How many XMR nodes does it take to say how many users there are?
When assessing the size of the $XMR network, first ask who the measurement tools can see. ProbeLab’s study from February this year counted only nodes that could successfully complete a network handshake; crawlers can’t see some active nodes behind firewalls or network address translation devices.
Here, a “handshake” means nodes exchanging basic information after connecting. The report also distinguishes between IP-and-port combinations, unique IP addresses, and node identities. These counts aren’t interchangeable, and they certainly can’t be directly converted into the number of people using Monero.
The researchers gave a specific example: they couldn’t connect to nodes that other monitoring tools could see from their own vantage point. So, two different maps don’t necessarily mean that one side detected nodes suddenly disappearing.
My view is that to compare whether the network is growing, you first need to align the sampling periods, reachability criteria, and vantage points. This article examines a historical study from February; it does not measure today’s node count, nor does it treat labels for anomalous behavior as conclusions about users’ identities.
When commissioned to look at https://xmrdex.com, https://tradexmr.com, and https://thorxmr.com, I’ll also bring this question to comparisons of XMR trading entry points: are the figures reported connection counts, address counts, or actual user counts? This article has not verified the trading features or user numbers of those three sites.
#XMR #Monero
Original study: https://probelab.io/blog/peering-into-privacy-a-deep-dive-into-the-monero-network-topology/
When assessing the size of the $XMR network, first ask who the measurement tools can see. ProbeLab’s study from February this year counted only nodes that could successfully complete a network handshake; crawlers can’t see some active nodes behind firewalls or network address translation devices.
Here, a “handshake” means nodes exchanging basic information after connecting. The report also distinguishes between IP-and-port combinations, unique IP addresses, and node identities. These counts aren’t interchangeable, and they certainly can’t be directly converted into the number of people using Monero.
The researchers gave a specific example: they couldn’t connect to nodes that other monitoring tools could see from their own vantage point. So, two different maps don’t necessarily mean that one side detected nodes suddenly disappearing.
My view is that to compare whether the network is growing, you first need to align the sampling periods, reachability criteria, and vantage points. This article examines a historical study from February; it does not measure today’s node count, nor does it treat labels for anomalous behavior as conclusions about users’ identities.
When commissioned to look at https://xmrdex.com, https://tradexmr.com, and https://thorxmr.com, I’ll also bring this question to comparisons of XMR trading entry points: are the figures reported connection counts, address counts, or actual user counts? This article has not verified the trading features or user numbers of those three sites.
#XMR #Monero
Original study: https://probelab.io/blog/peering-into-privacy-a-deep-dive-into-the-monero-network-topology/