00:02 So everyone, you do not need one of
00:04 these little Bitcoin nodes, but they are
00:06 super cool. And I wanted to talk about
00:09 what they do and how mine works and how
00:12 this little map works down here. So what
00:14 is a Bitcoin node? A Bitcoin node are
00:16 the little computers that keep track of
00:18 everything that happens on the Bitcoin
00:20 network. Uh the one I run, again, it
00:23 looks like this. It’s tiny. Uh you can
00:25 see how big it is compared to the size
00:27 of my hands. And it’s super simple. It’s
00:28 got a where can you see it there? It’s
00:31 got a power button and then it’s got a
00:33 cable to plug into your computer
00:36 internet router thing for the internet.
00:38 That’s all it’s got. Um, so if you plug
00:41 that in and then you go to
00:43 umbrell.local, I am connected to one of
00:45 these remotely, but if you go to
00:47 umbrelll.local,
00:49 uh, you can connect to your Bitcoin
00:51 node. Now, again, the average person
00:53 does not need this. I’m just showing it
00:54 to you because it’s cool. If you’re a
00:56 Bitcoin enthusiast, it’s cool. But the
00:58 average person does not need this. You
00:60 do need a way to buy Bitcoin like River.
01:02 You do need a way to safely and securely
01:04 store your Bitcoin, like a Bit Key. You
01:08 do need that stuff. You do not need one
01:10 of these. This is for basically uh
01:12 Bitcoin techie enthusiasts for just the
01:14 fun of it. Um it’s more complicated than
01:17 that, but anyway, you don’t have to
01:18 worry about ever buying one of these,
01:20 but I wanted to show you what a Bitcoin
01:22 node looks like. Okay. So, this is the
01:24 interface of my Bitcoin node which shows
01:27 me all of the computers that my Bitcoin
01:29 node is connected to. So, when you plug
01:31 it in, I’ll do a refresh here. So, this
01:33 is me. This Bitcoin node is in
01:35 Mississippi. Again, I’m connected to
01:37 Roma remotely, but this is a Bitcoin
01:39 node in Mississippi. You’ll see it is
01:41 connected to 44 other well, sorry. Yeah,
01:45 44 other Bitcoin nodes. So, we have 44
01:48 connections around the world. If you
01:51 look at this, we’ve got a variety of
01:53 them all through the United States. Uh
01:56 if you and with the big dot meaning
01:58 there’s multiple nodes there and I can’t
02:00 tell. It’s not doesn’t look like it’s on
02:02 the coast. I’m assuming that’s like New
02:03 York City even though that would be on
02:05 the coast but it could be I don’t know.
02:06 Could be somewhere in New York. Could be
02:08 Toronto. Could be something. Anyway,
02:09 it’s probably New York though. Um if you
02:12 flip over here to Europe, you can see
02:14 I’m connected to a bunch of Bitcoin
02:16 nodes around Europe. Flip over here. I’m
02:18 connected to a Bitcoin node over here in
02:20 India and I’m also connected to a
02:23 Bitcoin node in South Korea. Now, just
02:25 like me, each of those nodes is has more
02:28 connections the closer it is
02:30 geographically. So, this node in India
02:32 is has a connections to a ton of local
02:35 nodes in addition to a few that are
02:37 remote. Um, and this one in South Korea,
02:40 same probably has more connections all
02:42 over Europe or sorry, all over Asia than
02:45 mine does. My connections are pretty
02:48 heavily US and Europe and then I’ve just
02:51 got some connections. Uh I interestingly
02:53 enough I don’t have any connections in
02:55 South America or Africa. Although
02:57 sometimes I do. It just depends on uh
02:59 when my node boots up it connects to you
03:02 know it connects to as many different
03:03 Bitcoin nodes as it can find. Right now
03:05 that’s between 45 and 46. And uh anytime
03:09 if I use my Bitkey device to broadcast a
03:12 Bitcoin transaction or I move Bitcoin
03:14 around on River or Coinbase uh then that
03:18 transaction will be broadcast to the
03:19 network. Uh which means these little
03:22 dots that are bouncing around going down
03:24 these things represent Bitcoin uh
03:26 transactions. It does not show my node,
03:29 my Bitcoin node pushing transactions to
03:32 other nodes. That’s just not visualized
03:34 on this map. It only shows every time it
03:36 gets a Bitcoin uh packet of information
03:39 from another Bitcoin node, it shows it
03:41 moving. Now, it’s actually quite fast.
