Run a node · Bitcoin Ghost

what makes a ghost node

Ghost's own node — forked from Bitcoin Core, built well beyond it.

A Ghost node runs ghostd — Ghost's own daemon, forked from Bitcoin Core v30 — with ghost-pool and ghost-pay alongside it on the same box. It validates Bitcoin mainnet like any full node, then adds a mesh layer, an incentive layer, and a privacy layer that stock Bitcoin Core doesn't have — every feature below is built into the Ghost binaries, and every one toggles in config.

BUDS

Tier-based mempool policy dial. Accept or reject transactions by class — T0 financial, T1 data, T2 content, T3 abusive — without forking or recompiling.
Reaper

Consensus-safe dead-code filter. Rejects inscription envelopes, runestones, drop stuffing, fake multisig, P2TR annex abuse and oversized OP_RETURNs at the policy layer.
Shroud

Randomised relay delays that defeat timing-correlation attacks used to fingerprint originating nodes and link wallets to IPs.
Ghost Mode

Blocks-only relay. Your node never announces transactions into the mempool, preventing origin-address leakage from passive network surveillance.
Exorcism

Defensive block storage. Blocks are validated in RAM, then hazeable fields — witness, scriptSig, OP_RETURN, coinbase data — are stripped before disk. Harmful bytes never persist.
Tor or clearnet

Embedded Tor subprocess or clean clearnet P2P routing, configurable per node. The mesh counts both identically — no privacy penalty for running hidden.
Decentralised voting

67% Byzantine-fault-tolerant quorum on payouts and consensus actions, gossiped over a ZMQ mesh. Every node can propose, vote, and sign checkpoints.
Incentivised share system

0.5% of every block subsidy plus the full L2 node side of settlement fees flow to the node reward pool. Paid on-chain, every block, to your address.

capabilities

Opt into more. Earn more shares.

The reward pool is split by capability shares. Every node that meets the uptime gate gets at least one share; each capability you opt into — and prove via random peer challenges — adds more. Five capabilities, maximum fifteen shares.

Archive mode +5

Keep the full Bitcoin Ghost chain from genesis and serve block data to peers. Verified via random block-retrieval challenges. Heaviest on storage; highest reward.
Ghost Pay +4

Run the L2 payment service — accept instant payments, serve light wallets, process settlements. Verified via L2 block-lookup challenges. Earns L2 settlement fees on top.
Public mining +3

Open your Stratum ports so external ASICs can point at your node. Verified by peers connecting to your stratum endpoint. Adds miner hashrate to the pool.
Reaper +2

Run the consensus-safe dead-code filter — reject inscription envelopes, runestones, drop stuffing, fake multisig, P2TR annex abuse and oversized OP_RETURNs. Verified by peers submitting policy-classification challenges.
Elder +1

One of the first 101 nodes registered with valid proof-of-work. Slots issued in deterministic order; once burned or retired they stay burned.

mining modes

Solo, private pool, or public pool.

Every node decides how its hashpower is used and who may point miners at it. Pick one of three modes — switch any time from the node dashboard. No account, no sign-up, no KYC.

Private Solo

Your miners only — Stratum ports stay closed to outsiders and the node isn't published in DNS. You keep 99% of the block subsidy plus every transaction fee, paid straight to your own address. The remaining 1% of the subsidy is the protocol fee, split between the treasury and the node pool. No reward sharing.
Private Pool

Run a pool for a group you choose. Miners connect with a password and rewards are pool-aggregated and shared across connected hashers — but the node stays out of DNS, so the public can't find it. Good for a farm, a club, or friends pooling together.
Public Pool +3

Published in DNS so anyone can point an ASIC at your node. Rewards are pool-aggregated and shared, and accepting external miners earns the public-mining capability (+3 shares). This is the default mode.

Set it at install with --mining-mode solo|pool|public, or change it later in the node dashboard under Mining.

Name your pool. Every block you find carries a tag in its coinbase, visible on any block explorer. By default it reflects the mode (- G H O S T - PublicPool), but you can set a custom name — - G H O S T - YourPool — from the node dashboard's Pool Setup (ASCII, up to 30 characters). It's how your pool gets recognised on-chain.

the gate

One rule: stay up.

Before any node's shares count toward payout, it must maintain 95% uptime over the trailing 7 days. Measured by peer health-ping receipts, tamper-resistant by mesh cross-validation. This is the only gatekeeper in the system — everything else is capability-based and opt-in.

window

7 days

trailing, rolling

threshold

95%

of samples must be online

consequence

no payout

until you climb back above 95%

hardware

What you need.

Ghost runs its own Bitcoin full node (ghostd) plus the pool and Pay daemons on the same box. Minimum specs scale with the capabilities you opt into — a pruned Bitcoin-only node is far cheaper than a full-archive node with Pay enabled.

Config	RAM	Disk	Bandwidth	Notes
Minimum	4 GB	700 GB SSD	1 Mbps ↑↓	Full Bitcoin validation + Ghost consensus. No archive, no Pay.
Recommended	8 GB	1 TB SSD	10 Mbps ↑↓	Comfortable margin. Enables Pay. Headroom for mesh gossip and share traffic.
Archive	16 GB	2 TB SSD	50 Mbps ↑↓	Full historical block serving. Pass archive challenges under load.
Public mining	+2 GB	—	+10 Mbps ↑	Add to any config. Share-propagation latency matters; low-ping bandwidth helps.

A home server, PC or laptop running Bitcoin Ghost can be a Ghost node. Tor is supported for operators who want to stay off clearnet — the mesh counts Tor and clearnet nodes identically.

quickstart

From zero to node in five steps.

Full walkthrough in the operator docs; this is the sketch.

1

Run the installer

One command installs ghostd, ghost-pool and ghost-pay with signed binaries and systemd units:
curl -sSL https://get.bitcoinghost.org | sudo bash -s -- --payout-address bc1q…
The script verifies the GPG release signature before writing anything. Prefer to do it by hand? Grab the tarball from the downloads page and verify it yourself.
2

Choose your sync

Full initial block download (the default) validates every block from genesis — fully trustless. In a hurry? --sync fast loads a verified assumeUTXO snapshot at height 910000 and back-fills history behind it, so the node is usable in minutes rather than days.
3

Configure capabilities

Edit pool.toml — set public_address, pick your mempool policy.profile, flip archive_mode, [ghost_pay], and public_mining to match what you want to offer.
4

Add seed peers + start

Drop a few mainnet seed nodes into seed_nodes and run systemctl start ghost-pool. The mesh does peer discovery from there.
5

Pass the gate

Stay online. After ~7 days of 95%+ uptime, you're eligible for the reward pool. Each capability verifies over the same window via random peer challenges.

ready?

Join the mesh.

Every node makes the pool harder to capture. Get the binary, spin it up, help Ghost run forever on its own.

Download → Read the full operator guide

Run a Ghost node.