They and you may as well speak in alien language to me…so I’ve no idea!
Discussion
A node just a computer running the full bitcoin blockchain ledger and interacts with your wallet to confirm transactions/verify.
Okkk now I understand it better. But what’s the purpose, endgame?
Running your own bank! 🐶🐾🫡
Consensus and decentralization. Nodes keep the blockchain honest by all agreeing on the blocks of transactions and prevent things like dbl spends. The more nodes the harder bitcoin is to attack or disrupt
So, like your own vault?
The core idea in BTC is transferring value peer to peer, without intermediaries, and without the need to trust each other. So you can safely send and receive payments from anybody.
But as safe as the block-chain is, you are still going through third parties - the people/computers running the software (the "nodes") and keeping a copy of the blockchain, based on which you are transacting.
You can even mitigate that risk by setting up your own node, so when you transact you verify against your own copy of the blockchain.
Also, the more nodes there are, the more robust the network becomes, so it's for the common good too.
Now, the hot take: don't do it unless you are very invested and relatively tech-savvy.
I like Blockstream Green (hot wallet) and their Jade hardware cold wallet. Plan on graduating to Cold Card and Seedsigner soon tho.
Ledger and Trezor can miss me with their BS and shitcoining these days honestly.
I am currently shopping for a cold wallet myself. I think anyone with more than 7 figure-sats needs one. I do care about the software being open source and publicly auditable.
More important than that is that people learn how to get non-KYC sats, though.
Because what's the point of keeping your sats "safe" if they're not safe from the state mafia sending armed thugs to take them from you?
Anyway, running my own node? Meh. If I had the space and the extra cash to keep a couple of machines permanently online, and the time to get knowledgeable and to maintain the machines...
An article I wrote in BTC Mag about my own experience with practical non KYC that I think is relevant to your point here
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/get-non-kyc-bitcoin-before-you-need-it
Also a blog post I wrote about my experience with definanicalization several year back. It’s easy to believe it’s not possible until it happens to ya…
Oh you wrote that one? It's in my bookmarks!
Yo you wrote this!? Noice!
What #[5] said! Fairly simple once you wrap your head around it. 🐶🐾🫡😂