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What is a full node?
A full node is software that downloads every Bitcoin block and checks every transaction against the network's rules for itself. Running one lets you confirm your own payments without relying on someone else's server, and it passes valid blocks and transactions on to other nodes.
What it means for you
A wallet connected to your own full node checks incoming payments with your own copy of the rules instead of asking an outside server, so you learn whether a payment is valid without taking anyone's word for it. The cost is disk space, monthly bandwidth and a first sync that can take a long time.
How it works
A full node fully validates transactions and blocks: it accepts them from peers, checks them against the consensus rules, and relays valid ones onward. On first start it performs an initial block download of the whole chain, with heavy network and CPU use; until it catches up, a connected wallet cannot see recent transactions. Lightweight wallets rely on full nodes to broadcast transactions and learn about payments; without enough full nodes they would fall back on centralized services. A pruned node validates the same way but deletes old block data afterward.
Sources: Running a full node (bitcoin.org), Bitcoin vocabulary (bitcoin.org) · checked 4 October 2026
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