Bitcoin Core Pruned Mode Hosting
Pruned mode lets you run a fully-validating Bitcoin Core node while keeping only a few gigabytes of recent block data on disk. The node verifies every block during IBD, then discards historical block files - perfect for low-disk hosts and personal-wallet backends. AnubizHost configures pruned nodes from $140/mo with NVMe storage so you can keep the entire UTXO set in fast cache.
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What Pruned Mode Actually Does
Pruned mode does not skip validation. Bitcoin Core still downloads, verifies and processes every block since genesis - the UTXO set you end up with is identical to an archival node. The difference is that historical block files are discarded after processing, keeping disk usage to whatever prune target you set (minimum 550MB, typical 50-100GB).
Trade-offs
Pruned nodes cannot serve historical blocks to other peers. They cannot run a block explorer or txindex-dependent tools (Electrum Personal Server, Fulcrum, BTCPay full historical lookups). They can run a Lightning node (LND/CLN both work with pruned bitcoind), they can serve as a personal-wallet backend, they can broadcast and validate transactions normally.
Why Host Pruned on Our NVMe
Even with pruned blocks, the UTXO set still grows ~12GB and the chainstate database benefits from fast storage. Our NVMe lets a pruned node maintain consistent sub-second block validation latency. The hardware is overkill for pure pruned use but lets you mix in additional services (Lightning, Mempool.space self-host, etc.).
Configuration We Ship
prune=50000 (50GB), dbcache=4096, blocksonly=0, listen=1. You override via bitcoin.conf with full root access.
Buy
Same $140/mo full node plan; pruned configuration is a checkbox at provisioning. See archival alternative, overview, pricing.
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