Bitcoin is decentralized money governed by a network of nodes. Simply described, a node is a machine that executes the Bitcoin Core software, validating transactions and blocks.
The transactions are validated by miners who group them into blocks and post them to the blockchain.
When a node receives a new transaction or block, it sends it to its peers, ensuring that all nodes and miners are on the same page and maintaining identical blockchains.
A Bitcoin full node is run by users for a variety of purposes. Its main purpose is to let users independently verify the state of the Bitcoin network. Users can do the following:
Check the Bitcoin supply. The state of the Bitcoin network can be independently verified by users.
Prevent bitcoin from being spent twice. A node will immediately reject previously spent bitcoin
Without the use of third parties, you can use Bitcoin. Instead of relying on a third party, a node allows users to broadcast and validate their own transactions.
Bitcoin’s decentralized, peer-to-peer architecture relies on distributed, fully functional nodes to make the network secure.