What Is a Light Node?

There are three distinct types of nodes, one is a miner node, the other is a full node, and the last one is a light node. 

A node is any device that is connected to the blockchain. This includes servers, computers, laptops, online or desktop wallets and even mobile phones. All of the nodes are then connected to the blockchain in some way and are constantly updating each other with the latest information that is added to it. Nodes are a critical component to the infrastructure of the blockchain itself, and they act as a validation for the ledger which allows anyone to transparently see the transactions or data that is conducted and even held on the network. Here, the core benefits of the nodes are to ensure that the data which is held on the node is valid, secure and accessible to the authorized parties.

When it comes to nodes, they are typically classified into two types or categories: one is full nodes, and the other is what we are discussing here: light nodes. 

Light nodes are typically downloaded wallets and are connected to full nodes to validate the information further that is stored on the blockchain. The difference here is that light nodes are smaller in size and only hold information about partial blockchain histories. Full nodes, on the other hand, are a single copy of an entire blockchain history including the transactions, timestamps and all created blocks.

Back to light nodes, they have a similar purpose to full nodes; however, instead of holding a complete history of a blockchain, they typically hold a block header that seeks to support and query the volatility of the previous transactions. The block header is this detailed summary of a specific block, which includes information relating to a particular previous block that it is connected to.