<p>There are websites such as <a href="https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/nodes/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Bitnodes.io</a> that track the number of nodes currently reachable in the network. The site also gives an account of the versions the nodes deploy and what countries they are located in.</p>

<p>According to Bitnodes.io, there are currently 6426 nodes reachable.</p>

<p>To collect your own list of nodes, you'd ask your peers for more peers, i.e. <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_documentation#getaddr" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>getaddr</code></a>, then recursively request more peers from the newly discovered peers, until you have polled everyone you have discovered.</p>

<p>Note that this doesn't guarantee you to find all nodes, as some don't accept connections from the outside, and <code>getaddr</code> doesn't necessarily give you all peers. Also see: <a href="https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/24381/5406">Does getaddr.bitnodes.io find all Bitcoin nodes or only one node per mining pool?</a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-08-21T13:43:24.350Z
Thank you! How do they get this data by running multiple nodes around the world and converge?
moshaholo
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-08-21T13:50:10.530Z
@moshaholo: See my updated answer.
Murch
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-08-22T04:25:45.977Z
Also note that this is considered spamming and a DOS attack. It goes against the whole idea of P2P and the network implements methods to defend against such activities. The bitnodes people are in close contact with the bitcoin core developers and try to be as non aggressive as possible. Still plenty of nodes ban them anyway.
Jannes
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-17T19:56:22.230Z
If I understand the answer correctly, it is about the active nodes. Can we know how many nodes there are in total? Regardless whether they are active or not. Also, does this exist for other cryptocurrencies? And are there historical data for it?
Raskolnikov
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-17T21:23:38.223Z
There are other estimates, like for example the data Luke-Jr collects with his seed node: http://luke.dashjr.org/programs/bitcoin/files/charts/software.html Some historical data can be found here: https://coin.dance/nodes Other cryptocurrencies have fewer of these private sites as these spring up with a bigger community.
Murch
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-08-21T13:36:30.440Z
2015-08-21T14:23:03.197Z
2017-04-13T12:47:33.583Z
Murch
<p>As a single bitcoind node I can only detect how many connected peers I have. Is there a way to have a vision of the whole bitcoin network?</p>

<bitcoind><network><nodes>
Is there a way to find how many nodes are there?
moshaholo
# Is there a way to find how many nodes are there?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-08-21)

As a single bitcoind node I can only detect how many connected peers I have. Is there a way to have a vision of the whole bitcoin network?

**Tags:** bitcoind, network, nodes


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2015-08-21. Score: 4 | Accepted answer

There are websites such as [Bitnodes.io](https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/nodes/) that track the number of nodes currently reachable in the network. The site also gives an account of the versions the nodes deploy and what countries they are located in.

According to Bitnodes.io, there are currently 6426 nodes reachable.

To collect your own list of nodes, you'd ask your peers for more peers, i.e. [`getaddr`](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Protocol_documentation#getaddr), then recursively request more peers from the newly discovered peers, until you have polled everyone you have discovered.

Note that this doesn't guarantee you to find all nodes, as some don't accept connections from the outside, and `getaddr` doesn't necessarily give you all peers. Also see: [Does getaddr.bitnodes.io find all Bitcoin nodes or only one node per mining pool?](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/24381/5406)

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you! How do they get this data by running multiple nodes around the world and converge?  
> **username_1**: @username_0: See my updated answer.  
> **username_2**: Also note that this is considered spamming and a DOS attack. It goes against the whole idea of P2P and the network implements methods to defend against such activities. The bitnodes people are in close contact with the bitcoin core developers and try to be as non aggressive as possible. Still plenty of nodes ban them anyway.  
> **username_3**: If I understand the answer correctly, it is about the active nodes. Can we know how many nodes there are in total? Regardless whether they are active or not. Also, does this exist for other cryptocurrencies? And are there historical data for it?  
> **username_1**: There are other estimates, like for example the data Luke-Jr collects with his seed node: http://luke.dashjr.org/programs/bitcoin/files/charts/software.html Some historical data can be found here: https://coin.dance/nodes Other cryptocurrencies have fewer of these private sites as these spring up with a bigger community.  

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