This part is for people who would rather check for themselves than take our word, and for people who want to hold a copy of the ledger of their own.

The three pages inside are ordered by the effort they ask of you: reading a public address takes a minute, running a node takes an afternoon, and checking where the network actually stands is something you should do every time before believing any number about this project.

Page	For	Effort
Network and endpoints	Anyone pointing tools at the network, or just wanting to look	A minute
Run a node	Anyone wanting an independent copy, not dependent on the project's machines	An afternoon, and a machine
Check the network yourself	Anyone about to believe a claim about this network	One read, each time you hear something

Diagram

flowchart LR P["You"] --> R["Read a public address"] R --> V["Check for yourself: which network,<br/>born when"] V --> N["Run your own node"] N --> I["No longer having to trust anyone<br/>about the ledger's contents"]

Figure 25 — Four steps of independence, each removing one place where you must trust someone else.

One thing worth saying first. Reading numbers from an address the project runs still means trusting the project — only at a lower level than trusting a screenshot of a dashboard. Real independence begins at your own node: once the ledger sits on your machine, what the project says matters less than what you can read.

In short: each step here removes one place where you are forced to trust someone else — and that is the right measure of open infrastructure, not the amount of documentation it publishes.