The proverbial “Run your own node” has been preached throughout the Bitcoin literature and this has gained prominence yet again as the crypto-asset further advanced its rally.
According to the latest development, Bitcoin network statistics tracker, Coin Dance’s chart which revealed that there are 11.6k public nodes running on the network at the time of writing as opposed to 11.25k that was established almost a year back.
Bitcoin has had a rough week but it did manage to position above a whopping $34k. Being the world’s premier cryptocurrency requires enormous amount of machinery needed to maintain this global infrastructure. This is where Bitcoin full nodes comes in.
Custody solutions by third-party providers of storage and security services for cryptocurrencies have been a contentious subject. Owing to this, several BTC users have now started to run their own nodes.
Running a Bitcoin node
There are several reasons to run a node which depend on a myriad of factors. On one hand, the BTC software developers utilize full nodes for the purpose of API access to the network. On the other hand, firms that develop applications for sending and receiving Bitcoin transactions often run several full nodes. So it all depends on a specific set of goals and motivations for the users.
One of the most crucial incentives is that full nodes don’t query third parties like centralized and SPV wallets. Hence, running a Bitcoin node and the very ethos of decentralization also goes hand in hand
For some, the motivation for running a full node is to make the BTC network more robust and as the figures increase, the network does become stronger than ever. This is primarily because, greater the number of full nodes that are used to verify transactions, the network not only becomes more decentralized but also becomes resistant to potential breaches in the future.
Notably, this area of the Bitcoin ecosystem hasn’t yet captured too much retail eye despite a linear growth in terms of its usage and has not been institutionalized or monetized.