Fee allocation (security vs storage) modelled grade C
Security claim $198,549/block · fees cover 0.7% of it
Subsidy covers energy until ~2028
the analysis → Node population: public vs private observed grade B / D
Public (reachable, listening): 26,586 · gossip addresses 53,321 (not nodes)
Private / non-listening: not observable · grade D
Census endpoint: down — private nodes unobservable
the method → Verification population observed grade B
26,586 reachable nodes measured
gossip-observed addresses ≥53,321 (not a node count) · 48% Tor/I2P
the observatory → Three views of the node population observed grade B
Crawler (reachable nodes): 26,586
DNS seeds: 269 addresses
Our addrman: 62,602 addresses · persistence 98.8 percent
Inbound peers (dialled us; upper bound on private): 1 now · 12 ever
Inbound archival (NODE_NETWORK): 0 of 4 with bits
the method → Population series observed grade B
Addrman:
62,602 addresses
Inbound peers:
1 now · 12 ever
the method → Activity partition (observed reachable set) observed grade B
T1 serving + synced: 23,949 (90%)
T2 serving + lagging: 2,081 (8%)
T3 no service announced: 547 (2%)
Silent about non-listening nodes; NODE_NETWORK/LIMITED split unvalidated.
the partition → Storage Cost Coverage Ratio (SCCR) observed grade B
≤ 0.3196 (upper bound) · 150 blocks · 98.67% below 1×
N=26,586 observed reachable · non-listening nodes unobservable → true ratio lower · spec v2.1.1 · 2026-10-08
sensitivity & CIs → UTXO / chain state observed grade A
h803,898 · 118,614,052 UTXOs · 19,461,649 BTC
UTXO DB 7.66 GB · captured 2026-09-24
the pipeline → Per-block SPOT validation observed grade B (spot)
17 eras · ~12 samples/era
A spot-check, not a survey.
the caveat → Production cost modelled grade C
Published across $0.03–$0.15/kWh (scenario, not a point)
At $0.15: 9 years network-wide money-losing
the scenarios → Verification Cost Index modelled grade C
Under this scenario, independent verification did NOT get materially harder across 2013-2026: sync time stayed…
7 components graded individually.
the note → Mining difficulty observed grade A
127,450,789,715,844
frozen primary · through 2026-09-13 · 1,614 points
data → Mempool congestion observed grade B*
Frozen primary · 2016–2026
pre-2016 is reconstruction-only (chart starts 2016-06).
data → Node geography & network class observed grade B
26,258 reachable · 12,372 Tor + 4,460 I2P = 65.63% overlay (locationless)
Clearnet spread over 3,263 unique locations
data → Block relay (observed announcers) observed grade C
50 blocks · announcing peers min 1 / mean 68.9 / max 265
Sample of listening peers carrying the block — not the producer.
data → First-party peer relay observed grade B
9 peers · clearnet 7 · overlay 2
0 blocks first-seen captured (node in IBD/reindex)
data → Mining geography modelled grade C/D
Hashrate share by country · Q3 2026 · Hashrate Index (Luxor) · quarterly, top countries
Top: United States 36.7%, Russia 17.2%, China 12.2% · listed covers 85.1% of global
data → BTC/USD (robust median) observed grade A
$83,866.37 from 4 independent venues · dispersion 0.0252%
Median + MAD outlier rejection · single-source dependency removed
data → Pool infrastructure observed grade B
10/14 pool addresses are CDN-fronted · 9 pools probed
Measured why pool-IP geolocation cannot locate mining.
data → Relay propagation CDF observed grade A
Awaiting synced relay (node still reindexing)
Will capture per-peer deltas, clearnet vs overlay, BIP152 high-bandwidth.
data → Sync & relay readiness observed grade A
Syncing — h802,792 / 968,320 (82.9%) · relay capture starts when IBD clears
Block-relay participation: awaiting synced relay (0 blocks observed)
data → First-party node crawl observed grade A
5,396 reachable / 59,988 dialed (9.0%) · IPv4 4,443 / IPv6 953
Full nodes 81% · pruned 19% · top client /Satoshi:31.1.0/
Top country: US 40% · DE 18% · FR 7% · top host HETZNER-AS 11%
data → Validation cost (measured) observed grade A
Reindex h804,662 in 75.5h · 0.34 blocks/s · 2,898.4 ms/block
Per-block cost 7.9× 2021→2023 · per-tx roughly flat
data → Contribution axes modelled grade C
Three populations, not one: verification · relay · production.
A single public-vs-private ratio is undefined (category error).
data → Bridge backing-ratio watchtower observed grade B
wbtc: custody list covers 37.1% of the claimed reserve — no verdict
lbtc: supply 4,234.76 (claim side only; reserve leg not wired)
Replay: detector fires on symbiosis-2026-09-11, liquid-2026-09-06
Alerts: none
the method → Base-layer audit (bridge incidents) observed grade A
symbiosis-2026-09-11: anchor h966,454 · 40.625 BTC issued in window
liquid-2026-09-06: anchor h965,687 · 40.625 BTC issued in window
3 incident window(s) · base layer only (the exploit is off-chain)
the finding → Subsidy ceiling vs production deficit and the total required fee, per halving epoch.