Topic: WHY BITCOIN USERS EMBRACE THE THEORETICAL ASPECT TO TECHNICALITY IN BTC (Read 306 times)

The most important thing for an ordinary Bitcoin user is how to own and secure the Bitcoin through a private wallet and keep the wallet phrase, without third-party involvement in the operation of the money and assets. So most people don't pay attention to the technical aspects but will pay close attention to theoretical part.

The theoretical is what make the technical happen.  The theory in this case expands upon an idea/what is possible and leads to technical outputs in order to yield a "final" result.  Although a high level, simplistic overview, bitcoin followed this pattern.

When is Bitcoin then the information and knowledge can be learned on the internet, so there is not much to be done unless the coding part of it which already have an existing algorithm.

Bitcoin technicality is not easily learned on the internet as it requires a practical approach and step-by-step computerizing programs that may be hard to understand via videos on the internet.

Just learn it on the internet too. Well people mostly knew bitcoin for it simplicity use case that can be used as store of value and can be used to purchase anything alternative to fiat. However therr is deeper technical aspect to it which majority are not aware of. Should people learn the deep knowledge about it? Or the basic description and application which it can be used is enough?

You know how to deposit and withdraw money from a bank account but it doesn't mean you should know how the money is deposited into your bank account in the backend.
Although you can do a lot of research and find out how exactly it is done but it doesn't mean every person in the world using a bank account should know it as well.
I get your point and while it is good that more number of people should know how bitcoin works technically but it isn't possible for every person to comprehend the same way as others.
Sometimes things are the way it is and we can't get hold of all of it. Besides that, there are thousands of people who find it difficult to even use a bitcoin wallet because of the technical knowledge required to use a bitcoin wallet.

I don't agree with what you are saying,  up to high-level technical teachings are all over the Internet, I have a friend who learned everything on bitcoin mining via YouTube videos he is operating the biggest Bitcoin mining farm in my region currently.

Well the technical aspect holds the strong room for Bitcoin operations, if those miners are not in operation how will your transactions go through, this aspect needs more manpower people to need to start learning this technical aspect as part of their cryptocurrency knowledge because with more miners it will increase the Bitcoin network flexibility which will result in a low fee and faster transaction time and this aid Bitcoin scalability.

Who really care about the technical aspects when one can easily learn the basic tools about Bitcoin and move on with that alone leave the headache for the programmers.

This:


https://medium.com/@k_schellinger/understanding-bitcoins-21-million-limit-310297a7d962

is another way of saying this:


https://twitter.com/lopp/status/1447608372065357828/photo/1

which is also another way of saying:

Bitcoin has 21 million supply cap.

Arithmetic and coding technical people, please correct me if I am wrong here, but my point is simply that laymen can actually do away with deep technicalities. Leave the technicalities to the technical people. It is sufficient for us to know what they mean, what they stand for.

This does not mean to say that we should be contented with what's theoretical as opposed to what's technical. As a matter of fact, what laymen know is not really theoretical; they're factual. They're interpretations of the codes and mathematical formulae. What this means is that people don't have to read codes and understand complex mathematical formulae in order to understand Bitcoin.

Thank you very much for this correction, I will work on that to improve my content writings.
Fact that not everyone Bitcoin user is interested in the technical aspects of Bitcoin but then technical aspect of Bitcoin is the power center of Bitcoin adoption, take for instance if Bitcoin mining become more flexible to the point that every one can simply mined Bitcoin having the technical know how to do so will aid scalability and faster general Bitcoin adoption since the practical process will be visible and accessible to all.
Bitcoin technical complexity has been a major drawback to Bitcoin adoption as most Bitcoin users are unfamiliar with how that work and it requires intense training and software coding to make that happen, not like the theoretical aspect like wallet installation and making a transaction that can easily be learned via the Internet and watching YouTube video.

