THE BITTER PILL ABOUT BITCOIN NODES NO ONE WANTS TO SWALLOW

Tonight I sat with hardcore Bitcoin devs, and they dropped a truth bomb on me, worth sharing:

Your node doesn’t mean sh*t if no one cares about your money.

That node you’re running?

Unless it’s tied to real economic activity,

it doesn’t enforce consensus, it just watches.

Consensus follows power. And in Bitcoin, power is where the money flows.

*If miners and businesses don’t run full nodes,

the rules can be rewritten.

*And no, your solo node won’t stop them.

>>That’s the part no one wants to admit.

But before you throw in the towel…

- Even if you don’t move markets, your node still matters.

• Every node adds decentralization

• Every node makes censorship harder

• Every node enforces the rules locally, without trust

• Every node is a tool of education, onboarding, and resistance

Your node may not swing consensus,

but it plants the roots of an unkillable network.

So don’t stop. But don’t settle either.

- We need economic nodes

- We need real-world incentives tied to rule enforcement

- We need value-backed verification, not just virtue signaling

Running a #core or #knots node gives you truth.

But truth without power won’t defend #Bitcoin.

Want to protect the signal?

Make sure money flows through the rules, not around them.

GN #Nostr

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

GN Knotstr

That’s something else to write about later.

GN ✨🌙🫂

Hear, hear

It’s true — especially the part about miners. People who just point their hash at a pool without running their own node *and* building their own block templates aren’t miners. They’re just hashers — outsourcing control and renting out their hashrate, usually to some shitcoin-friendly pool that decides what gets into the timechain.

Also people who hold their coins in self custody, but don’t use their *own* node to move them are just a LARP bitcoiners, because they still use third parties to transact (adding a layer of trust and losing privacy in the process). Still, given the current fuckery of Core devs, running Knots is the preferred method.

Exactly this. A node sitting on your shelf keeping a copy of the full-history of all on-chain transactions doesn't do anyone any good just sitting there.

Is your wallet connected to it, or do you use some default 3rd party's node?

Do you use it for your own lightning wallet, or do you just use a custodian because it's easy?

Is your bitaxe connected to it for creating your own block templates, or are you just pointing it at a "solo" pool that creates them for you?

When you want to check the status of a pending transaction, do you pull up your own node's mempool explorer, or do you just go to mempool.space?

Run a node for YOU. It doesn't really provide benefit to anyone else, and doesn't provide you any benefit unless you actively use it.

Here to help anyone who wants to learn how.

Isn’t keeping a full copy of all on-chain transactions a benefit to everyone? How does this not provide value? The more copies the better, isn’t that what makes Bitcoin resilient in the first place?

Creating your own block template is another benefit as it decentralizes mining. Why does using your node for economic transactions the only thing that counts??

Your copy of the blockchain is YOUR copy. It doesn't do anyone else a bit of good whatsoever except insofar as there is additional redundancy, but that's a diminishing benefit.

An example might be in order. Say there was only one copy of Shakespeare's complete works in existence. The first duplicate creating some minimal amount of redundancy woult be incredibly valuable to have, so long as it was kept in a separate location. A third duplicate would make it even less likely that they would ever be destroyed, but it wouldn't be as valuable to society as that second copy was. By the time there are tens of thousands of copies of Shakespeare's complete works, the chance that all copies will be destroyed and forever lost are virtually zero, so the next copy that is added, while it technically helps ensure this is the case, it's really not measurably meaningful for anyone other than the person who owns that copy, because there may be tens of thousands like it, but that copy is THEIRS.

Same thing with Bitcoin nodes. Running a node does mean it is marginally harder for Bitcoin to ever be destroyed, but it's not like Bitcoin is meaningfully less resilient without your node.

Your node does relay pending transactions and newly found blocks to its peers, but they don't rely on your node alone for that information either. They would have just received it from a different peer instead.

Now, that doesn't mean running a node doesn't matter. It most certainly DOES! It's just that it primarily matters for YOU, and not anyone else. So long as there is reason for people to run a node for their own use, and it remains relatively easy to do so, node-count will continue to grow and Bitcoin will remain resilient.

If no one has any real reason to run a node for their own use, though, node-count will start to dwindle and Bitcoin will become less and less resilient, one node shutting down at a time.

Quality analogy

Ahh I see what you’re saying.. thanks for the clarification.

Gm

I'm curious to learn, but i still feel resistance to get one. Reasons be, the technical stuff, but this I can learn. Others or that I like turning off my internet when I'm off to bed. I understand that that can be hard on the node when every morning it needs to update. And other reason is I live small and to hear some buzzing sounds of a ventilation... well, rather not. Ideal would be to have a space just this all.

So that be my hurdles i know of.. Still I see the point that running one makes the system more robust. Umbrell and star9 or on my radar. Looks nice and small.. Any other options? I imagine the tech keeps getting more user-friendly for tech-dumbies.

For mining I saw this cylinder type one. ..Heat...something is the name, that can filter and/or heat the air in the house.

What tutorials, education stuff would you recommend for me to get more acquainted with what I need to know.

Start9 and Umbrel are both incredibly easy to get started with. I would lean toward Start9, personally. I have used both and I like my Umbrel as a media and Nextcloud server, but my Start9 more as a Bitcoin node.

You're right. Turning off the internet every night is not ideal for your node. It means it will be required to catch up to the most recent block every morning before you can do anything with it. What is the reason you turn your internet off? Would it be something where you could just turn off the wifi and have your node hard-lined in?

Nodes are really quiet. Not like miners at all. Even in a small space, you likely won't notice any fan noise from your node.

Using a miner for heat is a good deal, if you are already using electric heat. You get KYC-free sats and heat out of the deal. I have done this with an S9 converted to a space heater. It is NOT an efficient miner, but you don't need it to be, because you'd be paying for that energy to heat your space anyway.

As for where to go to learn how to get this all up and running, nostr:npub1rxysxnjkhrmqd3ey73dp9n5y5yvyzcs64acc9g0k2epcpwwyya4spvhnp8 has videos on all of the above, from setting up your nostr:npub126ntw5mnermmj0znhjhgdk8lh2af72sm8qfzq48umdlnhaj9kuns3le9ll node, to connecting it to your wallet software of choice, to converting an S9 into a space heater, or just dabbling in mining using a Bitaxe connected to your own node for block templates. Ben breaks it all down and you will learn a TON about how Bitcoin works.

Miner and Full Node Combo for the win!

Interesting issue you are raising here but I don’t really get the Problem. Isn’t a consensus of more than 50% of the nodes (no matter who runs them) needed to approve new blocks? Why do you need certain parties to run them too? Is that the skin-in-the-Game-theory?

No it’s not the case. It’s only the nodes with economic value to the network that would make a difference in that case. I don’t need that. That’s how bitcoin works.

This was the penny drop moment I had recently from nostr:nprofile1qqsg86qcm7lve6jkkr64z4mt8lfe57jsu8vpty6r2qpk37sgtnxevjcpzemhxue69uhkummnw3ezummwwdshguewdaexwqgnwaen5te0d3hkxctvdphhxap6xsurvwgh495gf

It makes so much sense and I’d never thought about this before

Where did you hear it from Jeff?

Just from the hundredth podcast I heard from him 😅 took a while for it to actually sink in I know he’s been trying hard to explain it!

😂

I heard it helps massively to have some Bitcoin on it associated wallet.

does using wallet for zap and alby hub channel part of economic activy even 5$ a month worth

Thank you. I’m choosing not to support the tiny hats and distribute child porn via my nodes.