A bitcoin full node FAQ - page 3. | Bitcointalksearch.org

gweedo

legendary

Activity: 1498

Merit: 1000

Quote from: Epiphany on May 11, 2014, 09:15:13 PM

Do you have to be mining to have a full node? Can I just open my wallet with the full blockchain and it is a full node while it is open? Or do I have to tweak some setting for that to happen? I assumed you had to mine to have a full node. Can you clarify?

You don't have be mining to run a full node. You just have to have port 8333 open on your router or firewall. So peers can connect to you and download data. Default bitcoin is setup to do just this relay transactions.

A full node can just relay transactions to peers and help the network be connected.

Epiphany

sr. member

Activity: 406

Merit: 250

Quote from: gweedo on May 11, 2014, 09:18:21 PM

Quote from: Epiphany on May 11, 2014, 09:15:13 PM

Do you have to be mining to have a full node? Can I just open my wallet with the full blockchain and it is a full node while it is open? Or do I have to tweak some setting for that to happen? I assumed you had to mine to have a full node. Can you clarify?

You don't have be mining to run a full node. You just have to have port 8333 open on your router or firewall. So peers can connect to you and download data. Default bitcoin is setup to do just this relay transactions.

A full node can just relay transactions to peers and help the network be connected.

Interesting, I didn't realize that. Cheesy

How much bandwidth does that hog? I don't have a great internet connection but if it didn't use much, I'd leave mine running to help secure the network.

Epiphany

sr. member

Activity: 406

Merit: 250

Do you have to be mining to have a full node? Can I just open my wallet with the full blockchain and it is a full node while it is open? Or do I have to tweak some setting for that to happen? I assumed you had to mine to have a full node. Can you clarify?

gweedo

legendary

Activity: 1498

Merit: 1000

Quote from: Vod on May 11, 2014, 09:04:10 PM

What is a "full node"?

(Seriously, that is a legit question!)

I am going to give a technical term cause I don't even know the laymen terms for a full node...

A full node is bitcoin software, that has a copy of the entire blockchain making it very secure, and it is able to validate blocks and transactions. Miners require a full node to mine and a full node helps secure the network when not mining. It can relay transaction blocks to it's peers creating the p2p network for bitcoin. A full node also allows SPV clients to connect to it giving them data, they don't help the network by relaying transactions and aren't as secure as a bitcoin full node.

Vod

legendary

Activity: 3668

Merit: 3010

Licking my boob since 1970

What is a "full node"?

(Seriously, that is a legit question!)

gweedo

legendary

Activity: 1498

Merit: 1000

During a lot of my day I see inaccurate information about bitcoin full nodes. I wanted to create a topic where people can ask questions and we can answer them. So there's 1000's of separate topics on this subject found in many different boards.

I think this could also help make newbies feel better as to why it is important to run a full node and it isn't that hard to get started.

Ask your questions here and I or the community will answer them.

Topic: A bitcoin full node FAQ - page 3. (Read 2582 times)