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Legit question. Why can’t we run Bitcoin Nodes directly on our phones? Why do we have to use over-priced Raspberry Pis, $500+ PnP hardware, or old laptops for this crap?

A phone has a screen, keyboard, battery backup, less physical space, and lower electricity demand. it's more secure. Always on. Always with you. Doesn't need to be connected by cable to a physical router. It also never faces stock shortages because it's ubiquitous.

What am I missing here? Why isn't this a thing?

#bitcoin #asknostr #node

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Discussion

vlada 1y ago

Does your phone have 500 GB of storage to run a full node? What about bandwidth?

I suppose you could run a prunned node.

We do have mobile LN nodes.

Enki 1y ago

Because I haven't seen a phone with two terabytes of space.

Skipper 1y ago

#bitcoin timechain is about 500 GB. Some #android phones have up to 1 TB of built-in storage, and some also support SD cards. There is also the option of an external SSD that you connect via USB-C.

Even if all those options aren't ideal. What's stopping us from running a pruned node?

Felix 1y ago

Some people did it but it's not really practical

w3ird_ 1y ago

wanna be sovereign? run a full node. pruned node isn't a full node. it's a nonstarter if it's not a full node.

Secretary Janet Yellen 1y ago

Only few phones are capable of holding the whole #Bitcoin blockchain. But hopefully, pretty soon, most phones will have the storage.

Skipper 1y ago

A small pruned node would be enough for many.

Analogue Dog 1y ago

There's ongoing workiand research in the area of Zero Knowledge proofs, that should fix this problem. Iirc there's a 'Blockstream Talk' podcast episode about it.

Kreig 1y ago

You could always dabble in pi if you really want a mobile node

𝖋𝖎𝖆𝖙𝖉𝖊𝖓𝖎𝖊𝖗 (¯`◕‿◕´¯) 1y ago

my phone cost $1500 and to run a node, it needs to be plugged in 24/7 and can't be used for anything else

pi - $200 all in

Simple math

Happy₿ear🇮🇱 1y ago

The idea was that many people upgrade 1500$ phones after 3 years and the specs are good for a node so why not give it another life. But it didn't catch.

Ronin 1y ago

Why thought? Even LN nodes on a phone if you put the node always on in the background sucks too much battery. Somethings aren't ideal for a phone, run it on your personal laptop or in an old one and connect with a wallet.

Skipper 1y ago

One less device. One less thing to worry about. If you're always on the move or don't have a permanent home base, then you are fucked as node runner. 🙂

If I can't carry my node with me everywhere, 24/7, then I can't protect it. I guess a small laptop or tablet might just be the solution i need. But having the node on the phone would make things a lot easier.

[ARCHIVED] Jay 1y ago

From my experience, it takes a lot of computing power to validate the chain up to this point. Even on good hardware it's taken me a few days to a week to get a full node up-to-date. But then the marginal computing power necessary to process new blocks is negligible. So mostly you see light nodes running on phones.

Hamlin 1y ago

Shit batteries. Also, everyone would likely be using the same software versions. *see Lopps latest post.

Happy₿ear🇮🇱 1y ago

There was an attempt few years ago. I'm sure the app is still there.

It's a good idea to run a node on an older phone, 3 yo device has the specs. But in reality it didn't catch.

I think Androids kill processes so it must be on and the read write the node required was too much....

Late Night Blog 1y ago

Could probably do so with Termux. May struggle a little battery/storage wise but should be perfectly doable