1st class citizens run their own Bitcoin Full Node.
A review of the user experience around ordering, buying, setting up, running and servicing 3 different standalone devices with Bitcoin Full Node implementations and more.
The purpose of this piece is to give fellow holdlers an opportunity to learn from my experiences when deciding which stand-alone Bitcoin Full Node implementation to select.
Why even consider running a full node?
All serious Bitcoiners should aim to become a “1st. Class Bitcoin Citizen” which requires them to take the needed steps, to set up and run their own Bitcoin Full Node locally and preferably behind Tor for maximum privacy.
By doing so Bitcoiners adapt to the very core of what Bitcoin is all about and stop trusting 3rd parties with anything when it comes to their Bitcoin holdings.
Running your own node gives you a lot of benefits that you would not otherwise have, and some would even say that running a Bitcoin Full Node is the equivalent of having your own banking tech stack right at your fingertips and under your full control without the need for any middlemen of any kind.
Some of the benefits of running your own full node are:
Full financial sovereignty.
A lot more privacy.
Less need to trust other people’s nodes.
You help to secure the enforcement of Bitcoin protocol rules and strengthens the network overall.
Enables you to send and propagate transactions, enforce the supply cap and verify your Bitcoin holdings directly from your own device/node implementation
In short: running a node gives you the power to live by the rule: “Don’t trust, Verify!”
When I eventually came to a sufficient level of understanding of the Bitcoin protocol and realized that I needed to buy and run my own full node, I decided that I wanted to order 3 different stand-alone device implementations from 3 different providers and teams.
I did this because I wanted to use the learnings to make me comfortable in selecting which would be the right devices to purchase for my children. There is no way in hell that I am feeding them with FIAT accounts in the broken legacy financial system. That will not happen on my shift.
With that in mind, I selected 3 products based on my perceived assumption of the skills needed to actually set it up and run it at my own desired locations, preferably with no need for anyone to “come and assist me” in person. I wanted to see what I could actually achieve with my own very limited CLI (command-line interface) skills.
I like tech and like to buy gadgets, so I am not a total moron, but I have almost no experience with CLI and have zero coding experience, so it was an important part of the decision making.
What 3 products did I buy and why?
Casa2 from Casa (unfortunately they have decided to discontinue the shipping of their stand-alone nodes after Jeremy Welch stepped down as CEO.
myNode One+ Premium from: myNode
Nodl Dojo (aka “The Red Beast”) from Samourai Wallet and Nodl.
To be continued…
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