The 196,123 number is a count of the number of distinct IP addresses being rumored between nodes. Most of them are never working garbage sent into the network by confused software, misguided would-be DOS attackers, etc.
Also, for people who don't see this as natural (and I agree that it looks almost mechanical), is this a misguided "51%" attack? (Seems unlikely given that if you have the resources for that, you also probably understand how it works.) Just curious what people see this sudden change as representing.
No. The whole point of the POW mechanism is to frustrate cheap easy Sybil attacks where someone sets up a few thousand IPs and dictates what the network says.
That's worrying. I'm much more concerned about a Sybil attack or similar attack on the P2P network than an attack on the cryptography. Given the current size of the ledger, the average person will not want to run a node. I guess one mitigating factor is that the mining pool operators can take steps to ensure they are well connected to each other.
Canadians may have an easier time than Americans, but Britons will be SOL.
I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but USD liquidity has been extraordinarily frustrating over the past several days since most exchanges are foreign (and US bank wires take days to weeks).
