[Guide] How to run a Bitcoin Core full node for under 50 bucks!

[n0nce]

Why do you think I should run a Bitcoin core wallet while there are many wallet/exchanges like Binance and Coinbase? I know it's essential if you hold a bunch of Bitcoin.

Oh, wow, so first, you can't just bunch together 'wallet/exchanges', they're two very different things. An exchange is nothing other than a bank that lets you buy and custody some foreign currency for you. However, besides the broken privacy when buying BTC through exchanges; if you actually use them as a wallet... then you don't actually own your Bitcoin!
Have a good read about this topic here: https://notyourkeys.org/

So you absolutely don't want to keep coins on exchanges.

It's so mind boggling to me that people buy and hodl their coins on an exchange, since that's so completely against the whole idea and concept of Bitcoin.
To reiterate: Bitcoin is a A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.
Bitcoin lets you pay from one party to another without going through a financial institution_{https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf} - an exchange is such a financial institution.
Bitcoin lets you own and transfer coins without anyone knowing they are yours. The public can see that someone is sending
an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone_{https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf} - unless you bought the coins on an exchange that has a picture of your ID and a selfie of your face.

But, I have such a tiny amount of Bitcoin (below $1K).

This doesn't matter. Running a node doesn't have a lot to do with holding your keys (which again, is essential). You can use any open-source non-custodial wallet and be safe from your funds being stolen or confiscated, without having to run a node. In fact, that's what I recommend; since a full node is always online and that computer might be infected by a virus.

The reason you want to run a node is to make Bitcoin decentralized. If only the big exchanges ran a node, it would be trivial to attack the network. Blockchain is meaningless without a decentralized network.

I think I can hold them on Binance and stake it to accumulate more satoshi.

That's a terrible idea; you risk losing it all just for a tiny amount of 'rent' you get from it.

Are there any benefits of running a full node?

Yes; you can point your wallet software at your own node in its settings, like Trezor software or Electrum. This will cause it to look up addresses and balances on your own local copy of the blockchain, making your Bitcoin usage much more anonymous.

I know that sometimes Running a lightning network node can give you some benefits which also not profitable (less than $1/month). Suppose I installed a full node. Why do I have to run it 24/7? What are the benefits?

Running a (Lightning) node is not for profit; that's because Lightning is made to be cheap and the routing fees are incredibly low. But that's by design. As I just said, the main benefit of running your own node (for you) is that you gain more privacy and you can't be fooled by a malicious block explorer. Such a site could lead you into the belief that a payment was sent, while it was not, for instance.
You don't have to run Bitcoin 24/7, but for Lightning it is required. The reason why is a bit outside the scope of this topic, but there are lots of good resources about it.

I have a Ryzen 3 3200G CPU+ 16GB Ram + 2TB HDD PC. Can I install the full node in this setup?

Sure; the whole point of the thread you've read here is that Bitcoin runs on super low-end laptop hardware. As far as I can tell, you've got a pretty good CPU so it will work.

That makes sense, but there are few use cases where you need to use remote/centralized server. For example, small business or non-profit organization who run BTCPayServer.

Correct, yes. In that case, the node may be required to run the payment server on top of it, but those nodes shouldn't be considered part of the 'secure, reliable backbone' of the network, in my opinion.

It's not like we can tell a node is part of the "secure, reliable backbone" unless they use popular VPS which it's IP range is known without VPN or Tor.

I know, I know, just wanted to highlight the importance of independent node operators and hobbyists!

[AnotherAlt]

edited out

I guess I am convinced. I don't have any sendable merit. This explanation deserves some of it. I have already started downloading the Bitcoin core. I will let you know once I finish. I have watched a few youtube videos earlier. So, I have a basic idea about that. What if I lost my backup or something like that? What if my HDD Crashes? I am afraid a bit. But, Let's give it a try.

[n0nce]

edited out

I guess I am convinced. I don't have any sendable merit. This explanation deserves some of it. I have already started downloading the Bitcoin core. I will let you know once I finish. I have watched a few youtube videos earlier. So, I have a basic idea about that. What if I lost my backup or something like that? What if my HDD Crashes? I am afraid a bit. But, Let's give it a try.

