Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Fwd: Block size following technological growth

From: Pieter Wuille <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2015 18:30:28 +0200

On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 6:06 PM, Thomas Zander via bitcoin-dev <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> You make a logical fallacy;
>
> I would agree that nodes are there for people to stop trusting someone that
> they have no trust-relationship with.
>

Yay, trust!

> But your conclusion that low node count is an indication that its hard to
> run
> one discards your own point.  You forget the point that running a node is
> only
> needed if you don't know anyone you can trust to run it for you.  I'm
> pretty
> darn sure that this will have a bigger effect on nodecount than how hard it
> is.
>

I never said it is the only factor that influences node count.

Or, in other words, without a need to run a node you can't judge the
> difficulty of why there aren't more running.
>

If the incentives for running a node don't weight up against the
cost/difficulty using a full node yourself for a majority of people in the
ecosystem, I would argue that there is a problem. As Bitcoin's fundamental
improvement over other systems is the lack of need for trust, I believe
that with increased adoption should also come an increased (in absolute
terms) incentive for people to use a full node. I'm seeing the opposite
trend, and that is worrying IMHO.

-- 
Pieter