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> the most important metric for adoption - the number of computers on the internet running the bitcoin software. Mmm, not really - a lot of people are using we
by user24 13y ago
> the most important metric for adoption - the number of computers on the internet running the bitcoin software.
Mmm, not really - a lot of people are using webwallets or thin clients. This is because the full client requires a bit fat download of the entire blockchain, and also only benefits the network if you have hella bandwidth and uptime.
- user24 13y agobut it's still an interesting metric that you can roughly infer network security from (eg 51% attack difficulty)
- viraptor 13y agoWouldn't that depend on the cumulative hashing rate rather than number of nodes? I.e. I don't think it matters if 1k new nodes join if they're not doing any hashing.
- bdcs 13y agoYou are correct that a 51% attack depends on hashing. Other attacks, Sybil, etc. depend on gaining network access to the (a) real bitcoin node with the latest blocks -- more nodes, I guess, helps prevent people from being unable to find the true network. Hence jgarzik's push to put bitcoin nodes into space to beam the latest blocks to earth, à la GPS.
- sneak 13y agoYou don't think there's some approximately fixed ratio between thin client/webwallet adopters and those who run the binary?