Bitcoin is a digital currency that operates on a decentralized network of computers, called nodes. Decentralized means that there is no central entity that controls the network, and thus, no central authority which assembles the state of the ledger, known as the blockchain. Instead, Bitcoin uses a mechanism called “emergent consensus”, which is achieved through nodes respecting the same rules, allowing thousands of individual nodes to assemble the same local copy of the blockchain, without being dependent on a central authority.
A transaction is added to the blockchain as part of a block, which essentially records a batch of new transactions into the blockchain.
Once a transaction is broadcast to the network, nodes independently verify the transaction against their policy rules, which are a set of rules or conditions that are defined by the individual node. Once validated, the transaction is temporarily stored into a node’s mempool, where it waits for a miner to take it along with other validated transactions, and aggregate it into a candidate block, which is a block that is not yet confirmed nor added to the blockchain.
The candidate block then enters the process of “mining”, which refers to the computational and energy-intensive task of finding a valid “hash”, which is made-up of the candidate blocks contents + a random input. The difficulty of finding a valid hash changes approximately every two weeks through a mechanism called the “difficulty adjustment”. This mechanism changes the conditions depending on the amount of active miners participating.
Once a valid hash has been found, the miner broadcasts the candidate block + hash to the network, where nodes independently verify the block, its contents and the hash against the consensus rules, which are the fundamental, unchanging rules that are hard-coded into the blockchain’s protocol and are agreed upon by the entire network, they determine how blocks are created, validated, and added to the blockchain. Once the block is validated, it's added to the local copy of the nodes, and thus, the blockchain.
That's what I've come up with until now, and so far, I'm happy with the result, but I'm pondering about how I shall continue.
I've tried keeping it simple-ish, but with a clear direction and explaining, for I think that a too simple explanation only throws up more questions than needed, who can help?
There's already infinite resources that make the technical explanation digestible.
When you do have a normie on the hook inquiring Bitcoin, what they're really asking is "How do I benefit?"
Decentralization and censorship resistance, blah blah blah, are features... not benefits.
Normie wants to know they can make money on the side, buy pr0n without their wife seeing it on the CC bill, have number go up. Shit like that. You can then digress into how those things are possible if they press.
Give them usecases that appeal to their desires today. People are animals interested primarily in what's good for them in the short-medium term.
Don't put them to sleep.
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That's very true. Depends on the audience.
I'm not massively technical by nature, so have some need for digestible content. But I also don't like reading 'explain bitcoin to me like I was 5 .. maybe 12, but might still hurt my pride.
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Very nice, but now I want to know how the miner's reward works.
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In a nutshell: A miner finds a valid hash, broadcasts the candidate block + hash to the network, nodes verify the candidate block, its contents and the hash, validate the block, add it to their local copy of the blockchain, and broadcast it along to its peers.
The miner managed to add a new batch of transactions through the process finding a valid hash, which is a computational and energy-intensive task. For his efforts (and incurred costs) he is awarded the newly created bitcoin from the block he broadcasted, called "block-subsidy", as well as the fees from the transactions contained within the block, which together make up the "block reward".
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newly created bitcoin from the block he broadcasted
Thank you. Now I want to know:
  • how those bitcoins are created and
  • how are the number of bitcoins limited to the reward amount
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Every 210.000 blocks, the block-subsidy gets cut in half, where the subsidy currently sits at 6.25 BTC per block, it'll be 3.125 BTC after the coming halving, and half that after the next halving, up until the block reward is so small that the protocol doesn't register it anymore, which will cause the supply to be close to 21M coins.
It's all written down in the protocols consensus rules.
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now explain block templates ;-)
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Change 5th word into money
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Nice one, there are lots of additional niches that is also important such as SPV, BIP, UASF, various type of nodes, Fork, Layer2, on-ramp, self-custody software & etc. etc.
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Yeah, the thing is; I want to keep it somewhat basic. I could build this out into more detail, as a matter of fact, I'm already thinking about what I'll add, but I don't wanna make it too complex for the average Joe. I think I'll add a piece about HD-wallets, build out mining + proof-of-work and how UTXO's work, what do you think?
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Would be interested in learning how the UTXOs work :)
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Here you go: #226836
I've found it to be hard to put into words, and I might rework it sometime, but I hope I can get the point across! :)
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Just read all the way till the bottom ( trust me bro ). This is the kind of SN post that i liked. Could you make another one like this ( any topic as long as it interesting ) :)
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What would you like? I've got one about HD-wallets?
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As long as you feel like it :)
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There you go, HD-wallets, part 1 and 2(in comments)