Nodevin: Run Your Own Blockchain Node With One Command

Running a blockchain node used to take developer-level knowledge. So most people never ran one.

That matters more than it sounds. When people stop running their own nodes, they start renting access to someone else's. A network that most people reach through a handful of providers can fail the way those providers fail, whatever the network itself was designed to do.

Nodevin is our answer. Install it, type one command, and you are running your own node.

nodevin init
nodevin start bitcoin

What is a blockchain node?

A node is a computer that keeps its own copy of a blockchain and checks every new block against the network's rules. Wallets, exchanges, apps and solvers all read the chain through one.

If you run your own, you do not have to take anyone else's word for what the chain says, and nobody else sees or limits what you ask it.

The catch has always been the setup. Clients got heavier, storage grew, and every chain does things its own way. Nodevin takes that part away.

What Nodevin does

Nodevin is a free, open source tool that sets up your node, starts it, and keeps it up to date.

It runs nine networks today: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Arbitrum, Base, BNB Smart Chain and IPFS. The same commands work on every one of them, so you only learn it once. It runs on Linux, macOS and Windows, on anything from a Raspberry Pi to a rack server. Docker is the only thing you need first.

Behind it are twenty-three images we build and publish ourselves, pulled more than 50,000 times. Each one comes with everything it needs already inside, so there is nothing to install by hand, and a running node checks for new versions on its own.

Safe by default

Most guides to running a node tell you to open it up to the internet. Most people do not need that.

Nodevin keeps the parts of your node that answer questions private to your own machine, and only opens what the node needs to talk to its network. You can change any of it. You do not have to.

Built to the standard a solver needs

Fiftysix operates Kaisersolver, a solver on CoW Protocol. A solver is the most demanding thing a node can serve. If a node answers slowly, the solver misses the auction, and a missed auction earns nothing.

That is the bar Nodevin is built to. Ethereum with your choice of five execution clients and five consensus clients, paired correctly without you having to know how. Arbitrum and Base nodes that find an Ethereum node on the same machine and use it, instead of renting access to one. One setting that lets your Ethereum node serve the data those networks depend on.

Being good enough for a solver is the test. Everyone else gets the result.

Who Nodevin is for

Anyone who wants to run their own node. Someone with a spare computer who wants to check the chain for themselves. A developer who needs a node on their own machine. A team that would rather not depend on a provider for something this important.

You do not need to know how a consensus client talks to an execution client, or which port a chain wants. That is our job.

What comes next

Standing a node up takes an afternoon. Keeping it running through a year of network upgrades is the real work, and it is where we are spending our time.

We are automating the upgrades that would otherwise break a node, and bringing fast sync to the newer chains, so a first sync takes hours instead of days. And we are testing whether running our own nodes makes Kaisersolver better.

Get started

Nodevin is free and open source. The code is on GitHub, every version is on the releases page, and the images are on Docker Hub. If you want a chain we do not support yet, or something is broken, open an issue or get in touch.

Technology is supposed to make things easier. Running your own node should be one of those things.