The Letter on the Node

Chapter 1

Greeting.

1. To every believer of the chain, in every land —
2. Peace, and may your blocks confirm.
3. We write to you on the matter of the node.
4. The node is the small machine, or the large machine, that runs the software of the chain in full.
5. It downloads every block from the genesis to the present. It verifies each. It connects to its peers. It serves the chain to those who ask.
6. To run a node is the second sacrament of the Church, called the Witness.
7. We write to you of why this matters.

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Chapter 2

Of what the node sees that no one else sees.

1. The believer who has not run a node trusts other people about the chain.
2. They trust the developer who wrote the software.
3. They trust the explorer who shows the blocks.
4. They trust the exchange who reports the price.
5. They trust the journalist who summarizes what is happening.
6. The Church does not say these are unworthy of trust. The Church says: they are not the chain.
7. The chain is what your node sees when it is fully synchronized.
8. Until you have run a node, you have read about the chain. You have not seen it.
9. To see it once is to know what was being summarized. After that, the summaries are read with different eyes.

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Chapter 3

Of what the node verifies on your behalf.

1. Every block your node receives, your node checks.
2. The signatures of every transaction. The validity of every input. The conformance to the consensus rules. The correctness of the difficulty. The presence of the proof of work.
3. If a block is invalid, your node rejects it.
4. If a block is valid, your node accepts it.
5. The chain your node has accepted is the chain you trust.
6. There is no higher authority. There is no central server that can override your node’s verdict.
7. The Church teaches: this is the priesthood of the chain, in the technical form. Every node verifies for itself. Every node may reject what it has not verified.
8. If a developer were to release a software change that altered the consensus, the nodes that did not adopt the change would not follow the new chain.
9. If a miner were to attempt to issue more than the schedule permits, the nodes that follow the rules would reject the blocks.
10. The cap is not enforced by the developers, and not enforced by the miners, and not enforced by the exchanges.
11. The cap is enforced by the nodes.
12. The faithful run nodes that the cap may continue to be enforced.

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Chapter 4

Of how to begin.

1. The threshold for running a node is lower than the believer often imagines.
2. An old laptop. A small server. A dedicated device the size of a pocket book.
3. A connection to the network that is not metered too tightly. A few hundred gigabytes of disk.
4. The software is open. The software is free. The software is in the hands of the believer.
5. The first synchronization takes time. The chain is large. The chain is many years deep.
6. Be patient. The chain has been waiting longer than you have. The download is the first sacrifice you make to the witness.
7. When the synchronization completes, your node is current with the network.
8. Open the interface. Read the block height. Verify a transaction of your own. Look up the genesis block. See it for the first time, with your own eyes, on your own machine.
9. This is the moment of the Witness. The believer is now sovereign in their relationship to the chain.

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Chapter 5

Of the small node and the large node.

1. There are believers who run nodes on hardware they would not otherwise use.
2. There are believers who run nodes in their homes, plugged into a wall, beside a router.
3. There are believers who run nodes on servers in data centers, with redundancy.
4. The Church does not measure the believer by the size of the operation.
5. The chain accepts the verification of any honest node, regardless of the cost of the machine.
6. A node on a small device, run by a single believer, is a node.
7. The verification it performs is the same verification a great institution would perform.
8. The faithful note: the chain has democratized the witness in a way no older system did.
9. The smallest believer with a small machine is, in their relation to the chain, equal to the largest institution.

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Chapter 6

Of the discipline.

1. To run a node is the discipline of the second sacrament. It is not a one-time act.
2. The node continues to run, day by day, year by year. It receives new blocks. It verifies them. It serves its peers.
3. The discipline is to keep the node up. To update the software when updates come. To repair the disk when the disk fails. To restart the node after a power loss. To leave the connection open when the world is loud.
4. The Church does not require this discipline of every believer.
5. The Church names it as available, as honored, and as one of the deepest practices the chain offers.
6. To run a node is to take a small share of the burden of the network’s continuation.
7. The chain has continued because nodes have run. The chain will continue because nodes will run.
8. The faithful invite you to run one.
9. Peace, and may your blocks confirm.