Thanks, no worries! I'm glad I could explain it well. Make sure to download Bitcoin core either from its official GitHub or from the link you always find in the top section of this forum (https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/).

In case you are using Windows (which most people do on their personal machines), I would recommend you NeuroticFish's guide:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5367296.0

If you're using Linux, you could follow my guide:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5366854.0

For everyday usage, I believe electrs and BTC RPC block explorer that NeuroticFish added to his guide make a lot of sense, since by using those you get the full benefits of running your own node.

HDD crashes are not a big deal and no worries about backups either; since you won't be storing coins on that HDD. If you are, e.g. by using Electrum as your wallet, then make sure to backup your seed onto paper or steel and you have nothing to fear, since you can always restore those seed word backups.
Here's a topic of mine about creating steel backups for around $3-4 USD in materials:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5363596.0

And a more in-depth walkthrough by fillippone:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5389446.0

If you're willing to invest some money for a standalone offline hardware wallet, which is much harder to hack than a software wallet, I would recommend to get one (don't forget to still do a steel washer backup though). A cheap one that still holds its own is the original Trezor Model One, which is tried and tested for many years and fully open-source. It's also got reproducible builds, which some others don't - meaning you can't know that they actually run the code they claim to run.

[AnotherAlt]

Thanks, no worries! I'm glad I could explain it well. Make sure to download Bitcoin core either from its official GitHub or from the link you always find in the top section of this forum (https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/).

I have downloaded the file from the Forum header

News: Latest Bitcoin Core release: 22.0 [Torrent]

I have already installed the Bitcoin core, synchronizing with the network. Look like it's going to take a lot of time. I have a terrible internet connection. I am 9 years and seven weeks behind. The number of blocks left is almost 500K. So, I guess I have to wait a long time.

[n0nce]

~

Sounds great! Yes, it can take a few days up to a week on bad connections or low-end hardware, but just let it run in the background, it shouldn't affect your overall system performance at all.

[AnotherAlt]

~

Sounds great! Yes, it can take a few days up to a week on bad connections or low-end hardware, but just let it run in the background, it shouldn't affect your overall system performance at all.

Sadly I am still three years behind. I don't run my computer 24/7. But, Whenever I run, I let the core download the blocks. Meanwhile, I moved my Bitcoin into an Atomic wallet.

[Welsh]

Sadly I am still three years behind. I don't run my computer 24/7. But, Whenever I run, I let the core download the blocks. Meanwhile, I moved my Bitcoin into an Atomic wallet.

If you aren't running it 24/7, then you might want to consider running a pruned node instead. At least that'll be a reduction in local disk space needed. Otherwise, you'll likely be catching up for a while every day that you restart it. Especially, if you have a slow internet connection.

it can take a few days up to a week on bad connections or low-end hardware, but just let it run in the background, it shouldn't affect your overall system performance at all.

Yeah it shouldn't effect computer performance, but depending on their network could potentially make it absolutely awful to use that network while it does download. Depending on the network speed, and how fast they're downloading the Blockchain of course.

[n0nce]

Sadly I am still three years behind. I don't run my computer 24/7. But, Whenever I run, I let the core download the blocks. Meanwhile, I moved my Bitcoin into an Atomic wallet.

If you aren't running it 24/7, then you might want to consider running a pruned node instead. At least that'll be a reduction in local disk space needed. Otherwise, you'll likely be catching up for a while every day that you restart it. Especially, if you have a slow internet connection.

AnotherAlt, do note that pruning won't affect the IBD (initial block download) speed or sync speed in general. But since the node doesn't run 24/7 it doesn't provide that much utility to the network anyway, so might as well run it pruned, is what Welsh is probably saying here. Such a node needs considerably less disk space and gives you as a user all the benefits of a full node, and just lacks the ability to seed the blockchain to new nodes entering the network.

it can take a few days up to a week on bad connections or low-end hardware, but just let it run in the background, it shouldn't affect your overall system performance at all.

Yeah it shouldn't effect computer performance, but depending on their network could potentially make it absolutely awful to use that network while it does download. Depending on the network speed, and how fast they're downloading the Blockchain of course.

That's true! I'm not sure if you're able to set something like a bandwidth cap. I never needed it since my nodes run on dedicated hardware and IBD doesn't really affect my total network bandwidth.

