The Bitcoin network is a peer-to-peer network where nodes exchange transactions and blocks. There are different types of nodes on the network. There are two main types of nodes, full nodes and SPV nodes. Full nodes, as the name implies, are implementations of Bitcoin core clients performing the wallet, miner, full blockchain storage, and network routing functions. However, it is not necessary to perform all these functions. Simple Payment Verification (SPV) nodes or lightweight clients perform only wallet and network routing functionality. The latest version of Bitcoin protocol is 70015 and was introduced with Bitcoin core client 0.13.2.
Some nodes prefer to be full blockchain nodes with complete blockchain as they are more secure and play a vital role in block propagation while some nodes perform network routing functions only but do not perform mining or...
