Hi.
I try to optimize my node so iam playing around with the bitcoin.conf.
One argument is interesting: Blocksonly.
If i would Set it to 1 my node will only download blocks…Not any transaction..right?
Can i asume my latency would be a little better because of less Traffic?
Also..is there any disadvantage for finding a block or getting shares?
Or is the only disadvantage that its Bad for the Network?
Blocksonly Mode – more effective node?
byu/Artistic-Lab8113 inBitcoinBeginners
Posted by Artistic-Lab8113
1 Comment
Yeah blocksonly=1 means your node won’t relay transactions between peers, just blocks. You still validate everything though, just not participating in mempool gossip
The latency improvement is pretty minimal unless you’re on really slow connection – we’re talking about few KB difference most of time. Your bandwidth usage drops more than latency improves
For mining it doesn’t really matter since you’re probably pointing your miner to pool anyway, and pool handles transaction selection. If you’re solo mining then yeah it would be problem because you need mempool for building block templates
Main downside is you’re not helping network as much – other nodes rely on transaction propagation to stay synced with mempool. It’s like being passenger instead of helping drive, network works better when everyone participates in relaying
I run my node on pretty basic setup and never felt need to enable this, but if you’re really bandwidth limited it’s reasonable choice. Just know you’re trading some network contribution for slightly lower resource usage