At the beginning, I was confused by everything: Blockchain, wallets, seed phrases, private keys, lightning, fees, self-custody… and especially trying to figure out who actually knew what they were talking about online.
I realized this today when I was talking with a friend about Bitcoin, wallets and so on. He was looking at me with a strange way and he was confused about everything I was telling him, while those things were so familiar to me.
Looking back, I realize every beginner probably has that one thing that makes them stop and think: “Wait… what exactly is going on here?”
So I’m curious: What confused you most as a Bitcoin beginner?
Fees.
The first wallet I ever used not only paid the miner fee, but they also paid themselves a fee of something like $0.25.
Since I was only experimenting with like $20 worth of bitcoin, each one of these fees was a substantial portion of my stack.
I almost rage quit when I saw it taking those fees, but then I decided to swallow my pride and go down the rabbit hole. Thank goodness I was able to keep my ego in check.
That the coins weren’t actually in my wallet. Haha
Fee not being a field
Bitcoin UTXO
Liquidity management in LN channels.
For me it was more laziness to do what is right
I got very lucky in how quickly I landed in Stacker News.
I also found many things confusing but this was a great place to gradually learn
I’ve learned a lot from Stacker News as well. I wasn’t here from the very beginning, but I think I joined pretty early.
It was already pretty active when I found it but a lot of those stackers have moved on.
Everything plugging in computer lol
I found the name "wallet" the most confusing part. It's not a wallet. Why on earth has that name been established?
I think the answers depends also WHEN did you joined or started to read about Bitcoin.
Somebody that started in 2010-2012 will not have the same answer as somebody started in 2017-2020.
For me,, as starting in 2012, it was the mining process. Maybe that's why I started with mining, tinkering with installing software, miners etc but it was quite different than what is today's mining.
Back then also weren't so many wallets, apps etc to test and learn. LOL was BitcoinQT and later Schildback (mobile) and Electrum among other dead apps.
The experience was way different than for a guy starting in 2018-2020 in full shitcoining era... and also LN.
But in general, once I read the Bitcoin whitepaper, it was all clear for me: I must learn this "new thing" as much as I can and use it. I wasn't too much confused, I get it strait to what it is: a powerful weapon against the fucking fiat system.
If I would start again, I think I will do the same path...never shitcoining.
I came after 2018. I can’t even imagine how was in those early years.
UTXO mental model test