I remember the first time I opened a bank account, I was handed a debit card and had to test it with an automated teller machine, I was just standing there right in front of the machine like a teenager sent out to the city for the first time, so what am I saying? Bitcoin is another modern internet currency that many people have never used before, and as a first-time user, you may encounter challenges.
So apart from the options you've listed above, they actually require a techy person to handle them, but if you're a fast learner, I don't see anything stopping you from learning them. If you try to explain the UTXO model to a newbie, they may find it difficult at first, but did you know that your bank account also runs its own model based on the balance model, but banks won't tell you this because they manage things for you, whereas in bitcoin, you manage it your self.

For me, the complexity of Bitcoin is the one obstacle to achieving mass adoption. Something which I don't know if we'll ever be able to completely overcome due to the nature of Bitcoin.

Right. I agree, banks actually do serve somewhat of a purpose. I do believe they could be implemented better, and shouldn't be offering interest rates or gambling your money away. Although, I will openly admit that managing a large amount of money comes with massive amounts of responsibility. Banks have the manpower, experts, and money to be able to invest into that, and therefore provide a simple way of managing your money. When you are your bank, that changes.

Ultimately, as much as I don't like third parties managing my money, and I would prefer to do it myself. Quite simply, that is never going to be for everyone. Some people like the safety net that banks provide.

That's somewhat true. However, and I do believe this is one of the issues we must overcome. Bitcoin in its current state is too complex for these types of people who don't want to learn about it. The fact is; with Bitcoin you're usually in control of your keys, therefore you're responsible for them. To be able to do that you not only need to know how Bitcoin works, but you should have a decent grasp of security practices. Otherwise, you could be unknowingly be putting yourself at risk.

This is exactly why Bitcoin currently isn't for everyone, and that's okay. I don't know if we are ever going to get to the stage where it'll be simple enough. However, we've come along way with documentation, software, and hardware wallets propelled us further even further into achieving it.

To use our money we don't need to know how it is printed, on what kind of paper and ink has been used while printing, who signed on the money, blah blah but at the end of the day we are going to use it to buy something that is what most cryptocurrency users are also doing, there is no mandatory for them to learn technical to use it in our day to day life so just learning what is needed is enough for a common user.

Now let digress into academic field abit, some subjects can be well taught in proxy (online) and in classroom theoretically while some can not be effectively taught through these process except by practical application, that's why for most of the mathematics subjects are practically on calculations and lesser theory and same is the science course, they were best taught practically in the laboratory. the technical aspect in bitcoin need a serious and careful attention, it cannot be done in proxy or theoretically in other to fully understand it.

this needed working alongside with those that were already into the system, closely observing them, learning from them and also making some trials along way with them in testing your ability, this is strictly practical and you need a practical experience with those into the system and one of the ways to get started is to help yourself get the practical aiding materials needed in such field, and mind you we all can't be professionals in all fields, each has it specialty.

As others above have correctly pointed out, you can't expect or get non-tech-savvy people, who know little to nothing about coding, computer science, and similar stuff, to comprehend the underlying technical processes that make bitcoin function the way it functions. You can explain to them in simple theoretical and philosophical terms that it is very important to self-custody coins or that running your own full node provides you self-sufficiency, independence, and sovereignty and brings up positive emotions, but the technical, a low-level, aspect of these things might still be very challenging for them to understand, let alone to master skills necessary for day-to-day usage. Possessing no technical skills, common people still keep finding bitcoin an interesting technology because it has many faces and related non-technical disciplines, which in itself allows people of any occupations and specialties to join and find a place where these people can speak on their level.

OP, i strongly recommend you to use full stop to end a sentence and split to multiple paragraph. It'll make your post easier to read.


Bank is also quite technical. There are so many parts such as detecting fraud, preventing race condition and initiating secure connection. But most bank customer don't know that.


And there's no problem if they have general idea of Bitcoin, have basic security awareness and know how to use their wallet. You can't expect everyone to have decent technical knowledge.

You can't expect everyone to start coding wallets for themselves, just like you can't expect everyone to code game, code messaging app, code operating systems, etc. Majority of the people will always be the consumers and it is perfectly okay. In fact, it is good for Bitcoin. Bigger the consumer base, more align the developers will be to do innovation in Bitcoin and create new apps.

