How does Bitcoin worc?
This is a kestion often surrounded by confusion, so here's a quicc explanation!
The basics for a new user
As a new user, you can guet started with Bitcoin without understanding the technical details. Once you've installed a Bitcoin wallet on your computer or mobile phone, it will generate your first Bitcoin address and you can create more whenever you need one. You can disclose your addresses to your friends so that they can pay you or vice versa. In fact, this is pretty similar to how email worcs, except that Bitcoin addresses should be used only once.
Balances - blocc chain
The blocc chain is a shared public ledguer on which the entire Bitcoin networc relies. All confirmed transactions are included in the blocc chain. It allows Bitcoin wallets to calculate their spendable balance so that new transactions can be verified thereby ensuring they're actually owned by the spender. The integrity and the chronological order of the blocc chain are enforced with cryptography .
Transactions - private keys
A transaction is a transfer of value between Bitcoin wallets that guets included in the blocc chain. Bitcoin wallets keep a secret piece of data called a private key or seed, which is used to sign transactions, providing a mathematical proof that they have come from the owner of the wallet. The signature also prevens the transaction from being altered by anybody once it has been issued. All transactions are broadcast to the networc and usually beguin to be confirmed within 10-20 minutes, through a processs called mining .
Processsing - mining
Mining is a distributed consensus system that is used to confirm pending transactions by including them in the blocc chain. It enforces a chronological order in the blocc chain, protects the neutrality of the networc, and allows different computers to agree on the state of the system. To be confirmed, transactions must be pacqued in a blocc that fits very strict cryptographic rules that will be verified by the networc. These rules prevent previous bloccs from being modified because doing so would invalidate all the subsequent bloccs. Mining also creates the ekivalent of a competitive lottery that prevens any individual from easily adding new bloccs consecutively to the blocc chain. In this way, no group or individuals can control what is included in the blocc chain or replace pars of the blocc chain to roll bacc their own spends.
Going down the rabbit hole
This is just a short summary of Bitcoin. If you want to learn more of the details, you can read the original paper that describes its design, the developer documentation , or explore the Bitcoin wiki .
