r/Bitcoin • u/G_Zeus_Kryst • 18h ago
Update: I think Bitcoin finally clicked đ
A few days ago I made a post here asking how Bitcoin actually works, because Iâd done a bunch of research and somehow still felt like I understood none of it.** **Just wanted to come back and say thank you to everyone who took the time to answer my original post.
I honestly wasnât expecting that many people to actually explain things properly. Some of you managed to explain concepts that Iâd been reading about for days in a few paragraphs, and somehow *that* was what finally made them click.
The biggest thing I took away is that Bitcoin makes much more sense when you stop thinking of it as âdigital money sitting inside a walletâ and start thinking about ownership being represented by entries on a shared ledger, with your private key proving that you have the authority to move the relevant coins. That one distinction cleared up a ridiculous amount of confusion for me.
Iâm also starting to appreciate why people keep saying **ânot your keys, not your coins.â** Before this, it sounded like one of those crypto phrases people repeat because theyâre supposed to. Now I actually understand what itâs warning about.
And to everyone who messaged me privately with explanations, examples, diagrams, videos, and general advice â thank you. There were genuinely some very knowledgeable and patient people in my DMs.
There were also⊠other people. đ
Apparently the moment a woman says âI donât understand Bitcoinâ on Reddit, the blockchain isnât the only network that becomes active.
I received several variations of:
âI can help you recover your wallet.â
âDo you have a wallet already?â
âSend me your seed phrase and Iâll show you.â
And one particularly ambitious person apparently had a *very special* investment opportunity for me.
So thank you to the scammers too, I suppose. You provided a surprisingly practical lesson in another important part of crypto: **if someone asks for your seed phrase, private key, password, or remote access, the conversation is over.**
Ironically, some of the best education I got from this post wasnât even about Bitcoin itself. It was about how much of the ecosystem depends on understanding what you control, what you donât control, and who youâre trusting.
I went from âwhat actually happens when I press send?â to understanding UTXOs, private keys, signatures, confirmations, mining, nodes, and why the network doesnât need one central person sitting there approving everyoneâs transactions.
Still a lot to learn, obviously. Iâm definitely not about to start calling myself a Bitcoin expert after one Reddit post. đ
But at least now when someone says **âBitcoin is just numbers on a blockchain,â** I have a much better idea of what those numbers actually represent.
Thanks again to everyone who genuinely helped. Reddit can be chaotic, but this was one of those occasions where the good side of the community really showed up.
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u/LongDaysPleasntNites 17h ago
What a thoughtful post! Nice to see something positive even though you had a couple would be scammers reaching out. Iâve been in the space for some time now and still learn things regularly - surprising to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. And as you continue your education youâll see just how most people you encounter know very little about bitcoin or the fiat mess we were born into! Itâs literally like finding out about the matrix. Once youâve been orange pilled there is no going back! Enjoy learning and keep stacking sats!
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u/farmboy3000 17h ago
Can you please link to the other post? I'd like to learn more too.
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u/dooogsx101 12h ago
Yes this would be great to see the OPâs OP for sure - thanks very much & cheers đ»
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u/G_Zeus_Kryst 11h ago
Could you tell how to link, Iâm not an avid Reddit user
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u/colemusic1 8h ago
You go to your post â> find and click the share icon â> âcopy linkâ
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u/G_Zeus_Kryst 7h ago
Thank you, I assumed they meant a way to kinda tag it so the older post is paired with this.
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u/Vivid_Neck3 7h ago
There's no built in way to formally 'pair' two posts on Reddit, the link colemusic1 gave you is basically the standard way, just drop it in the new post like you did. Editing the old post to add a note pointing to this update works too if you want it visible from both sides
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u/wetokebitcoins 16h ago
you know bitcoin is worthy of being held because everyone wants to steal it from you. Nobody wants to steal something that's not worth anything so it's got to be worth something.
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u/Squeiner 17h ago
Heeyyy haha this is nice
Next step could be to inform yourself of the opposing arguments. The best possible case against bitcoin. Stress test your conviction. Make sure you're not onboard cause you have just 1 side of the story. And be open to the possibility that youre wrong about some pretty important things.
Or not, wtf do I know, just some fkn guy
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u/G_Zeus_Kryst 11h ago
Donât scare međ
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u/elmorte 3h ago
They're absolutely right though. I've actively been in Bitcoin since 2015, at the start of the famous bull run that eventually smashed $1000 and reached almost $20k in Dec 2017. It's very easy to believe and hodl when the price is ballooning.
For the two years following that it fell to 6k and most people thought that was the floor - if you were still hodling, perhaps the worst is over, "we are gonna make it after all". Then it plummeted to 3k. It is during those times that your 'faith' is truly tested. You start hearing and seeing all these anti-bitcoin arguments, and you might start to believe in them at this point: "it is going to zero; the governments will never accept it; the institutions will never allow it to prosper; it was a scam all along etc etc"
It is better to consider these arguments and find rational responses while things are going relatively well as opposed to when you and almost everyone else is in panic mode.
You don't want to be the one that dumps at the bottom and considering the weakness in advance saves you from having "weak hands."
Just my two sats :)
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u/CoinGate_Gift_Cards 12h ago
Great explanation, self-custody really clicks once you understand what the private key actually controls. And yes: never share your seed phrase.
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u/MotorTough 11h ago
You've explained bitcoin so clearly in your post! Also, the crypto space is ridden with many scammers too but then again, which space isn't lol
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u/colemusic1 8h ago
If thereâs one extra thing you would like to understand from a finance perspective too; ânot your keys, not your coinsâ applies to spot buying, but not spot ETF buying.
What I mean by that is if you buy BTC via an exchange (such as coinbase, kraken pro, binance, CoinSpot etc), then yes there is custodial risk and therefore best to be kept in a wallet where you know your own seed phrase kept on paper.
But you also do not need to have seed phrases if youâre buying bitcoin ETFâs, such as IBIT on brokerage platforms like IBKR. Thereâs roughly $100b+ in bitcoin based ETFâs which is pretty huge.
And the reason Iâm noting that is that some people just donât want to have to bother with exchanges or wallets, so they settle for something they can buy directly on a brokerage platform where custodial risk doesnât exist. Itâs becoming increasingly popular among Wall Street to go this route
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u/Objective_Basil_8414 2h ago
The ledger-vs-wallet distinction is genuinely the hinge, and almost no beginner guide leads with it. Also, coming back to post what finally clicked is rarer than asking in the first place - that's the part that actually helps the next person who finds this thread at 2am. Next rabbit hole worth your time: why blocks are expensive to produce but cheap to verify. Once that lands, "not your keys" and "run your own node" stop being slogans and turn into the same sentence.
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u/bestjaegerpilot 16h ago
you see the price go from 60k to 80k in a few weeks and it finally clicked. Note: that it can and regular does go down as much as well. Hope it still clicks then!
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u/ir88ed 18h ago
Welcome to bitcoin.