The Bitnodes Project launched a Peer Index or PIX as a way to measure the desirability of a full node in the Bitcoin network, providing incentives for those operating bitcoin transaction nodes. The group its first incentive last week and will continue to do so until the end of 2015 or until 10,000 nodes are running.
This is an experimental process designed reward those who operate bitcoin transaction nodes to increase security and improve reliability by validating transactions and blocks and then relaying that information to other full nodes.
Bitcoin Transactions Security
Miners gain incentives with rewards solving blocks that contain information about recent transactions. The current reward is 25 bitcoin, which can be spread among those contributing toward the mining.
According to the project update, while the program is the first of its kind, it is still far from an ideal solution in terms of supporting the network. With its PIX, they have a necessary measurement to learn more about the number of full nodes that are actually contributing toward robustness of the Bitcoin core infrastructure. By applying PIX value to each of the reachable nodes, Bitnodes Project is able to put nodes up on a leaderboard to help increase participation from new users and to encourage existing full node operators to maintain stable nodes.
“If your node is not already up on the leader board, make sure that it is reachable by other peers in the network and activate its bitcoin transaction node status,” said Addy Yeow of Bitnodes Project.
For now, the group is still exploring more ways to support the network through increased discussions for problem-solving and figuring out a more long-term solution to encourage individuals and businesses to run long-term nodes. Further incentive applications are probably needed, but there is scope for this future development.