Monetizing the Full Nodes
Bitcoin is a new kind of system with a new kind of network architecture that relies on the distributed nodes, decentralized miners & untrusted users. The two most important parts of the network hardware maybe the Bitcoin Miner, this is what most people understand as the main part of Bitcoin & the Bitcoin Full Node, the record holder & physical location of the ledger known as the Blockchain.
The mining network has evolved around miners colluding, 51% network control, updates in codes known as forks, profit sharing schemes and even outright dictation over the code base of bitcoin all the while continuing on its incentive path of creating value for the Bitcoin itself. This chaos or wild west as it has been called has highlighted the independent values of greed and possession that bring mining to life every day.
One forgotten side of the network, lost in the news and documentaries, is the other of the two most important parts of the network hardware, the Full Node. This part holds the entire Blockchain all the way back to the Genesis Block [0], the very first set of transactions ever broadcasted on the Bitcoin Network of Nodes & Miners. The Full Node does the job of the data center, by holding the collection of 440,000+ blocks containing 1000 to 4000 transactions each, with each block no more than 1 MB in size, the entire Blockchain is now over 100GB of data.
This data is stored on about 8000 computers that is running the Bitcoin Core Full Node software, once the entire 100GB+ of all transactions are downloaded, new ones are added live to the ledger on these computer device’s hard drives. Each Full Node provides scale & security to Bitcoin in a way that miners do not, but giving the record a place to live.
Miners get paid in transaction fees [0.0001 BTC] per transaction and have the potential to get a coinbase [12.5 BTC] every 10 minutes. This has been well over $4,000,000,000 per year in new Bitcoin created. Unfortunately miners get all of this BTC and the Full Nodes they read & write to, get 0 BTC. Having no incentive to contain the entire record, to tell the truth & not fake records or even operate a Full Node by covering its costs, puts Bitcoin at risk of what is called a Sybil Attack or a Full Node network failure.
More Full Nodes going online is always a breath of fresh air to the Bitcoin community & shows the system scaling in real time. Miners come and go, even the 21 large miners that control 90% of the Bitcoin 5.5 exahashes of hash power do not discount the fact that Full Nodes help them mine bitcoin in a more profitable and stable environment.
We at Bitcoin, inc have acted in the betterment of Bitcoin as a whole, to create the world’s first data centers full of Bitcoin Full Nodes in large numbers. The Full Node count can be dramatically increased by adding at home Full Nodes, in device Full Nodes & Full Node Data Centers that allow a scalable use of Bitcoin by every business, machine & person on the planet, giving each one a personal Full Node.
The profits and incentives that can be introduced by increasing the Full Node count can come from processes such as a Coinbase Fee for Read/Write of Full Node by Miner as well a SAAS fee of $9.99 per month for use by each business using a Bitcoin Full Node, as each business using Bitcoin or the Blockchain would require a personal Full Node for secured scaling of Bitcoin & incentivised security of the Bitcoin network.
The Bitcoin Full Node can create its own income using a newly formed fee gathered from Miners who read & write to the Full Node device. BTC can be donated or automatically sent to any Full Node device that is used. If this system becomes standardized within Bitcoin such as with a BIP, this would allow a monetized Full Node to help build Bitcoin usage along with scale. Full Nodes are the key to preventing or allowing any fork of Bitcoin, preventing or allowing any miner to 51% the network & preventing or allowing any code changes within the Bitcoin Core code. The Bitcoin Full Node could be argued to be the most important part of the Bitcoin network, we believe that giving them incentive, income and part of the coinbase is vital to the Bitcoin network growing to scale.
Our first step in bringing incentive to the Bitcoin Full Node is creating a Bitcoin Data Center. This facility will hold over 100,000 Bitcoin Core Full Node Devices each with their own internet connections, hard drives & full independent records holding all Bitcoin Transactions. These devices will be used by customers interacting with the Bitcoin Blockchain through our applications, APIs and services.
If a customer wants to use Bitcoin, accept Bitcoin or interact with the Blockchain, we will dedicate a Bitcoin Full Node to that customer for all of their Bitcoin use. This gives the customer a uninterrupted use of Bitcoin & a much more secure record of use. This is an evolving plan to help bring Bitcoin to scale, incentivize the Full Node to bring income to that device and its owners & to increase the Full Node count indefinitely. We truly think this is the most important step for Bitcoin in 2017.
