`banlist.dat` was introduced in https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/6310, storing nodes that were automatically banned (due to exceeding the misbehavior threshold) and manually banned (through the `setban` RPC).

Automatic bans were removed in https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/19219 and replaced with a discouragement filter. That filter is not saved to disk/persisted over shutdown/startup. The `banlist.dat` therefore now only contains addresses that have been banned through the `setban` rpc.

Since https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/15935, we have a specific file for configuration that is updated through the RPC and persisted over shutdown/startup, namely `settings.json`. We should therefore move the manual ban configuration from `banlist.dat` to `settings.json`. Doing so has a couple of benefits:

- `settings.json` is human readable and easily analyzable by any json parser.
- we wouldn't need to maintain custom [de]serialization code for the `banlist.dat` file.

`banlist.dat` is expected to be fairly small and infrequently updated, so disk space/performance are not huge concerns.
RegisterZMQRPCCommands(tableRPC);
#endif
    /* Start the RPC server already.  It will be started in "warmup" mode
     * and not really process calls already (but it will signify connections
     * that the server is there and will be ready later).  Warmup mode will
     * be disabled when initialisation is finished.
     */
    if (args.GetBoolArg("-server", false)) {
        uiInterface.InitMessage_connect(SetRPCWarmupStatus);
        if (!AppInitServers(node))
            return InitError(_("Unable to start HTTP server. See debug log for details."));
    }
    
    for (const auto& client : node.chain_clients) {
        if (!client->verify()) {
            return false;
        }
    }
    
    
    
    
    
    fListen = args.GetBoolArg("-listen", DEFAULT_LISTEN);
    fDiscover = args.GetBoolArg("-discover", true);
    const bool ignores_incoming_txs{args.GetBoolArg("-blocksonly", DEFAULT_BLOCKSONLY)};
    assert(!node.addrman);
    node.addrman = std::make_unique<CAddrMan>();
    assert(!node.banman);
    node.banman = std::make_unique<BanMan>(gArgs.GetDataDirNet() / "banlist.dat", &uiInterface, args.GetArg("-bantime", DEFAULT_MISBEHAVING_BANTIME));