"Taking a step back, a Bitcoin node's primary function is exchanging pieces of information that are fundamentally public: blocks in the blockchain, transactions in the mempool, and IP addresses of other Bitcoin nodes. Because this is not secret information, it is not immediately obvious why encrypting it along the way would be beneficial. But on closer inspection, there is plenty of metadata associated with Bitcoin traffic that is worth protecting."
"If a large-scale adversary can see which transaction is relayed when and by which IP address, they can infer which node was the likely originator - and thus creator - of a transaction. In addition to that, seeing the connections between nodes themselves may reveal who certain nodes belong to, allowing nodes of specific companies or miners to be targeted for attacks."
"That changed in 2024 with the adoption of BIP 324, which introduced the "v2" transport protocol for communication between nodes. This new protocol features opportunistic encryption, making the traffic unreadable to passive adversaries capable of monitoring messages between nodes. Since adding support for it in Bitcoin Core 26.0, and enabling it by default in 27.0, it is now used for the majority of global Bitcoin P2P traffic."
For nearly 15 years Bitcoin node communications were transmitted unencrypted. BIP 324 introduced the v2 transport in 2024, providing opportunistic encryption for node-to-node traffic. Bitcoin Core added support in 26.0 and enabled v2 by default in 27.0, leading to widespread adoption across the network. Nodes exchange public data such as blocks, transactions, and IP addresses, but the associated metadata can reveal transaction originators and node relationships. Exposure of relay timing and connections enables adversaries to identify, map, and target specific nodes or operators, and can endanger users running nodes in repressive environments. Encryption mitigates these risks by hiding observable metadata.
Read at Bitcoin Magazine
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