Edit: seems you have to throttle bandwidth with an external software, and there's nothing built into Bitcoin Core. Here's an answer with Windows, macOS and Linux instructions: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7750/how-can-i-limit-bandwidth-usage-in-bitcoin-qt-client/38694#38694

[Welsh]

AnotherAlt, do note that pruning won't affect the IBD (initial block download) speed or sync speed in general. But since the node doesn't run 24/7 it doesn't provide that much utility to the network anyway, so might as well run it pruned, is what Welsh is probably saying here. Such a node needs considerably less disk space and gives you as a user all the benefits of a full node, and just lacks the ability to seed the blockchain to new nodes entering the network.

Exactly. Cheers for clearing that up. Should have probably been a little more specific there.

That's true! I'm not sure if you're able to set something like a bandwidth cap. I never needed it since my nodes run on dedicated hardware and IBD doesn't really affect my total network bandwidth.

I've never had a look since it's not something I'd find useful, but it would make sense to be able to limit the download speed. I would assume that it is an option already implemented, but if it isn't probably should be.

Edit: seems you have to throttle bandwidth with an external software, and there's nothing built into Bitcoin Core. Here's an answer with Windows, macOS and Linux instructions: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7750/how-can-i-limit-bandwidth-usage-in-bitcoin-qt-client/38694#38694

On that note, it might be worth actually implementing it. Since, one could argue that by not having something like this in place it could encourage centralisation as you're potentially putting those with less bandwidth capability out of the picture. I know it's probably not a huge problem, but something to consider at least.

[n0nce]

Edit: seems you have to throttle bandwidth with an external software, and there's nothing built into Bitcoin Core. Here's an answer with Windows, macOS and Linux instructions: https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7750/how-can-i-limit-bandwidth-usage-in-bitcoin-qt-client/38694#38694

On that note, it might be worth actually implementing it. Since, one could argue that by not having something like this in place it could encourage centralisation as you're potentially putting those with less bandwidth capability out of the picture. I know it's probably not a huge problem, but something to consider at least.

Yes, very good point! We talked in the past about people with bandwidth limits and total data limits and such. While tedious, with such an option in Core, they could set it to a speed that only downloads 5GB a day or so, to complete IBD in a bit over 2 months if that's the maximum their data plan or bandwidth allows them.

[DaveF]

For all of you who were wondering where I was the last few days.
I can now present to you the MORE then $50 node because I made it that way but you could probably do it for less if you look.

Soooo I picked up a bunch of surplus rugged dell laptops at auction. 8 for about $140 total
Dell Latitude 14 Rugged 5404 Intel i7-4650U 1.70GHz 4GB
Some worked fine others had issues.

Main thing was that all of them had the drives and the the drive bay removed. Damn, the bays are expensive ($40) I could have waited and gotten one for a lot less but I have the patience of a sugared up 5 year old so I paid it.
Took 4 gigs of RAM out of one and put it in another to bump it to 8GB (30+ screws that are not all the same to get to the RAM)
And an old 1TB laptop drive and now you have:



A fully portable and really heavy mobile node they even have AT&T 4G with stupid expensive and slow data. But yes it works.

This post brought to you by the department of just because you can does not mean you should.
Getting some things to work, like the 4g were a pain in the ass. But it was fun.

Went with mynode in a VM for now because I could not get everything to work under linux and I wanted a lightning setup. No real reason, just wanted it.

-Dave

[AnotherAlt]

Sadly I am still three years behind. I don't run my computer 24/7. But, Whenever I run, I let the core download the blocks. Meanwhile, I moved my Bitcoin into an Atomic wallet.

If you aren't running it 24/7, then you might want to consider running a pruned node instead. At least that'll be a reduction in local disk space needed. Otherwise, you'll likely be catching up for a while every day that you restart it. Especially, if you have a slow internet connection.

AnotherAlt, do note that pruning won't affect the IBD (initial block download) speed or sync speed in general. But since the node doesn't run 24/7 it doesn't provide that much utility to the network anyway, so might as well run it pruned, is what Welsh is probably saying here. Such a node needs considerably less disk space and gives you as a user all the benefits of a full node, and just lacks the ability to seed the blockchain to new nodes entering the network.