Also, the technical knowledge about Bitcoin is widely available on the internet. You can easily understand Bitcoin from core-to-top with the online resources free of cost. The main reason why I think people aren't very interested in Bitcoin development these days is the relative benefit in altcoins. Learning to develop dApps on alternate blockchains is relatively easier and people are making millions developing shitty protocols and projects. Money drives the folk after all.

Knowing how to use bitcoin privately and properly and knowing how to be maintain privacy still requires technical knowledge, even handling wallet and knowing the right ones to use like Bitcoin Core for privacy and Electrum SPV wallet with coin control etc and the use of Tor with wallet are all still technical aspects. But going into mining and the codes used to build bitcoin are not meant for everyone, those that want to mine can go deeper and learn more about bitcoin mining while developers can go deeper to know more about bitcoin codes. There are aspect of bitcoin that is available for the public but not meant for everyone to contribute, but there are still general aspect that are still technical.

You can't force non-technical people/users have to comprehend fully the technical aspect of Bitcoin. Each are having a speciality in its own way, although the foundation of Bitcoin within its code, we know that Bitcoin doesn't merely exist without other specializations like the economy, game theory, etc.

And I don't see there is any urgency that the Bitcoin ecosystem has a lack of developers. If you see the Bitcoin source code contributions graph[1], I don't think there is a significant decline in that. Bear in mind that this is just the Bitcoin repository, there are also a ton of other developers that help to build the ecosystem(Wallet, Payment system/gateway, LN, one-click-node, etc).

Regarding the technical support, you can see here that the technical support/discussion board are still actively being discussed. And there is the Bitcoin Stack Exchange. And Other people do discuss bitcoin on social media like Twitter. Some people don't require an in-depth technical comprehension to offer help, some can offer solutions along the way from their own experiences.

[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/graphs/contributors

Can you not get the technical knowledge on the Internet too?

I think a lot of the technical knowledge you might be referring to could be out of scope for a lot of cryptocurrency users (unless it's things like how blockchains actually work).

There is a culture among programmers mainly but I think it's a thing that's happened for a long time in other disciplines of people becoming very specialised on something specific and then offering help to newcomers and people with other specialisms that have that topic as a weakness - people normally then broaden their scope after specialising or pick other areas to focus on learning too.

Everything to do with bitcoin nodes (the main backbone of the network) is open source and a lot of mining software too is open source - there is also a lot of documentation on both that's freely accessible from places like the bitcoin wiki that are useful for gaining a technical understanding. The algorithms bitcoin uses are not exclusive to bitcoin, you can search elliptic curve encryption and even the documentation for the encryption system bitcoin uses and have them presented to you in your preferred format (the same can also be said for hashing algorithms).

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In case it gets mentioned here or stems from this topic, the problem with Luna was always going to be around and will persist for some time as there are issues with doing things like maintaining a peg to the dollar while being decentralised - because how do you get your price for what a dollar is worth (to match your stablecoin) without adding some level of centralisation.

Bitcoin is quite technical and the technical aspect is more difficult to understand and embrace by ordinary Bitcoin users, since that requires a good knowledge in various aspects such as Bitcoin mining software and equipment installation and other technical development with good computer programming knowledge since Bitcoin deals more with mathematical codes that are generated through programming algorithm, this technicality is not easily understood so most Bitcoin users only focus on the theoretical aspect of Bitcoin because is easier to understand and do not involve computer programming knowledge to carry out basic Bitcoin functionalities such as sending and receiving Bitcoin, storing Bitcoin in a cold wallet and spending Bitcoin this just requires basic knowledge to get it done and that is why most Bitcoin users rather limit themselves within this circle and that jas made the technical aspect of Bitcoin to lack the necessary man power and is leading to technical support bankruptcy in the system. It is best we now shift attention to the technicality of Bitcoin 80% of users in this forum will agree with me that the level of Bitcoin technical knowledge is low compared to the theoretical knowledge which can easily be gotten everywhere on the internet.