How to Run a Bitcoin Full Node on a Raspberry Pi
This guide teaches you how to run a Bitcoin full node, which is not the same as mining. You won't earn bitcoins by running a full node. You run a full node because you love Bitcoin and want to support the network.
What is a full node?
The beauty of a fully decentralized currency, like Bitcoin, is that it doesn't require a financial institution to govern the network. Rather, government happens by consensus. This means that transactions and the full historical ledger of transactions (blockchain) are determined and verified by computers (nodes) attached to the Bitcoin network.
In order for the Bitcoin network to operate securely, it requires many additional full nodes to ensure the miners are following the consensus rules...
Some nodes, called miners, record new transactions by publishing them in "blocks". Other nodes, simply called full nodes, verify the transactions and ensure that miners are following the consensus rules. If a miner tries to publish a block that doesn't follow the rules, it will simply be ignored.
When a miner (or mining pool) is the first to publish a new block, it receives a mining reward. And while mining can be lucrative, it also requires an upfront investment and uses a considerable amount of energy.
In order for the Bitcoin network to operate securely, it requires many additional full nodes to ensure the miners are following the consensus rules and help relay transactions to other nodes in the network.
And since there is no direct financial incentive to run a full node (unlike mining), it requires good Bitcoin citizens to step up and help out.
In this guide, we're going to learn how to run a full node using a Raspberry Pi 4 and an external hard drive.
Why Raspberry Pi?
The Raspberry Pi is small, inexpensive, and meets the minimum requirements for running a Bitcoin full node. A machine running a full node can also be used for other tasks, but because a full node should be connected to the network at least six hours a day (and ideally continuously), it makes sense to use an inexpensive computer dedicated to the task.
One thing you might notice is that the Raspberry Pi doesn't ship with storage. So generally Raspberry Pi users will run the operating system on a small-ish micro SD card. But because running a full node involves downloading the entire Bitcoin blockchain, which is a few hundred gigabytes (and growing), we're going to add an external hard drive to the setup. You could also use a high capacity micro SD card or a high capacity thumb drive. Just make sure that with any option you choose, you have over 350GB of available space.
If you're new to Raspberry Pi, then you'll likely want to get a kit like the Canakit for the Raspberry Pi 4 that I'm using for this guide.
CLI vs GUI
As we get started, please note that I prefer command-line tools to graphical tools, especially for a project like this. So throughout this guide, you'll be exposed to commands that need to be executed in the Terminal application running a Unix-based shell. The reason for choosing CLI (command-line interface) over GUI (graphical user interface) is that graphical tools require peripherals (monitor, keyboard, mouse).
If you prefer graphical tools, you can still follow along with this guide, and I will point out which steps will need to be modified.
Canakit Raspberry Pi 4 Starter Kit | × | 1 | ||
Raspberry Pi 4 Model B | × | 1 | ||
Samsung T5 1TB Portable SSD | × | 1 |
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