Well we all have our curiosity or what brought us in Bitcoin so I think we would first get used to that before learning more. Some can be investment, others try to get a decentralized financial system, some trading.
Mine was that Bitcoin is the future and I have to be part of it.
I have used Bitcoin in my business, my career and my daily financial activities. I have tried trading and got a hang over it but one aspect I still don't understand is the mining aspect of Bitcoin.
For me, it's the technical side of Bitcoin, like mining Bitcoin, the machine that uses to mine or how to set it up.
I don’t really understand mining myself. From what I can see, it’s very expensive to set up and continuously run, so that’s beyond anything I can attempt to do.
And addition the addresses or private keys with Bitcoin, which I always keep to see here on the Bitcoin forum from some users, some words like "derived", "keys", etc. And recently, I just discovered that there are different types of Bitcoin transactions, like P2PKH, P2SH, and OP_RETURN.
These are all new to me, and even though I am into coding, this is very difficult to understand for me.
Correction added at bottomIt can get very confusing. I don’t think I can explain OP_RETURN any better than a Google search, but maybe I can help with addresses and private keys.
Private keys are what allow you to spend bitcoin. It is randomly generated with an encryption algorithm called SHA256. Basically, it’s a long string that is so long and random, there are enough private keys available for everyone millions of times over.
Your public key is "derived" from your private key from an elliptic curve. Imagine a curve on a coordinate plane. That curve is created by your private key, and the points on that curve make up your public key. That public key is then compressed to create your public address (which is what you share with others to get paid).
P2PKH is a type of address called a "legacy address" because it’s oldest Bitcoin address. It’s larger (more bits) than the newer address types (P2WPKH or Bech32) so miner fees cost more but it’s accepted by everyone on the Bitcoin network.
P2WPKH or Bech32 is the newer address type that includes SegWit. Basically, it’s a special address that is lower bits, so the block size doesn’t fill up as quickly.
P2SH is a "scripting" address. It allows you to add things like nLocktime. In other words, it’s a lets you code what conditions you want to pass before the transaction become valid.
That’s probably the best way I can explain it in layman terms.
Private keys are what allow you to spend bitcoin. It is randomly generated with an encryption algorithm called SHA256. Basically, it’s a long string that is so long and random, there are enough private keys available for everyone millions of times over.
There are few major error,
1. Private key usually is generated with
secure random number generator. Some people refer it as CSPRNG/CRNG.
2. SHA-256 is hashing algorithm, not encryption algorithm.
P2PKH is a type of address called a "legacy address" because it’s oldest Bitcoin address. It’s larger (more bits) than the newer address types (P2WPKH or Bech32) so miner fees cost more but it’s accepted by everyone on the Bitcoin network.
FYI, the oldest address type is P2PK (Pay to Public Key).