Bitcoin node count hits a record high

The number of full Bitcoin nodes has reached a record high of 11,727, according to data from Bitnodes.

On 20 January, the statistics tracker Coin Dance recorded 11,619 nodes in the network, also surpassing last year’s peak (11,250).

Update: services do not count nodes with closed ports — only listening nodes are included in the tally. This is because the former sit behind firewalls or have been configured by users not to listen for connections.

Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr (Luke-jr) created a script that attempts to count all full Bitcoin nodes. According to his data, at the time of writing there were 30,720 updated nodes in the network. The total exceeds 83,700.

Source: luke.dashjr.org.

More than 5,000 nodes in the network ran the second-most popular Bitcoin Core client version, 0.20.1.

Source: Bitnodes.

The latest update of client 0.21.0 was released on January 14, 2021. This software version accounts for only 5.9% of network nodes (687 nodes).

Version 0.21.0 added support for Tor v3 addresses and descriptor wallets. Also in the code added Schnorr signatures, Taproot and Tapscript to enhance privacy and scalability of the network. The subsequent implementation of BIP 340, 341 and 342 will improve coin fungibility.

What is Taproot?

About a quarter of all nodes operating on the Tor network will need to upgrade to a more up-to-date client version. By October 15, 2021, developers will discontinue support for V2 addresses. New V3 addresses with stronger cryptography and less information disclosure will be supported in Bitcoin Core 0.21.0 and newer versions.

Stephan Livera, host of a popular Bitcoin podcast, urged users to upgrade their software.

#Bitcoin node runners, consider upgrading your node to the latest version 0.21 to support Tor v3.

Close bitcoin core, download 0.21 and verify signatures, install new core, runhttps://t.co/f0D3eMXPrt

— StephanLivera@bitcoinhackers.org (@stephanlivera) January 17, 2021

The growth in the number of Bitcoin nodes correlates with the rise in the number of Lightning Network nodes. According to BitcoinVisuals, the number of payment channels on the network is also at a record high, 8,468.

In January, the Zap startup announced the launch of a service for cross-border payments based on the Lightning Network.

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