Topic: Full Node Client vs Light Node Client (Read 486 times)

BUMP.
A side note: The user "Velkro" above is promoting a method of generating Vanity Address which is very risky. You must not generate any address through that website.
If you are interested in generating Vanity Address, you may check this- https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/pretty-addy-giveaway-part-2-1813624

On point, but overall its very nice guide.
Knowledge about lighting is so much lower than Bitcoin knowledge and it should be promoted because its beneficiary to Bitcoin itself.
It expanding capabilities of Bitcoin network so i personally will start learning about it because if you want to change something start from yourself.

Full nodes do not always relay, or always receive transactions if they have this setting turned off. The operator of a node can use the "blocks only" setting to only receive new blocks, and is a way to reduce bandwidth. There can also be instances when a miner will receive transactions to consider including in their blocks from not-full nodes, such as their websites, or from SPV clients (light nodes) if the miner's node is an electrum server for example.

A full node is one that validates each block in full, including that transactions included in said block contain valid signatures and have not previously been spent (are not double spends).

The decision between running a full node and a SPV client (a "light node") depends on the end user's value of security and privacy. A full node will use more resources, such as bandwidth, computing power, memory and hard drive space, and a SPV client will have incrementally lower security and privacy, but I am not aware of any thefts of coin that were stolen/lost because the end-user was using a SPV client. 

Equally important is that if you run a full node you don't have to trust anybody but yourself. You don't have to trust that your light client is trustworthy. With a full node you start sfrom the genesis block and you can verify the entire blockchain without relying that somebody else is doing a good job. Like with Electrum, you have to trust that their severs are reliable (which they are) but still, there is no replacement for a full node.

Downloading the full blockchain alone doesn't make one a full node. It performs additional functions such as verifying of signatures, check for the transaction if they are double spent, check that the newly created blocks are generating only certain number of btc etc. We need to note that full nodes are the ones, which gives miner the transactions and further these miners pick up those based on the txfee priority. A tx which pays high fee are mined faster than the tx with lower fee. If a full node doesn't feel like the transaction is legit and not following the consensus they have the power to invalidate the tx from getting mined. Miners just pick up the tx and add them in a block and mine them.

Whereas in a light node you need to download the block headers so that you don't need to depend on the full node at all times during a transaction. These block headers contain certain information in the form of Merkle tree.  This merkle tree contains information of a transaction hash and doesn't require you to have the whole body of the transactions for verifying.

Edited the title. I already have used example of both of the wallet name. Missed pros and cons. I will list those too.

Included too.

I think you should include pruned nodes in the comparison. I know these are full nodes in reality, but they do have lower overheads.

Full node client vs Light node clients would be a much better title since your focus is on wallets.
Also since it's a "vs" thing, summary of info link the pros and cons of each type of client alongside examples of full node and light node clients would really be useful.
Thanks for your effort thou

In this article, I am gonna teach you what is a 'Full Node' and 'Light Node'. It's as easy as 2+2=4, but most of us aren't familiar with these terms either because of our disinterestedness or because of its complexity, although it's not complicated at all. I have taken a little help from the internet.
Source-
https://blockchain.wtf/2018/03/series/wtf-is/full-node-vs-light-client-whats-the-difference/

Full Node
If you understand what does it mean by the word "Full", you should probably have guessed now what is full node. Full node denotes to a wallet where user have to have downloaded the whole blockchain. If we are talking about running a full node for bitcoin, you must have to have downloaded all the previous transaction list. We usually call it synchronization. You have to download the whole bitcoin transaction record from the beginning, block 1 to until the up to date block. It will probably require you to have more than 400 gb free space on your disk. If you are using an wallet which asks you to download all the block, you are running a full node.
Prune Nodes can be used if you have lack of space, in that case, you can delete some of the block previously downloaded blocks.
Learn to reduce blocks- https://coinguides.org/bitcoin-blockchain-pruning/

Light Node
Light Node denotes to a wallet where an user can use bitcoin wallet without downloading the whole blockchain. In reality, it's not possible to use bitcoin wallet or any other crypto wallet without downloading the blockchain. Then, how light node functions? User have to trust someone who will download the up to date blocks.

Bitcoin Core is a wallet which can be a full node, Electrum is a wallet which is a light node.
In bitcoin core, you have to have downloaded all the blocks since the the beginning but in Electrum, you don't need to have downloaded blocks.
Remember, if you are running a full node, you are contributing to the bitcoin network for being more trusted, decentralized. We everyone who can afford should run a full node.

Pros and Cons of Full Nodes-
I wanna share an article- “Should I run my own node?” https://medium.com/bitstamp-blog/should-i-run-my-own-node-13c3f6a21627
The main pros of full node can be depending on yourself and help the network to be more decentralized. On the other hand, running full nodes eat a lot of space of your disk and you need to have been using an unlimited bandwirh service.

Pros and Cons of Light Node-
In a light node, you don't need to have downloaded all the blocks because someone else is completing it for you. You can run on a small disk even. On the other hand, in light node, you have to br depended on someone else's full node.