Every Monero wallet needs to synchronise with the network to show your balance and broadcast transactions. The question is how it does that — through a local node, a full copy of the Monero blockchain running on your own machine, or a remote node, a server run by someone else that your wallet connects to over the network.
What a Monero node does
A Monero node stores the complete blockchain, validates all transactions, and serves data to wallets. When your wallet wants to find transactions that belong to you, it queries the node. When you want to broadcast a transaction, you send it through a node to the network. The node you connect to can observe your IP address and the specific transactions your wallet is scanning for. A malicious node cannot steal your funds — your private keys never leave your wallet — but it can learn information about your transaction history and link your IP to your wallet activity.
Local node: maximum privacy
Running your own local node means the blockchain data never leaves your machine. No external server sees which transactions you are scanning for. Your wallet's transaction history is known only to you. The requirements are significant: approximately 200GB of storage and growing, a reasonably fast internet connection for the initial sync — which takes 24–48 hours on a typical home connection — and a computer that stays on or syncs regularly. For users with the hardware and bandwidth, running a local node is worth it.
Remote node: the practical alternative
Most Monero users connect to remote nodes. A remote node operator can see your IP address, the blocks your wallet is scanning, and the transaction you broadcast when you send XMR. A remote node operator cannot see your private keys, which transactions definitively belong to you, or your wallet balance. The risk depends on who operates the node and what they do with connection logs.
Which remote nodes to trust
nodes.hashvault.pro is operated by Hashvault, a well-known Monero mining pool with a long track record. node.moneroworld.com is one of the oldest public Monero node services, operated by community members with a public history. Feather Wallet's built-in node list curates a rotating selection of nodes that have demonstrated uptime and reliability — for most users, the automatic selection is the right default. node.sethforprivacy.com is operated by Seth For Privacy, a known Monero privacy advocate with a public identity and track record. Avoid connecting to random nodes found in forums without verifying who operates them.
Using Tor with a remote node
The primary privacy risk of remote nodes is IP address exposure — the node operator can see where you are connecting from. Routing your connection through Tor eliminates this. Both Feather Wallet and Monerujo on Android support connecting to nodes over Tor. When enabled, the remote node sees only a Tor exit node IP, not yours.
Recommended configuration for most users: a reputable public node connected through Tor. Meaningful privacy without the overhead of running a full local node. Configure once in Feather Wallet preferences and leave it.