A 12-Year-Old Laptop Just Became an Unkillable Blurt Node. Yours Can Too.
You can turn a machine that's been gathering dust into a full Blurt RPC node — reachable only over Tor and I2P, with no public IP, no domain, and nothing anyone can block or seize. The screenshot below is a 12-year-old laptop doing exactly that: ~3 GB of RAM, CPUs idle, a few KB/s of bandwidth.
A 12-year-old laptop running a full Blurt RPC node — ~3 GB RAM, CPUs idle
That's a 12-year-old laptop, running a full node without breaking a sweat.
What's new — and why this is worth your old laptop or pc — is where the pieces come from. Nothing about your node depends on trusting us, or any single server. Here's exactly what it needs and where each piece lives.
What your node needs, and where it lives
1. The software — on Git. One script that sets everything up: the node, Tor, I2P, and the sync. It lives at git.agorise.net/agorise/hidden-rpc. Open-source, AGPL-3.0, every decision documented.
2. The pointer to the blockchain — on Blurt itself. The node doesn't hardcode a download URL. It reads a signed record posted on-chain by @morphit (chain_snapshot_v1) that says where the current blockchain snapshot is and what its checksum must be. Because it's on the chain, the seeders can change without anyone updating their software — and because it's signed, you know it's really from @morphit.
snapshot.png
The signed pointer, on-chain: the CID, the checksum, the block height, and a mirror.
3. The blockchain data itself — on IPFS. The pointer names an IPFS CID — a content address that is the file's cryptographic fingerprint. Ask any IPFS gateway for that CID and you get exactly those bytes or nothing at all; the data can't be swapped out from under you. An IPNS name always resolves to the newest snapshot, and a plain Forgejo mirror covers you if IPFS is slow to respond. Your node fetches from whichever is fastest.
hidden-rpc-nodes.png
Blurt blockchain as the source of truth for all Hidden RPC node runners.
Trustless — nothing asks you to trust anyone
The snapshot is the raw block_log, and it's guarded twice. First, your node checks the downloaded file against the SHA-256 in the signed on-chain pointer — a wrong or tampered file is rejected before it's ever used. Then blurtd replays it and re-validates every single block's signature. A bad chain simply can't survive that. So it doesn't matter who served you the bytes — the chain, the checksum, and the replay do the trusting for you.
That verification is the one real cost: your node re-checks the whole chain itself the first time. Start it before bed — by morning you have a node you never had to trust anyone for. Then it just runs.
Today's snapshot (your node always reads the live pointer, so it stays current on its own):
- On-chain:
chain_snapshot_v1by@morphit· block 62,905,338 · ~9.75 GB - IPFS CID:
QmYQLLnjnXXHqPxJ6Nuo2fyQAdPFmqLGt6afsSdvgyCyMb - IPNS (always newest):
k51qzi5uqu5dkxaaec50yvmsvj8hfmncszv6hlvlzfdih5xrjlr0k7f2ijd0sz - SHA-256:
450106efd678237e69c3d892b7fa0a61d2cc3f83785376c4c4441b5232026b72 - Mirror: https://git.agorise.net/agorise/blurt-blockchain-snapshot
Why it's worth doing
There's no IP or domain to filter, seize, or subpoena — and everyone who reads from your node reaches it over Tor or I2P, so their ISP sees only anonymity traffic. You don't need perfect uptime, either: the network stays reachable as long as any node is up, so reboot it, close the lid, take it traveling — every extra node makes the whole layer harder to switch off precisely because no single one has to be reliable. And if you run a Blurt app, pointing it at your own node means it never goes dark because someone else's endpoint did.
Putting old pc's and laptops to work. No domain name or IP address needed
No IP address, ISP permission, or domain name needed. No server or hosting expenses. Max decentralization and awesome user privacy.
Plug one in
hidden-rpc— software + one-command setup: https://git.agorise.net/agorise/hidden-rpc- Live node list — see the nodes serving right now: https://morphit.io/stats
@morphit maintains the node directory on-chain — the .onion and .b32.i2p addresses that make each node reachable, published to Blurt so any app can find them without a server to ask. So once your node is live, reply to this post with its .onion and .b32.i2p addresses. That's how it gets pinned to the on-chain list — and how your node joins the network apps actually read from. Then watch it show up on the live node list above.
Find an old laptop. Plug it in. Run one command. Then reply to this Blurt post with your .onion and .b32.i2p addresses.
Let's give Blurt an RPC layer no one can switch off! 💪🤠
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