[Question] Do you run your own node? I
wonder if you run your own nodes and, if you do, do you have a particular
preference for its configuration? [Answer] That's a great question, Antonio. Yes I
do. I've run a node since the very first moment I got involved in bitcoin. My first interaction
was with a full node and I've been running a full node since. In fact, for a variety of
reasons I actually run several full nodes. Some of them are pruned, as they call them, which
means that those don't have a full historical copy of the blockchain because those nodes are
used to do validation of current transactions, for example in an e-commerce environment. But
I also do keep fully archival nodes that have every single transaction from the genesis block
and a full transaction index, and on top of that, a full UTXO database that I use an electrum public
server to run, so that i can interact with my own wallets, and also interact with programmatically.
When I need to do some kind of analysis of the blockchain, or look at a specific transaction,
etc, i always use my own authoritative full node that I've configured myself.
The configuration really isn't very different from the defaults.
The defaults
actually work really well for most people. I either use a cookie authentication mechanism
or a much much stronger password than you might anticipate for the RPC interfaces so I can ensure
that those systems are secure. I also use some basic packet filtering and port filtering to
ensure that my node is only accessible on its RPC interface from the correct places. But other
than that not much different. And, of course, all of my nodes are available both on IP as well as on
TOR, the onion routed network. And they they serve gigabytes of data out to nodes that are
bootstrapping or wallets that are trying to gain access to the bitcoin blockchain. At the last
estimate, because of the number of nodes I run and because of the amount of bandwidth I serve, it
costs anywhere from three to five hundred dollars a month in bandwidth costs and such. I run nodes
both on popular cloud systems, like amazon cloud, as well as on dedicated privately
owned computers on their own dedicated systems and internet connections. Thanks
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