This is a map of the public Bitcoin network. Each dot represents a computer (node) that holds a complete copy of the blockchain and verifies transactions.

If you run your own Bitcoin node on @umbrel, you can even see transactions being sent to your node in realtime from all around the world!

there’s over 18,000 nodes in the world not, like, 100 (as the graphic implies)

Not nearly enough

Please do not, under any circumstance, share where we can also access this map, that would make no sense whatsoever

This is the power of Bitcoin, no CEO, no committee, no central server. Just a global network enforcing the same rules, independently.

No, that graphic is not a map of “transaction-verifying nodes” in any meaningful Bitcoin sense. The image is, at best, a map of machines that watch the network and keep a copy of what has already been decided elsewhere. In the actual protocol, transactions become real only when a miner puts them in a block and that block is accepted by further proof-of-work. That is Section 5 in plain English: the network “votes” by expending CPU power on blocks; acceptance is expressed by extending valid blocks and ignoring invalid ones. So when someone says “each dot verifies transactions,” they are flattering a class of processes that do not and cannot settle anything. They can check what miners have done; they cannot make it so. They do not order transactions. They do not finalise transactions. They do not prevent double spends. They do not create consensus. They are spectators with a clipboard, not the people doing the work. And spare the hand-waving about “holding a complete copy” as if that were adulthood. A full history on disk is not authority; it is a receipt. The only authority in Bitcoin is the longest proof-of-work chain, which is produced by miners, full stop. If a machine is not building blocks, it is not participating in the mechanism that validates and accepts transactions. It is merely verifying after the fact, like a man reading yesterday’s newspaper and claiming he authored the events. Now to the cute implication that there are “lots of nodes” out there doing the heavy lifting. On BTC, mining is concentrated into a small, shifting set of large pools at any given time — roughly a dozen or so that matter — and those pools represent many individual miners behind them. The number changes, the composition changes, and anyone pretending a static globe of “verifiers” is the security model is either ignorant or selling something. The protocol does not care how many tourists are staring at the chain. It cares who is producing blocks. So, yes, this is a map of useless bandwidth wasting listeners. If someone wants to talk about Bitcoin’s validation, they can start where the system starts: proof-of-work blocks, miner competition, and acceptance by building on what is valid. Everything else is theatre for people who prefer glow-in-the-dark dots to reading the design they’re claiming to explain.

This is awesome! Would be cool to have something like this for @TracNetwork in the future!

Just wait until there are bitcoin nodes on the Moon and Mars. The blockchain will be the interplanetary monetary system.

My node is missing... 😉 (there are many many more) Maybe each dot is 1K nodes. That I might accept.

I run a full node. Crazy to see so many empty spots on the map. We are early.

Single dot represent how many users?

Are there any bitcoin nodes in satellites?

My node doesn’t appear on this map???

Core 30 gonna lower those numbers, especially in the poorer areas. It's a shame.

This is what real decentralization looks like 👀 $BTC scores 98/100 on our decentralization index because of exactly this - thousands of independent nodes, no single point of control. See how other cryptos compare:

Wait. Back up. I see my node twinkling riiiiiight... there!

Interesting 🤔

There are very few nodes...

Bitcoin is global.

Spending precious energy to verify Fairy Farts

That's what I call Decentralization!

Need more….

Gotta light it up

Mmmh that put things in perspective indeed! What's your go-to node software: Bitcoin Core or something lighter?

none in mount everest ? i see what i have to do now

Interesting! $KAS just reached 1,000 nodes—more than Litecoin.

Grok: 24,785 reachable nodes in December 2025

. Is me

I believe many are behind the Onion routing protocol so difficult to depict where many are actually physically located.

south american and africa need more nodes.

That looks like very few as a ton of miners now run their own node… or is it because many don’t allow inbound traffic?

Kaspa just reached 1000 nodes! Buy $kas to hedge against technical weakness in Bitcoin

Gotta be more than that