The actual state of the Bitcoin network

Very little actual work has been done to understand or measure the Bitcoin peers network - that very thin layer of lubrication standing between users (with their often ridiculous expectations) and miners (with their usually limited abilities). This neatly mirrors the way very little thought has been expended on the entire peer sync-ing mechanism throughout, to the point of it being still, five years later, the principal weakness of the entire construction on the protocol level.

To make matters worse, very little of the little actual work done is even publicly known, and as a fatal flaw the few places publishing any sort of information (such as bitnodes.io, blockchain.info, etc) include thoroughly broken methodologies to the tune of

Bitnodes uses Bitcoin protocol version 70001 (i.e. >= /Satoshi:0.8.x/), so nodes running an older protocol version will be skipped.

Obviously journalists, social media heads and other (usually unwitting) disinfo agents would not be interested at all. For they actually interested in the actual truth of the matter, sources of information are... scarce, to put a very fine point on "absent". But since I've been recently involved in supporting the Republic's efforts towards an actually usable Bitcoin with a mother nodeⁱ, I can offer eight hours' worth of statistics on the network, as seen by a powerful, well connected node - but much, much more importantly than that - by a node without Ira. Or studio.

Here it is :

• 109.234.156.218:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362722.
• 68.8.231.101:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362722.
• 45.58.49.35:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362722.
• 175.41.137.194:8333 tried. Version 70003, blocks=362722.
• 96.244.44.150:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362722.
• 78.227.49.100:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362722.
• 82.34.222.232:8333 tried. Version 70001, blocks=362722.
• 82.16.136.216:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362724.
• 109.234.156.218:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362722.
• 68.8.231.101:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362722.
• 45.58.49.35:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362722.
• 175.41.137.194:8333 tried. Version 70003, blocks=362722.
• 96.244.44.150:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362722.
• 78.227.49.100:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362722.
• 82.34.222.232:8333 tried. Version 70001, blocks=362722.
• 82.16.136.216:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362724.
• 69.207.6.135:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362684.
• 89.28.117.31:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362684.
• 176.37.23.74:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362684.
• 67.180.2.77:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362684.
• 107.4.134.66:8333 tried. Version 70001, blocks=362684.
• 107.170.245.123:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362684.
• 207.235.39.214:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362684.
• 75.157.237.25:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362685.
• 58.7.80.218:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362686.
• 173.74.117.113:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362686.
• 128.8.124.7:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=346253.
• 85.159.237.191:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362686.
• 209.234.248.19:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=280006.
• 209.89.249.72:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362686.
• 93.184.16.246:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362687.
• 107.144.142.126:8333 tried. Version 70001, blocks=362687.
• 83.216.149.204:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362687.
• 79.136.89.137:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362687.
• 129.123.7.7:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362687.
• 46.246.6.225:8333 tried. Version 60001, blocks=0.
• 192.198.92.98:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362687.
• 79.132.230.144:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362687.
• 82.130.102.173:48350 connected. Version 60001, blocks=0.
• 148.251.238.178:36250 connected. Version 70002, blocks=362687.
• 82.130.102.211:40628 connected. Version 60001, blocks=0.
• 148.251.238.178:33583 connected. Version 70002, blocks=362687.
• 148.251.238.178:3745 connected. Version 70002, blocks=362687.
• 82.130.102.173:33979 connected. Version 60001, blocks=0.
• 148.251.238.178:15928 connected. Version 70002, blocks=362687.
• 82.130.102.211:33028 connected. Version 60001, blocks=0.
• 74.129.184.44:8333 tried. Version 70001, blocks=362688.
• 108.61.188.94:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362688.
• 208.77.19.18:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362688.
• 88.115.33.40:8333 tried. Version 70001, blocks=362692.
• 104.175.99.239:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362692.
• 192.117.155.70:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362692.
• 184.144.169.50:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362692.
• 24.135.55.134:8333 tried. Version 70001, blocks=362694.
• 71.71.235.168:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362696.
• 81.169.175.126:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362699.
• 123.57.189.199:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362697.
• 188.165.199.114:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362699.
• 96.50.165.37:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362699.
• 63.225.171.181:8333 tried. Version 70001, blocks=359378.
• 146.52.134.75:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362710.
• 162.243.202.51:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362715.
• 199.255.138.116:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362715.
• 73.23.17.218:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362716.
• 62.202.0.97:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362716.
• 188.138.33.239:8333 tried. Version 70002, blocks=362717

Some quick statistics :

• Distinct IP/32 : 53 ; Distinct IP/24: 52 ; Distinct IP/16 : 52. Very good dispersion.
• Version 70002 : 42 (79%) ; Version 70001 : 7 (13%) ; Version 60001 : 3 (6%); Version 70003 : 1 (2%). Absolutely negligible uptake of the more recent Power Ranger braindamage. Most people stuck on 0.8 because they noticed Gavin's turning late and don't like downgrading.
• Fully up to date : 7 (13%) ; Within an hour : 5 (9%) ; Within a day : 37 (70%) ; Further : 1 (2%) ; Just starting : 3 (6%). Most nodes are still, blessfully, run by amateursⁱⁱ.

Feel free to add your own comments below.

1. By "perhaps the oldest chain still in continuous existence" I mean that this node feeds all askers blocks from a database in its original state, which has been functioning without interruption since mid-2012. There is no weird conversion here, no reindexing strange, but instead a firm guarantee that "nothing has changed" and it is, indeed, still the Summer of 2012, which is to say - not yet too late.

   If you're very curious as to what that looks, why it looks like this :

   2097387365 blk0001.dat
   2097175172 blk0002.dat
   2097336931 blk0003.dat
   2097265413 blk0004.dat
   2097364668 blk0005.dat
   2097289146 blk0006.dat
   2097369730 blk0007.dat
   2097340067 blk0008.dat
   2097302734 blk0009.dat
   2097162090 blk0010.dat
   2097274831 blk0011.dat
   2097195396 blk0012.dat
   2097208308 blk0013.dat
   2097283195 blk0014.dat
   2097386496 blk0015.dat
   2097414811 blk0016.dat
   2097645625 blk0017.dat
   2097238499 blk0018.dat
   990457325 blk0019.dat
   10827386880 blkindex.dat

   Stan says "syincing from that would be an honor", and perhaps it would be - but more than an honour, it will be extending the guarantee that unlike the Summer of '69, the Summer of 2012 may indeed extend into the future indefinitely, and in that ensure that it shall never be too late. [↩]

2. Some points of interest on this score : [↩]