you always hear that blockchains are made up of peer-to-peer nodes which are simply devices which participate in the blockchain network but did you know that there are different types of nodes out there serving different functions in simple terms nodes can be divided into two types full nodes and light nodes however these can be further broken down into several types which we'll look at today full nodes can also be split into two we'll start with archival full nodes archival full nodes maintain
a complete copy of a blockchain's transaction history from the Genesis block to the most recent they are responsible for enforcing the consensus algorithm rules and participating in validating transactions meaning that in case of a failure a blockchain can be completely reconstructed as long as there remains a single intact archival full node in the network archival nodes can be further divided into four types you are probably familiar with the first type known as mining nodes AKA miners these n
odes participate in the process of creating new blocks on proof-of-work blockchains and in return receive rewards in the form of newly created cryptocurrency closely related are staking nodes which participate in the process of validating new blocks on proof of stake blockchains commonly known simply as validators these nodes have their crypto stake locked up making it financially unattractive for them to act dishonestly in the network the other type of archival nodes are known as Authority node
s mostly used in partially decentralized Networks validators that run these nodes are typically hand-picked by The Entity behind the network though they still perform similar tasks to full nodes the last type is masternodes which unlike these previous ones cannot add blocks to the blockchain rather they only validate and keep records of transactions however aside from archival nodes there is also a second type of full node known as the pruned full node a pruned node is simply a pruned or trimmed
down version of an archival full node pruned nodes start by downloading the entire blockchain and verify that it is correct then store only the most recent blocks up to a certain predetermined size limit say 5 gigabytes discarding the rest this reduces the amount of hard disk space required to store the blockchain and run a node otherwise they perform the same processes as other full nodes now moving on from Full nodes we have light nodes as their name suggests light nodes don't require powerfu
l Hardware or high bandwidth to run enabling access to the blockchain Via devices like laptops and smartphones they are used in day-to-day blockchain operations like checking balances or broadcasting transactions but don't enforce Network consensus rules and Only Store data relevant to transactions being performed relying on full nodes to provide them with any other necessary info lastly you must have already heard of the Bitcoin lightning Network it's powered by a type of node known as Lightnin
g nodes which allow off-chain transactions to reduce the load on the main chain though note that not all nodes are found in all blockchains or follow this particular categorization want to learn about other blockchain terms check out this video foreign foreign
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