Bitcoin full node vs. Bitcoin miners’ node

Full nodes and miner nodes are essential components of the Bitcoin network though they perform different functions. While a miner will run a node necessarily, a full node runner won’t necessarily be a miner. The average Bitcoin node’s task is to validate transactions and blocks, whereas the miner node will provide the specialized mining hardware necessary to resolve complex mathematical problems to create a new block and upload new transactions into it.

Against popular opinion, miners actually have limited power. They could potentially reorganize the blockchain and add or remove transactions, but they would need to spend an extraordinary amount of computing power, making it not worth it. A powerful miner could attack Bitcoin, but miners could not completely change or destroy Bitcoin because full nodes rely on miners only for the few functions highlighted previously.