Running a node is useless if you don't use it to verify your own transactions.
True or false?
Discussion
False. it's a learning experience & self-education is useful.
True
Not exactly true. You may study Bitcoin.
You don't have to use it, but when you choose to do it, it feels so powerful.
With some wallets, when you use a 3rd party public node to check your wallet balances, they will expose your xpub (extended public key) and potentially reveal the common ownership of all the UTXOs (unspent transaction outputs) associated with that xpub.
Apparently, (AI says), that xpub threat vector should be rare now with the industry standard wallets.
But in general, your actions don't leave traces on 3rd party nodes. No one could be sniffing out your common input ownership heuristics, potentially connectning it with KYC identities, your IP address, etc.
False. That's the way to maximize your node, but even if you're not going to do that, running a node keeps miners and the network honest by still verifying that blocks meet consensus.
This is why many bitcoiners run multiple nodes and don't use them all to verify transactions.
For the verification to have an impact the rejection must have consequences.
If I run 1000000 nodes and start rejecting every transaction do I have a significant impact at all?
The network is not a democracy, the nodes who matter are the ones “receiving” transactions. (Your node matters most for receiving your own transactions, then will share the latest consensus with other nodes)
If you run a bunch of nodes rejecting all blocks, the other nodes will continue to accept the *latest* block according to the rules they run- so your nodes will be behind and the data they are sending would be useless very quickly.
This is what I was thinking and hence why I believe that running a node just to run a node dosen't really have an impact.
You're correct!
I disagree. Because it matters WHY you reject the transactions.
It mattered last year when Marathon mined a block that wasn't in consensus and was rejected. Foundry USA ended up receiving the reward because they made a transaction that wasn't valid.
The fact that there are 20,000+ nodes double checking the work matters.
If only Marathon was running a node in that instance the block would've gone through because they had full control over consensus.
I run a node so that when someone else turns theirs off for a bit they know the network is still being checked by others that agree until they can get theirs back online.
The point of decentralization is to keep people honest.
The example you gave is one person trying to be dishonest with 100,000 nodes. So you'd form a hard fork due to some arbitrary block rule the others don't support.
Who decided that the block wasn't valid? I assume you'll tell me that no single entity decided it but rather multiple nodes but then how many nodes does it take to decide if they receive or not the block reward?
Pretty much all the nodes decided they weren't valid. If I remember correctly they tried to spend from an address that didn't have any BTC because they messed up their order of operations. At that point the only way to receive the block reward is to fork the chain, or reorder the transactions before submitting a block again.
Again, you keep coming back to a single point of failure. This is why the book "block size wars" was written. This has already been done with BCH and BSV.
They have nodes that decide something else IS a valid block. At that point you become a whole new network.
But the bootstrapped plebs that ran BTC nodes in those early days kept it alive by not altering their consensus rules. Even though all the money in the world tried to shift to bigger blocks.
But at which point does this transaction become truly invalid?
1/4 of nodes
1/2 of nodes
3/4 of nodes
When is it clear that a transaction is invalid? Is it really a number of nodes or is it the consequences you're faced with when certain nodes do not recognized your transaction?
I Don't think what I'm talking about as to do with a point of failure. I don't see recognizing a transaction as valid or not to be a failure or not of Bitcoin.
Scratch last answer. I think I'm getting lost in a few things.
I do understand that a node validating a transaction following different rules = fork
I guess my current line of questioning is more about the impact that a node who simply record other transactions following the current rules would have if it was to change it's rules.
Imo, ot would have 0 impact.
They wouldn't serve as a 'force' to push the new fork as it as no economic power.
Then, if I believe this, I must also believe that a node who simply record valid transaction do not have much power in pushing the current original Bitcoin as the real Bitcoin.
Tho calling it useless might be wrong since they serve as decentralization of the ledger.
Essentially I might be coming to the understanding that
Economic node = Strong network
Nodes = Decentralization network
I don't know tho. Just thinking out loud 😄
Actually I really enjoyed that full line of thinking!
I agree with you on your train of thought.
It's not that the one node has a ton of power individually. It's the fact that it stops other individuals from trying to push whatever agenda they want.
You're holding the status quo by running the node. Which if #Bitcoin fails decentralization, let's face it, #Bitcoin fails all together. It's incredibly valuable to have more nodes although you can't see the benefit except abstractly.
It matters for you.
You decide if Bitcoin is decentralized or not. You can either contribute your small piece or trust others with your money.