchain (you could prune if storage is the problem).

If we don't aim to have as much full nodes as possible, that means that there is a "good enough". Where would this "good enough" be and what are the reasons you came to this conclusion?

Any thoughts are very welcome and appreciated.

I agree that the more people there are running nodes, the more decentralized the network is (from one perspective: one could argue that decentralization comes in many forms ie broad distribution of tokens, broad distribution of hashing power etc)

However, I don't think there's a hard number to be decided upon. Maybe representing the number as a percentage would be a better option, but even then I'm at a loss for what's an appropriate number.

Quote from: DooMAD on August 10, 2018, 05:04:38 PM

Quote from: TiceOwil on August 09, 2018, 09:56:05 AM

If the cost of running a full node is so cheap and so fast, SPVs wouldn't even be needed; this removes the need for many things such as the inefficient (and not working) Bloom filters. The thing that stops individuals from running full nodes is how long it takes for the initial synchronization process.

Not necessarily. It's worth considering that not everyone has a PC or similar device they can dedicate to the task. I know plenty of people where they just own a tablet or netbook that wouldn't really be suitable and then other things like smartphones and gaming consoles, which aren't of much use in running a full node either. The idea of everyone having a "home computer" has been somewhat diluted as of late. People seem to prefer their portable devices now. Because of this, SPV is always going to be a significant proportion of the userbase.

It's plausible that in the near future people will be able to run nodes from their phones or tablets.

Quote from: DooMAD on August 12, 2018, 11:40:13 PM

Quote from: ETFbitcoin on August 10, 2018, 06:08:16 PM

P.S. i strongly recommend you to move this thread to Development & Technical Discussion to avoid spam and get better feedback

That's one option, but I'd like to see if it's possible to reclaim the main Bitcoin Discussion forum with a few decent topics. We can't just abandon every board when it gets spammed. If this topic starts to be filled with low quality content, simply press the "Report to moderator" link for the offending post and mark it as low quality.

Quote from: ETFbitcoin on August 10, 2018, 06:08:16 PM

Quote from: TiceOwil on August 09, 2018, 09:56:05 AM

The innovation in Bitcoin is decentralized consensus. Because of this, we are able to have a decentralized network that transfers value. I believe we all agree that a good number of full nodes (whether that be owned by miners or by users) are needed to keep the decentralized nature of this network.

I agree, however the community have hard time agreeing how much total nodes count considered as "good enough".

I'd argue that, regardless of what people think a safe number should be, it's less about reaching an agreement on what that number is and more of an "encourage what you can, but accept it for what it is" kind of situation. Even if we did all know what this "good enough" number was, we don't have any kind of direct control over it. Nor should we. But I'd like to think that the path we're on at the moment, with numerous optimisations being worked on to make transactions smaller and more resource-efficient, plus allowing for off-chain transactions, is the right way to encourage a healthy node count. What more can we really do? Ultimately, we have to let people use Bitcoin in the way they want to use it. If they want to run a full node for the extra privacy and security, great. If they want to rely on SPV, that's cool too. It's not something we should try to force.

You're a hero.

Your statement about letting people use Bitcoin how they want to use it couldn't be more true. Let the network adapt to the network.

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