Importance of hosting nodes

1. Governments can shut down the network because it is not hard to locate a small amount of node operators
2. Attackers can crash the network by DDOSing the servers which is not hard because of the low amount
3. Nodes can go rogue and stop broadcasting certain transactions. If a majority of them do it, there is no penalty and that is basically the new network rules

If you have the ability to host a node, please do so. And do not forget to port-forward it to become accessible for incoming connections.

The difference between reachable (port-forwarded, usually 9030) and other nodes are that when new nodes are joining the network, they can only connect to nodes that are reachable.

How to host a node

The best and easiest way to run a node is to use the Satergo wallet which has built-in tooling for downloading, monitoring and keeping your node up to date.

If you are hosting a node and it does not show up it could be because the node detects the wrong IP. So your node is actually found but with an invalid IP which makes you not recognize it. To fix this, set the public address of your node (easily done from Satergo or the config file).