Running your own bitcoin node is one of the fundamental responsibilities and privilege of bitcoiners. Your bitcoin node verifies that the bitcoin you send and receive is following the rules of the network, and rejects any transactions that do not. Your bitcoin node is how you know there will only ever be 21 million bitcoin.
Building a node can be a bit intimidating for a newcomer to bitcoin, but it's relatively simple and cheap to do it. It costs a few hundred dollars and a few hours of your time to set one up, but that is the cost of monetary sovereignty. Would you spend $200 to secure your life savings? Most people would! That's how I look at running my own node.
You don't have to run your own node in order to use bitcoin. Do it when you are ready. Nobody drops into bitcoin land and becomes an expert over night. Adopt bitcoin in stages:
- buy some bitcoin
- get it off the exchange (get hardware wallet)
- build a node
- use a wallet that allows you to connect to your own node
It's OK if you aren't ready to build your own node yet, but just keep in mind that if you aren't using your own node, you're using someone else's. That means they can see all your transaction data and you are relying on them to verify the validity of your bitcoin transactions.