Unfortunately, I have a shitty internet connection. I live in a village side, and I also don't have 24/7 Electricity here. I am not aware of the pruned node. Should I watch some Youtube videos about it? Or it's works same as like the Main core?

BTW, Thanks guys for taking your time to write me back.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Should I watch some Youtube videos about it? Or it's works same as like the Main core?

It's the same as running a non-pruning node, you just don't store the entire chain. You'd need it, if you didn't have enough disk space or didn't want to use it for storing the chain. It won't help if the problem has to do with your internet speed.

[n0nce]

This post brought to you by the department of just because you can does not mean you should.
Getting some things to work, like the 4g were a pain in the ass. But it was fun.

That's so cool, thanks a lot for trying what I now call 'the $50 experiment'!

You bring up a good point: portability. Even if the battery in such a node is almost dead, it will protect it from short power outages and allows you to move it without turning it off and on again.

Went with mynode in a VM for now because I could not get everything to work under linux and I wanted a lightning setup. No real reason, just wanted it.

I must insert an ad for my own topic here, but openSUSE seems to be very light on the hardware, especially if installed / run without graphical user interface.
If interested in running bare-metal, with electrs and Core Lightning (They rebranded! Anyone noticed yet? https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning), you could try following along with this guide: [Guide] FULL NODE OpenSUSE 15.3: bitcoind + electrs + c-lightning + RTL. But you already gave me 8 merit, so you are aware of it.

Unfortunately, I have a shitty internet connection. I live in a village side, and I also don't have 24/7 Electricity here. I am not aware of the pruned node. Should I watch some Youtube videos about it? Or it's works same as like the Main core?

As BlackHatCoiner said, pruning won't help with the download speed. But there's no rush, right, so just let it sit. Regarding electricity, this would be a great application for using laptop hardware with a battery installed, as I mentioned above. You could even tell Linux to shut down cleanly if it detects to be running on battery for more than 15 minutes, for instance.

[Welsh]

Anyone ever tempted to run a node off a solar panel? I assume a single board computer would likely be the most realistic way of going about it.

Yes, very good point! We talked in the past about people with bandwidth limits and total data limits and such. While tedious, with such an option in Core, they could set it to a speed that only downloads 5GB a day or so, to complete IBD in a bit over 2 months if that's the maximum their data plan or bandwidth allows them.

I know the vast majority of people wouldn't find it useful, and that's probably the reason it hasn't already been implemented, however as time goes on if we're going to expect more adoption, it could very well aid that. I know there are already alternatives such as a lightweight client or just not running a node, and don't get me wrong again the vast majority aren't going to be interested. I don't know, I just feel it could be worth it regardless, as it might just encourage someone who was already on the fence, to give running a full node a try, which obviously directly benefits the network as a whole.

Went with mynode in a VM for now because I could not get everything to work under linux and I wanted a lightning setup. No real reason, just wanted it.

What specifically didn't work in Linux, but works in the virtual machine?

[n0nce]

Anyone ever tempted to run a node off a solar panel? I assume a single board computer would likely be the most realistic way of going about it.

Not..... yet! I plan to get something relatively large but still single panel that would easily power a node even on cloudy days.
The more ambitious part would be also developing a hashboard that is then dynamically powered on / off depending on sun availability. Mainly to show the counterintuitive concept of harvesting otherwise 'lost' energy (since the solar panel will produce much more than what a little pi needs on sunny days) and therefore run not only carbon-neutral, but you could argue carbon-negative mining.

Yes, very good point! We talked in the past about people with bandwidth limits and total data limits and such. While tedious, with such an option in Core, they could set it to a speed that only downloads 5GB a day or so, to complete IBD in a bit over 2 months if that's the maximum their data plan or bandwidth allows them.

I know the vast majority of people wouldn't find it useful, and that's probably the reason it hasn't already been implemented, however as time goes on if we're going to expect more adoption, it could very well aid that. I know there are already alternatives such as a lightweight client or just not running a node, and don't get me wrong again the vast majority aren't going to be interested. I don't know, I just feel it could be worth it regardless, as it might just encourage someone who was already on the fence, to give running a full node a try, which obviously directly benefits the network as a whole.

