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Reduce Traffic
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==============
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Some node operators need to deal with bandwidth caps imposed by their ISPs.
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By default, bitcoin-core allows up to 125 connections to different peers, 8 of
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which are outbound. You can therefore, have at most 117 inbound connections.
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The default settings can result in relatively significant traffic consumption.
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Ways to reduce traffic:
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## 1. Use `-maxuploadtarget=<MiB per day>`
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A major component of the traffic is caused by serving historic blocks to other nodes
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during the initial blocks download phase (syncing up a new node).
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This option can be specified in MiB per day and is turned off by default.
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This is *not* a hard limit; only a threshold to minimize the outbound
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traffic. When the limit is about to be reached, the uploaded data is cut by no
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longer serving historic blocks (blocks older than one week).
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Keep in mind that new nodes require other nodes that are willing to serve
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historic blocks.
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Whitelisted peers will never be disconnected, although their traffic counts for
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calculating the target.
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## 2. Disable "listening" (`-listen=0`)
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Disabling listening will result in fewer nodes connected (remember the maximum of 8
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outbound peers). Fewer nodes will result in less traffic usage as you are relaying
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blocks and transactions to fewer nodes.
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## 3. Reduce maximum connections (`-maxconnections=<num>`)
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Reducing the maximum connected nodes to a minimum could be desirable if traffic
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limits are tiny. Keep in mind that bitcoin's trustless model works best if you are
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connected to a handful of nodes.
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