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Node count visibility is not a requirement for decentralization.
Decentralization is about who can control, censor, or unilaterally change the network—not whether you can run a public census.
Bitcoin node counts are estimates based on voluntarily exposed peers. Hidden nodes exist there too. Monero simply makes all nodes private by default. That’s a privacy tradeoff—not a trust requirement.
You don’t “trust” Monero’s decentralization—you verify it by running a node, mining, or transacting without permission. No authority can stop you. That’s decentralization.
Replies (2)
I don’t see how me running 1 node “verifies” decentralization, expand on that.
Running one node doesn’t verify decentralization by counting others.
It verifies decentralization because I don’t need permission or trust to participate. I can independently verify the ledger, enforce the rules locally, and ignore invalid blocks—no registry, no coordinator, no approval.
Being able to count nodes is irrelevant. Privacy hides network topology by design; it doesn’t create trust.
By your logic, how many Nostr relays running behind Tor “don’t count”? Are they suddenly centralized because you can’t see them?
Decentralization is permissionless participation plus independent verification—not public visibility.