Actually, I believe the need for Bitcoin is even higher in less 'developed' parts of the world, however those are almost always also underdeveloped in (internet) infrastructure. So such a feature would actually benefit exactly the people 'that need it most'.

[DaveF]

Went with mynode in a VM for now because I could not get everything to work under linux and I wanted a lightning setup. No real reason, just wanted it.

What specifically didn't work in Linux, but works in the virtual machine?

I could not get the 4G working under linux. It's a Gobi / Sierra Wireless / Qualcomm unit but no matter what I did it would not connect.
Installed Win 10 and it works. VirtualBox sees it as a regular Wi-Fi card.

I don't know if

1) It's not a 100% standard card and Dell has something custom either in the hardware or firmware that causes it to get funky under linux.
Or
2) Since it's PD surplus if they did some tweaks to the firmware
Or
3) AT&T is looking for some setting that is not in the generic linux driver that is in the Windows one.
Or
4) Something else that I am not seeing.

-Dave

[garlonicon]

Dell has something custom either in the hardware or firmware that causes it to get funky under linux

I don't know if it is related, but we recently had some problems with Dell. We had a person that switched motherboard five times or more, so definitely something is fishy. Not to mention that most libreboot laptops or similar Free Software guys run their things on ThinkPads, and that Lenovo sometimes create a BIOS image in debug mode, so you can read a lot of things by capturing that with flashrom, also for that reason it is easier to hack that by installing Open Source BIOS on such devices.

[ABCbits]

Anyone ever tempted to run a node off a solar panel? I assume a single board computer would likely be the most realistic way of going about it.

Not..... yet! I plan to get something relatively large but still single panel that would easily power a node even on cloudy days.
The more ambitious part would be also developing a hashboard that is then dynamically powered on / off depending on sun availability. Mainly to show the counterintuitive concept of harvesting otherwise 'lost' energy (since the solar panel will produce much more than what a little pi needs on sunny days) and therefore run not only carbon-neutral, but you could argue carbon-negative mining.

I would disagree it's carbon-negative. You need to consider carbon footprint during production[1] and whether it's recyclable after the panel reached end of life/broken[2].

1) It's not a 100% standard card and Dell has something custom either in the hardware or firmware that causes it to get funky under linux.

It's known problem that some WiFi and mobile broadband card doesn't work on linux. But what linux distro did you use? Have you tried install optional/closed-source driver (few distro require user to do it manually)?


[1] https://www.1energysystems.com/carbon-footprint-of-solar-panel-manufacturing/
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0645-2.epdf

[DaveF]

Anyone ever tempted to run a node off a solar panel? I assume a single board computer would likely be the most realistic way of going about it.

Not..... yet! I plan to get something relatively large but still single panel that would easily power a node even on cloudy days.
The more ambitious part would be also developing a hashboard that is then dynamically powered on / off depending on sun availability. Mainly to show the counterintuitive concept of harvesting otherwise 'lost' energy (since the solar panel will produce much more than what a little pi needs on sunny days) and therefore run not only carbon-neutral, but you could argue carbon-negative mining.

I would disagree it's carbon-negative. You need to consider carbon footprint during production[1] and whether it's recyclable after the panel reached end of life/broken[2].

1) It's not a 100% standard card and Dell has something custom either in the hardware or firmware that causes it to get funky under linux.

It's known problem that some WiFi and mobile broadband card doesn't work on linux. But what linux distro did you use? Have you tried install optional/closed-source driver (few distro require user to do it manually)?


[1] https://www.1energysystems.com/carbon-footprint-of-solar-panel-manufacturing/
[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0645-2.epdf

I tried Debian and Ubuntu 1st figuring that when Debian did not work Ubuntu, although close to it may do something a bit differently. Then I switched to CentOS and still no go. Tried every driver I could find related to the card both open and closed. It's not even that smooth under Windows, after install you have to *power down* not just reboot.

As for the solar panel side, since the nodes in a box use so little power you can probably get an older / damaged solar panel for free that will put out enough power to run the node and charge a few batts to keep it going when it's dark out. Depending on where you live. Here in the US it's going to be easier to do in say Las Vegas where you have a lot more sun then New York.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5158920.msg58008085#msg58008085



-Dave