All you need to know about Bitcoin network nodes

After these blocks are created, they are sent over the network to full nodes which validate them and add them to the blockchain.As their name suggests, full nodes are responsible for holding and distributing copies of the entire blockchain ledger. As such, they play a vital role in the network as they are the go-to point for validating the history of the blockchain.The full node is able to validate transactions all the way back to the genesis block, at the time of publishing, the entire blockchain is getting on for 200GB in size. They serve as information or redistribution relays to ensure everyone has the right copy of the blockchain.Light nodes – or thin nodes – perform a similar function to full nodes, but rather than holding an entire copy of the blockchain, they only contain a portion of it.Light nodes only download the block header of previous transactions, to confirm the validity of the blockchain, and to pass this information on to other nodes.