Node
ProtocolThis term is part of the Bitcoin glossary — See all terms
A node is any computer running Bitcoin software that follows the rules, checks blocks and passes transactions along to other nodes.
There is no central server in Bitcoin. The network is just a crowd of independent computers — nodes — talking to each other with the same open protocol. Each one keeps its own copy of the ledger, verifies every block it receives, and gossips valid transactions to its peers. If someone tries to feed it a bad block, it simply ignores it.
You do not need special hardware to run one: a modest laptop, a spare Raspberry Pi, or a small cloud instance can do it with a few hundred gigabytes of disk. Full nodes are the referees of the network: miners propose blocks, but only nodes decide whether they follow the rules. This site gathers data from such nodes so you can watch blocks and transactions propagate live.
