BITCOIN NETWORK TOPOLOGY

Miners are the heart

Blocks are the lifeblood

Transactions are the oxygen

Value is the heartbeat

Bitcoin Network Topology (with visualization) - ELI5

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Bird's Eye View
3. The Miners are the Foundation
4. SegWit Deployed
5. Transactions (only)
6. Blocks (only)
7. Transactions & Blocks
8. Severed Network
9. Industry

Bitcoin Network Topology (with visualization) - ELI5

Introduction

The bitcoin network topology has been long misunderstood, or ignored. Below is an attempt to
explain how it really exists, importance of miners, connections, and how segwit would look if it was
integrated.

"Mining Nodes" = Green Circle with black outline.

"Wallet Nodes" aka "full nodes", with mining disabled = Orange Squares.
Miner to Miner connections (blocks & tx's, both ways) = Purple lines.
Wallet to Miner (tx's one way ('upwards'), blocks the other way ('downwards') = Blue lines.
"SegWit" = Red Pentagon.

This is simply an attempt to explain the network topology in an ELI5 manner with visualization.
Please note that in reality the network connectivity (connections) are far more numerous and
interconnected.

Super-hubs can have up to 500 connections, while each 'leech' node (wallets, aka, what people call
"full nodes" but do not mine) has an average of 8 connections.

In the diagrams below the number of connections is reduced to help the visual aid and to show the
'flow' of the network in a clearer manner.

The diagrams are not "true representations", they are "visual aids to understanding". If you wish
true representations you will have to refer to Dr. Wrights papers (links).

And the clusters in the true network or not repeated identical clusters (as in the diagrams below).

Bitcoin Network Topology (with visualization) - ELI5

Bird's Eye View
If you were to view the network from a birds eye and 2 dimensional perspective it would look
something as per the diagrams.

Miners include transactions (tx) from others in their blocks, then propagate such blocks along the
network via connections (purple and blue lines).

The wallet nodes do not include tx's in a block, nor do they create blocks. Only miners include tx's in
a block and only miners create blocks, and this only happens on the miner tier.

Bird's Eye View (1a)

Bird's Eye View with added connections (1b)

Bitcoin Network Topology (with visualization) - ELI5

The Miners are the Foundation
of the network, everything depends on the mining layer.

Transactions from "wallet nodes" travel "upwards" to the miner tier to be included within a block.
After they have been included in a block and the block has been completed the Miner node will
propagate that block to the network (along all connections).

As transactions from wallets travel "upwards" to the miner tier, blocks in turn travel "downwards" to
the wallet tier, after they are completed.

Wallet nodes do not include tx's in blocks, nor do they create blocks, this means that they never
send blocks upwards, they rely on blocks being sent to them. If blocks stop getting sent to "Wallet
(full) nodes", then "full validation" that some people speak very highly of will never occur.

Sideways Perspective (2a)

Sideways Perspective (2b)

Sideways Perspective (2c)

Bitcoin Network Topology (with visualization) - ELI5

Segwit Deployed
Segwit acts as a parasite, taking tx's fees meant for miners, taxing with their own hefty fee whether
its ln's, sidechains or similar, and then forwarding the remainder on to the miners along with the
culmination of transactions conducted through segwit type machinations.

The eventual likelihood occurrence is that eventually the miners would starve to death. Bitcoin
would cease to rise in value as value would be attributed towards ln's and sidechains, the value of
bitcoin would remain stagnant as users would not be buying bitcoin to trade with anymore.

The miner fee would rise, as more users were bled onto segwit solutions. Such solutions would still
use the main chain, but without any further blocksize increase there would always be congestion
and high fees (ever climbing assuming user growth).

Miners will find that a high fee and low value bitcoin is not enough to sustain the mining
infrastructure as the sector grows.

Controllers of Segwit and ln's would grow fat sucking off the lifeblood (fee's) that was meant from
users to miners (peer2peer). Like a tick, sucking until its fat with blood.

SegWit attaches itself to the host network (3a)

Segwit acts as a parasite, sucking the network dry until the system is bled to death (3b)

Bitcoin Network Topology (with visualization) - ELI5

Transactions (only)
Transactions from Mining nodes can be included in their own blocks, whereas transactions from
Wallet "nodes" need to be included in a block by a mining node. For the wallets this is an eventual
one way direction towards a mining node.

The bitcoin network approximates a poisson network. There is a centrality of the network, this is by
design and is not a fault, it is a strength.

Transactions ultimately travel "upwards" to mining nodes so that they can be included in a block.

Transactions on the mining "level" travel "sideways" to other mining nodes so that they can be
included in a block.

Transactions do NOT travel "downwards" from mining nodes to "wallet nodes", they seek to be
included in a block from a "mining node".

Transactions WANT to be included in a block (4a)

Severed Network
How the network would look with the wallet 2 miner connections severed

One perspective on how to look at the network is how it has similarities to the human brain,
input/outputs, reactionary dependent upon those input/outputs (which is dependent upon previous
input/outputs) and stored memory.

If you sliced all the connections from neuron to neuron in your brain you would be brain dead. If you
can imagine the network as a brain, severing the connections between nodes, even if it is to
introduce new/extra alien connections, the brain would still die.

Bitcoin Network Topology (with visualization) - ELI5

Transactions with Segwit (4b)

Sidechains & Lightning

The Lightning Network and Sidechains exist within the SegWit (red pentagon) area, not as a function
of what the network should be like. Segwit also implements a measure of "central" control, through
its 2nd layer it can forced business decisions (uasf anyone?), or it controllers of such 2nd layers
might be regulated into compliance, as a central entity they can be targetted.

Bitcoin Network Topology (with visualization) - ELI5

Blocks (only)
Blocks travel from miner to miner and Blocks travel 'downwards' towards wallet "nodes", which then
after receiving a block can validate it.

But it is the mining nodes that build on said blocks, wallet nodes act as "ledger keepers", simply
keeping a record of the transactions, "after the fact" (of the block being built).

Mining nodes build the blocks by including transactions (see previous "transactions" page). Mining
nodes can also send and include their own transactions, but wallets can't build blocks.

On Validation

Miners are the real validators of blocks because any block "validated" by a full wallet may never
become part of the heaviest chain, and any block "invalidated" by a full wallet will become part of
the heaviest chain if miners validate it. Miners always trump full wallets.

Blocks (5a)

Transactions & Blocks (5b)

Bitcoin Network Topology (with visualization) - ELI5

Transactions go generally "one way - upwards", but on the mining layer (the purple lines)
transactions are either included in a block by the miner themselves or they go to another mining
node to be included in a block, travelling sideways.

"Upper" & "Lower" layers

The network is essentially split into two parts, the "upper" layer (mining nodes) where everything
essential happens. These essential operations include;

Include transactions in a block

Providing PoW (proof of work, hashpower)
Propagating blocks

The secondary (essential) operations that the "upper" can perform includes;

Creating and sending a transaction

Relaying transactions
Validating blocks

The "secondary" operations can be performed by wallet "full nodes" (mining disabled), but they
cannot perform the primary operations. To be able to exist on the "upper" layer of the network a
node needs to be able to perform all operations.

Bitcoin Network Topology (with visualization) - ELI5

For extra reading research into Neural Networks, here are some a starting points,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptron and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network.

Network Theory: 12 Decentralized & Small World Networks

https://youtu.be/QUWds9gt6aE

Stephen Wolfram;
https://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_of_everything
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Rule30.html

(Created by Joel Dalais)

Bitcoin Network Topology (with visualization) - ELI5