Help and Advice on Running Own Pruned Node

[LoyceV]

My pruned node finished syncing in about 10 hours (with HDD, Xeon and 16 GB RAM). It's now uploading around 15 MB per hour, so it looks like it's going to be around 10 GB per month.
A quick check after a restart shows it's downloading more than it's uploading:

Code:

  "totalbytesrecv": 474706,
  "totalbytessent": 344889,

If it stays that way, it doesn't provide a net contribution to bandwidth.

Update: it's uploading more than it's downloading:

Code:

  "totalbytesrecv": 2090982,
  "totalbytessent": 5183814,

That means I'm contributing bandwidth

[PrimeNumber7]

Yep, this is nuts already. Command line stuff. Sounds nice and complicate. I’ll stick with what I have. And hardware wallets with a secure element is considered cold storage. For whoever said it’s not. Thanks for all of the input guys and gals.

A HW wallet is "technically" not cold storage if you connect the HW wallet to a computer that is connected to the internet. With that being said, a HW wallet is only going to be marginally less secure than "true" cold storage. For most individual users, a HW wallet is going to provide more than enough security to keep your coin safe.

[ncentrepreneur.investor]

Yep, this is nuts already. Command line stuff. Sounds nice and complicate. I’ll stick with what I have. And hardware wallets with a secure element is considered cold storage. For whoever said it’s not. Thanks for all of the input guys and gals.

A HW wallet is "technically" not cold storage if you connect the HW wallet to a computer that is connected to the internet. With that being said, a HW wallet is only going to be marginally less secure than "true" cold storage. For most individual users, a HW wallet is going to provide more than enough security to keep your coin safe.

For educational purposes, could you give me an example of true cold storage? An air gapped device? Just curious.

[BlackHatCoiner]

For educational purposes, could you give me an example of true cold storage? An air gapped device? Just curious.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5400742

[PrimeNumber7]

Yep, this is nuts already. Command line stuff. Sounds nice and complicate. I’ll stick with what I have. And hardware wallets with a secure element is considered cold storage. For whoever said it’s not. Thanks for all of the input guys and gals.

A HW wallet is "technically" not cold storage if you connect the HW wallet to a computer that is connected to the internet. With that being said, a HW wallet is only going to be marginally less secure than "true" cold storage. For most individual users, a HW wallet is going to provide more than enough security to keep your coin safe.

For educational purposes, could you give me an example of true cold storage? An air gapped device? Just curious.

"Cold storage" is a device that is never connected to the internet, nor is it directly connected to something that is connected to the internet.

Generally, you will need to purchase a new computer, never connect it to the internet, and install your wallet software (and OS if applicable) via some intermediary device. You will also need to transfer your unsigned transaction to your cold storage device via an intermediary device, sign the transaction, and transfer the now-signed transaction back via an intermediary device.

[NotATether]

For most individual users, a HW wallet is going to provide more than enough security to keep your coin safe.

*Provided that you don't do stupid stuff like typing your seed phrase on websites.

Seriously. I don't know why so many "experienced" people manage to fall for this. Do their hardware wallets fail to warn them never to write the seed phrase on the internet?

[ncentrepreneur.investor]

It sounds like you are interested in the benefits of being able to verify all blocks and transactions yourself (and therefore not having to trust third parties), as well as the increased privacy that can come with running your own node. However, your current wallet set up (not entirely clear, but some combination of hardware wallets and multi-sig) sounds like it is much safer than a standard Bitcoin Core hot wallet, and so running your own node won't improve on the security of your coins.

Here's what I would do:

• Download Bitcoin Core and run a full node*
• Set up your own personal Electrum server
• Use your hardware wallets via Electrum, pointed exclusively at your own Electrum server

This gives you the privacy and verification benefits of running a node, while still keeping your coins within a more secure hardware wallet set up. However, the combination of a full node and an Electrum server does require sufficient hardware and storage space to run effectively.

*Running a pruned node is a possibility, but you'll need to make sure that Core knows all your addresses in advance so it can scan them as it goes before it starts pruning blocks. And if you ever create a new address in any of your wallets (or any new wallets), then you won't be able to sync it using a pruned node without downloading the entire blockchain again.

Just an update: I ended up doing just that. Installing an umbrel full node on Rpi and using sparrow multisig connected to personal electrum server. That was fun. Now i fell down the frustrating to understand the lightning rabbit hole.