Huh? Nodes are ipv4 only by default with measures in place limit subnet abuse and other means of Sybil attacks. It's assured that the node diversity is higher than in something like Bitcoin that permits incoming Tor connections for p2p connections and doesn't limit subnets or ipv6 only nodes.

For those with more limited network knowledge this lowers the barrier for entry for one entity with control of a client or datacenter to spin up thousands of unique appearing nodes.

Also bitcoins culture is way less "run your own node" focused. I'd posit that a higher percentage of Monero users run their own compared to Bitcoin.

Also, due to dynamic block sizes, monero can sustain orders of magnitude more on-chain activity than Bitcoin before needing a level 2. And lightning is EXTREMELY centralized. Even if used in the most sovereign way with LND behind Tor, you're still dealing with a hub-and-spoke node model which makes timing attacks easier. But regardless almost all volume is through custodians or LSP providers like Phoenix so that point is null.

Am I wrong in any of these counter arguments? If not how then does monero not stay decentralized in scaling? How do you even come up with that claim that's not even the main "monero is a shitcoin" cope.

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scaling on layer one is not something to be proud of, makes you less decentralized because you require more storage. im all for 300kb blocks. which is. my exact point. monero if it scales takes more disk space.

and we are aware current core implementation suck, that's why we wanna make a new clients from scratch, not just a fork of core.

Scaling on layer one is awesome. It's the highest degree of security and easiest to use. It should be maximized. Storage is simply the cheapest component of computing. The real limiting factors for node running is processing power (cryptographic validations of FCMP++ transactions will become more difficult) and upload bandwidth (most residential ISPs still offer asymmetric upload speeds which are quite slow.

You can buy like 20tb of HDD space for a few hundred bucks, storage isn't an issue.

node running should be available to everyone, people don't have to worry about storage.

layer 1 is something global everyone has to sync with 1:1. so keeping layer 1 small is the MOST important thing. it should trump every other idea.

i can't run a full node on my laptop. i have to use my old pc for it, or buy an another hardware. not really normie friendly.

only reason we need a timechain in the first place is preventing double spending. so it should do that, as a final signaling layer, a 10 minute heartbeat verify the order of things. and everything should be built around the constraint that we keep it as small as possible.

computing part is temporary initial hurdle, but you always feel the storage limits. you can't temporarily free your storage. if it bigger than an AAA game, its an issue.

full node target device should be your phone. and yes i agree on that processing also an issue, but its only temporary issue during the initial sync for the most part, bigger issue is the storage limit.

if im installing the bitcoin node on a friend's laptop, i always have to turn on pruning, but with pruning on, its mostly useless. so storage is a bigger issue.

they can download the chain verify it, but can't keep the whole data without buying additional hardware.

not to mention how we don't really have a good all in one software/app yet. that prioritizes normal people running useful full nodes.

For decentralization you don't want nodes to be up on a laptop you need consistent uptime to contribute properly to the network. Otherwise it's leeching. Same for the NAT environment, laptop nodes are often using public wifi and such away from home which will have incoming connections blocked. An open p2p port on an always on computer is ideal. In that environment, getting large storage is inexpensive and a minor hindrance.

We don't need every light client running a node, just more non malicious IPv4 addresses running nodes than malicious ones. Monero already has a strong culture of node running since you gain network level privacy via Dandelion++ using your own node. With bitcoin you don't gain much since there's no dandelion stem on bitcoind, though its been proposed in the past.

Node running will never be normie friendly unless it's a dedicated pay and play device. In that case storage doesn't matter, once again, since HDD space is cheap. Upload bandwidth and CPU validation isn't cheap though so that's really the danger imo with scaling.

Also Monero isn't designed for nor is trying to be a mass adoption network where everyone's using it for every transaction across the globe. Bitcoin L1 certainly isn't either. Lightning self custodial + decentralized is still DOA with terrible recieving UX and expensive fees for LSP solutions like Zeus and Pheonix. Lightning currently STILL needs to make make custodianship or centralization concessions for UX even remotely comparable to Apple Pay or Venmo.

I think lightning is the best thing to come out of Bitcoin is 10 years though and hope there can be a holy grail solution created so monero can adopt it. It could very well still be possible.

you can become a listening node over tor or i2p easily. you dont necessarily have to open a port on your router. it even works for mobile devices. for example i run a node on my phone. if i didn't have storage issue, i would be able to run it as a full node.

lightning is not the only thing that scsles bitcoin payments.

we need every device to have a hybrid node that starts as light client and downloads data on demand but also slowly becomes a full node in the background.

self custodian lightning can't scale alone, but things like ark, might be interesting.

i think there are places where we can optimize the storage in a bitcoin client, which might make things better.

better ux is important too. install the app and it slowly becomes a listening full node.

i think once we have a good client/node like that adopted, we can add for a new network communication protocol that can work alongside with the legacy raw tpc protocol. it can run on http and websockets. which makes browsers nodes easier to implement as well.

i should read what i wrote before pressing send. its awful. but still understandable. so meh

Bitcoin is the one that limits subnets while Monero does not really have good protections against this except for the ban list which seems to be getting circumvented.

If there's spam attacks or large adoption increase post FCMP upgrade then node resources requirements will stop a lot of people from running nodes. It could be more akin to Ethereum nodes.

Monero Txs are 50x the size iirc, and require more compute. so I think the total on chain Txs will be similar to Bitcoin at the cost of being more resource intensive

Monero devs don't really value node costs being low (measure of decentralization)

https://monero.observer/monero-v0.18.4.3-fluorine-fermi-released/

Second latest update severely limits /24 subnet connections.

Yeah tx sizes are big, blocks are adaptable in size to compensate. This isn't an issue for storage as much as it is for bandwidth and validation CPU time in my opinion. I went into detail more in my other comment.

Also I'd argue that if nodes aren't able to IBD (in a few days) or even sync after IBD behind Tor / limited bandwidth environments then decentralization is substantially hurt

Monero looks to be going in this direction.

You're right about bandwidth that's the major concern. FCMP does make that worse, there will certainly be a time in the future when a scaling solution will need to be invented. I disagree time to download the blockchain will matter much its already multiple days, not much difference to add more days at that point IMO. Plus it's one and done.

I disagree that Tor nodes help much for decentralization. Mostly they're for client privacy. It makes it too easy to spin up thousands of unique looking onion addresses if your node is malicious. It used to be officially supported to open up the p2p port for onion addresses now it's just used for relaying transactions over hidden services https://docs.getmonero.org/running-node/monerod-tori2p/

The key to node decentralization is to make it difficult for malicious entities to spin up thousands. Ipv4 only and limited reselection of /24 subnets is huge for this https://monero.observer/monero-v0.18.4.3-fluorine-fermi-released/ this is much more effective than trying to limit block sizes to hopefully get more normal people running nodes.

Also mining centralization is the most dangerous centralization force for a L1 which we've obviously seen recently with the Qubic attack. P2pool adoption is pretty high at around 5% hopefully this increases. Node decentralization is inconsequential tot he attacks of mining centralization.