PSA: Anyone With a Computer & Internet Connection Can Run a Bitcoin Node FOR FREE. Just Download and Run the Free Software. You don't need to buy these raspberry pi's that are not primarily Bitcoin Nodes. Those Pricey Pi's Are Lightning Nodes AND Bitcoin nodes. There is a Big difference! Run A Node!

A Bitcoin Node is not a Lighting Node:

A Bitcoin Node Needs Only 5GB of Disk Space & a Internet Connection To Function.

But A Lightning Node Needs 1TB of disk space & Uses a Bitcoin Node To Function. These are often the raspberry pi's you see for sale or in pictures sometimes. You do NOT need these to run a Bitcoin node, or a Full Bitcoin node.

Both of these have different functions and purposes that you can read more about using google.

More on the difference between a lightning node and Bitcoin node here:

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/78733/full-node-vs-lightning-node

A few sources for downloading the Bitcoin core reference implementation for free:

Bitcoincore.org

https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/

You can also run luke-jr's Bitcoin Node Software to accomplish the same thing, He maintains this version of Bitcoin node software mostly on his own, while an army of developers maintain the versions above:

https://bitcoinknots.org/

Both of these versions are free, and open source (meaning anyone can use them, modify them, or audit and view the course code: https://github.com/bitcoin).

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