Author: Alan Reiner 2012-12-04 22:44:01
Published on: 2012-12-04T22:44:01+00:00
The discussion is about how to ease the transition for new users to get on the Bitcoin network and use it. The topic of running full nodes in the future is considered important but not relevant to accommodating users who want to simply "use" the network without necessarily "supporting" it. There is an assumption that new users are desired whether they use a full node or not. The number of full nodes needed for a healthy network is expected to be something more like O(sqrt(N)) rather than O(N) in the number of users. It is suggested that there may be an upper limit above which the network gets no benefit, even if all 7 billion humans were using it. A system that is "full-node-or-nothing" could drive away users that won't support the network, so various gradations of participation should be accommodated.The proposal for an address-based meta-chain is seen as what is needed in the long run, but there is a long path between theory and a working implementation that can serve as the backbone for future Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) nodes. There is every intention to pioneer that when Armory has other major features completed, such as multi-sig, but it's not something that we can even consider in the near- or medium-term as a solution to rely on. It is suggested that encouraging new users to start "using" Bitcoin, even if they don't "support" it, is in everyone's interest. As long as there is a convenient channel for interested users to get more information about the system, the benefits of spending the effort to run a full node, and the features available in more-advanced clients, then there should not be a concern about a shortage of full nodes, and promoting SPV nodes for the really-new users should be carried forward.There is a debate about whether Bitcoin needs to have every man and his dog run a full node. Tor is cited as a successful P2P network where the number of users vastly outstrips the number of nodes, and exit nodes in particular are a scarce resource run by people who know what they're doing and commit to it. However, Bitcoin is viewed as less similar to Tor than suggested, since Bitcoin is a distributed currency whose value comes from confidence in Bitcoin and not from the specific functionality of Bitcoins. Even if the ledger isn't actually compromised but people reasonably believe it could be compromised, that undermines the value. It is suggested that we cannot easily send a clear and consistent "this is important, please help" message without complicated auto-upgrade/downgrade schemes that risk annoying users. Asking for people to run distinct software which has no capability to be a full node, and changing what they're doing in order to support the network, maximizes the cost.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T09:30:29.585932+00:00