Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Why are we bleeding nodes?

From: Gregory Maxwell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2014 09:57:08 -0700

On Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 9:27 AM, Mark Friedenbach <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Right now running a full-node on my home DSL connection (<1Mbps) makes
> other internet activity periodically unresponsive. I think we've already
> hit a point where resource requirements are pushing out casual users,
> although of course we can't be certain that accounts for all lost nodes.

That is an implementation issue— mostly one that arises as an indirect
consequence of not having headers first and the parallel fetch, not a
requirements issue.

Under the current bitcoin validity rules it should be completely
reasonable to run a full contributing node with no more than 30 kb/s
inbound (reviving two copies of everything, blocks + tansactions ) and
60 kbit/sec outbound (sending out four copies of everything). (So long
as you're sending out >= what you're taking in you're contributing to
the network's capacity). Throw in a factor of two for bursting, though
not every node needs to be contributing super low latency capacity.

This is absolutely not the case with the current implementation, but
it's not a requirements thing.