Running a Bitcoin Node on I2P: Is It Feasible?

Anyone think there are enough I2P peers for a solid Bitcoin node? Does I2P slow down transaction propagation or block syncing?

For sure, initial block download would be way slower on I2P compared to clearnet. But I heard there's at least one I2P node operated by Core devs. So theoretically, syncing with just that peer could work... but relying on one peer isn't very smart.

What I'm curious about is the benefits of using I2P for a node versus Tor. Haven't really checked it out much. From what I've read, I2P connects only to I2P, while Tor can access clearnet too. Privacy might be better with I2P... but what about speed and latency?

Idk if there's solid data on how many Bitcoin nodes are using I2P. Last I checked, there were like 22.8K reachable nodes, but a search for '.i2p' showed no nodes, which seems off. Slower than clearnet for sure, both I2P and Tor need multiple hops for comms.

I get the vibe that I2P isn’t super popular in many apps, right? Not just Bitcoin, but overall. I wonder if people manipulate visibility because I’ve seen.onion nodes not showing on bitnodes. Probably more nodes out there than what we see.

Yeah, definitely less popular than Tor since I2P can't reach clearnet. Makes me think if those nodes are somehow able to spot and block connections from bitnodes.

Totally. I’d say around 3,000 I2P peers is more than enough for a reliable Bitcoin node, and the numbers are going up, according to graphs.

Quoted to highlight the pic and modified a bit since he didn't use any image tags... If only he had picked a better image host than imgur, lol...