I recently setup a bitcoin node. Got the whole blockchain caught up. But as I live on a farm and can't get fibre, my Internet is slow and the full node is really slow and bogs the network. You can disable some things to avoid that, I just haven't figured out what to disable, and/or whether I should be running it within whonix or just bare. Oh... and I haven't opened my firewall port for bitcoin yet (long story about router access and mice, ask me and I'll explain)... but if I use whonix not only do I get Tor but I also don't have to open a bitcoin firewall port.

I was looking for a better-than-rpi box and didn't settle on one, so I'll be watching this thread for advice.