Understanding Bitcoin Node

The age of digital wealth is gradually stepping in and Bitcoin seems to be getting the spotlight as its price has tripled between January 2019 and August 2019. Those who invested in bitcoin years ago have already seen massive gains on their investments these past few months. It’s worthy of note that no one who held onto bitcoin did so in ignorant, they had an understanding of how it works.

Bitcoin has so many characteristics that makes it suitable as a store of value in the future because its supply is limited and be accurately calculated or measured, it’s easily divisible, portable, durable, verifiable, scares and censorship-resistant. These unique properties of bitcoin have attracted lots of investors from around the world into bitcoin within the past 10 years with a  direct impact on the price as reported by cointelegraph. One of the properties that makes Bitcoin so valuable to investors is its decentralized network that is spread across the world by over 9500 computers called nodes.

WHAT IS BITCOIN NODE:

A bitcoin node is any computer or group of computers that are running the bitcoin client software. These nodes are powered by electricity and can be run by anyone in the world, as long as you have the hardware requirements needed to run a node and the electricity to power the hardware. A single miner can have more than one node running simultaneously across the world, one for mining and maybe another for just running a node. It’s important to note that the more nodes bitcoin has, the more decentralized and stronger the network gets.

It is also important to note that whenever a transaction is made in the bitcoin network, these transactions are stored in these nodes across the world simultaneously, so they all have a copy of all transactions across the network. To make sure these records of transactions are fully immutable, some engineers have suggested that the bitcoin community pulls resources to have several nodes in space.

Unfortunately, there is no financial incentive for running a node if you are not a miner, incentives only come in when the mining process is activated. So a miner who makes income from bitcoin mining can run nodes just for the single purpose of protecting the network because the more nodes the bitcoin network has, the more decentralized and secured it becomes.

Node Distribution:

As mentioned before, not everyone who runs a node can make money from running a node, but some volunteers and miners in the bitcoin network run these nodes to provide extra security for the Bitcoin network. According to coindance, there are currently 9341 public nodes running on the Bitcoin network simultaneously across the world. 

The distribution is as follows ( as seen on 1st September 2019 ):

Source: https://coin.dance/

The future of Bitcoin lies in its strength and its strength lies in the decentralized distribution of the network. So why you buy and store bitcoin for the future, it’s important to know what is required to have this decentralized and immutable network.

Other interesting topics: 

• How to Use a Bitcoin ATM: A Detailed Tutorial:https://www.coincola.com/blog/how-to-use-a-bitcoin-machine/
• How to Start a Bitcoin Business in Nigeria: https://www.coincola.com/blog/make-money-with-bitcoin-in-nigeria/