03:43 These are, you know, all connections
03:45 around the world are typically with
03:46 undersea fiber optic cables. So, this
03:49 animation is probably slower than the
03:50 time it actually takes. Uh you can
03:52 actually get around the world really,
03:54 really, really super fast uh in a
03:56 fraction of a second even though they
03:58 slowed down this animation just so you
03:60 can like see it go because otherwise it
04:02 would look like it just flashed for a
04:03 second. Um, but anyway, I’m connected to
04:06 44 peers. So, the question is, how fast
04:09 uh how many hops does it take to get all
04:12 to all of the Bitcoin nodes? Well, I’ve
04:15 got a little spreadsheet here. And on
04:16 this spreadsheet, you will see hopefully
04:19 if the uh screen share updates. Let me
04:22 see if it does here. One second.
04:28 I do not know why it’s not screen
04:30 sharing properly, but um anyway, I’ll
04:32 just verbally walk you through it. uh my
04:34 node is connected to 45 peers in one
04:37 hop. Meaning my 45 if every one of them
04:40 is connected to 45 peers, it can hop to
04:43 2,000 peers with one hop and 91,000
04:46 peers in two hops. If the number of
04:48 nodes it is connected to is less than
04:50 that, uh such as 14, it would take me
04:53 three hops to reach every single Bitcoin
04:56 node in the entire Bitcoin network. But
04:58 again, it’s uh if it only takes uh you
05:00 know, if all of those are as well
05:02 connected as my node with 40 44
05:04 connections, I can reach the entire
05:05 Bitcoin network in one hop and then
05:08 another hop, which is really pretty
05:10 amazing. Uh from the people I’m
05:12 connected to, I can get one more hop and
05:14 then a second hop to basically every
05:15 Bitcoin node that is anywhere. Um also,
05:19 uh how long does it take for a Bitcoin
05:21 transaction to reach every node?
05:23 According to a little search on chat
05:25 GPT, you’ll see the prompt up there. It
05:27 says it can reach 50% of all the Bitcoin
05:29 nodes, more than 100,000 of them in one
05:32 to two seconds. And it can reach between
05:35 80 and 90% of all the nodes in 5 to 10
05:37 seconds. And virtually all of them,
05:39 including the ones running on satellites
05:41 and, you know, I don’t know, submarines
05:43 under the ocean in less than a minute.
05:46 Uh the quick summary here is this, which
05:49 is it uh it can get to virtually all the
05:51 nodes in 1 to two seconds or 5 to 10
05:53 seconds for 80 to 90%. So anyway, uh it
05:57 is super cool how Bitcoin works. Every
05:59 time you bid, you install the Bitcoin
06:01 software on any computer, including on
06:03 one of these little Bitcoin um you know
06:07 uh Umbreal Bitcoin nodes here, which are
06:09 for sale for $400. Let me see if I can
06:12 get it in the screen here. For $400, it
06:14 will boot up and it will immediately
06:16 start searching for Bitcoin peers. And
06:18 if you’re like mine, after a little
06:20 while it’s up to 47 peers and then it
06:22 connects all over the world and all of
06:24 those nodes are connected to, you know,
06:26 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 peers themselves.
06:29 And, you know, with a handful of hops,
06:31 you can connect to all 100,000 Bitcoin
06:34 nodes. Now, uh, the cool thing, and I
06:37 don’t know if you can show it, um, let
06:39 me see if it shows it on map of all
06:41 Bitcoin.
06:44 I should have looked this up in advance.
06:46 I did not. Um, let me see if you can
06:48 find a map of all the nodes.
06:51 Nah, there’s it’s not there’s not a good
06:53 one. Anyway, I’d have to go look at it.
06:55 But, um, you there there are there are
06:59 maps I’ve seen before.
07:01 Yeah. See, these are what I want is one
07:03 that just shows like tiny little pin
07:05 pricks on every node. Um, but I don’t
07:08 know that I’m gonna get that. Anyway,
07:10 there are some cool maps that I’ve seen
07:11 before that I’m not immediately finding
07:13 that show basically a little dot for
07:15 every Bitcoin node and uh it’s just
07:19 super cool when you see that. But
07:20 anyway, um but I’m not immediately
07:22 finding it and I should have pulled it
07:23 up in advance. But anyway, just wanted
07:24 to share what my Bitcoin node looks like
07:26 and there it is in case you want to know
07:29 what a Bitcoin node looks like and you
07:31 know how it’s transacting with its peers
07:32 and all that sort of stuff. So, just a
07:34 quick video for fun. And again, you do
07:36 not need a Bitcoin node, but in case you
07:39 wanted to know kind of how it connects
07:40 and what it looks like, there you go.
07:42 Have a great day, everyone.
