Non-mining nodes do help secure the network if the purpose is self-hosting a wallet.
There are 3 main power sources in Bitcoin ecosystem, they exist in a balance-of-power arrangement (similar to 3 branches of govt):
Miners
Developers
Wallets
By "running your own node" (and hosting your wallet therein) you are keeping check on Miners / Developers. Miners can't come up with crazy ideas that widely used wallets will ignore....similarly Developers can't come up with crazy ideas if either Miners or Wallets refuse to install their code....
Non-mining nodes do help secure the network if the purpose is self-hosting a wallet.
There are 3 main power sources in Bitcoin ecosystem, they exist in a balance-of-power arrangement (similar to 3 branches of govt):
By "running your own node" (and hosting your wallet therein) you are keeping check on Miners / Developers. Miners can't come up with crazy ideas that widely used wallets will ignore....similarly Developers can't come up with crazy ideas if either Miners or Wallets refuse to install their code....