Topic: Why Is It So Hard To Understand The Technical Part Of Bitcoin? (Read 224 times)

The takeaway here is that if you really want to know how Bitcoin works at a technical level, it's absolutely essential that you have a good grasp of some of the underlying concepts. For example, you should be completely comfortable with Bitcoin addresses and public-private key pairs. After all, transactions are simply signed messages with some meta data attached. The blockchain itself should also be acquirable knowledge. The best way to do this is to read a book written by someone who has an extensive knowledge of the subject matter. All you have to do is do the research, follow through, and you can learn a lot. I followed this process as well, and I believe it works.

I also face same problem as you do, technical part of bitcoin is difficult to take in especially when you have no one to explain to you. I don't understand it much but you won't be able to comprehend more complex subjects if you don't have a fundamental understanding of bitcoin.

You need to learn cryptography. This is a complex topic, I'm just diving into it myself, but even with basic knowledge it becomes easier to understand bitcoin.

The way I was able to understand UTXO was, I saw it as the remaining balance left in my account after I transferred a certain amount to Mr A and it automatically becomes a new unspent transaction output for him provided he hasn't sent it to another user.
 
 Citing a quote from here, it could help explain whirlpool better. Then a coin join, just like @PrimeNumber7 defined, can be used in a situation where you want to hide the address of your transaction and making it's origin difficult to trace because there is the possibility that your transaction is being spied on.
 
I have not fully grasped the full knowledge of the technicalities of Bitcoin because I'm also a learner. But I hope the above would help throw more light.

It is because the terms inputs and outputs are used interchangably, an output in one transaction can be an input in the next transaction. The lifetime of these UXTOs is between this output, and the next input.

In my personal experience it could be because of 2 things.

First the bad explanations by some sources which means you have to try and find good sources and don't waste time on everything you find on the internet. For example Mastering Bitcoin and bitcoin wiki are both good sources while random sites that are mostly clickbaits are not.

Second is your lack of knowledge about the basics. This was my experience in early days. In your opening post you mention two topics one is basic (UTXO) another is advanced (Whirlpool). If you don't have the basic understanding of the protocol you won't be able to understand advanced topics like Whirlpool and CoinJoin.
For example I remember in early days I was trying to figure out how a P2SH address works while I had no idea how bitcoin scripts work which is a pre-requirement. I had to go back and learn more about scripts then learn what a P2SH address did and how it worked.

Most people struggle with working out the level needed to explain things they know about to others.

If you overexplain, your reader will get bored; if you underexplain, your reader might be left frustrated or annoyed.

Most things crypto related are mostly learnt as and when the person comes across them or needs them (this isn't dissimilar to how information at higher levels is presented). I think it's something that's daunting to a lot of people though (but I'm not sure how would be best to fix something like that - hashing algorithms could be explained from breadth to depth with a lot of inbetweens - same goes for ecc and those two build up the security of the entire protocol/chain/coins).

I guess the question is how much do you understand how other things you use work?
This is not a dig at you but just in general. Can you explain how an automatic transmission works vs a CVT vs a manual?
How about the computer you are typing on, can you explain TCP/IP routing?
And so on. None of it is simple, but we all use it every day. As @Cricktor said cryptography is hard. Other things are very simple to give a basic explanation about but digging deeper takes a lot more.


Is a perfect way of describing it. But if you want to know the programming and the logic behind it, it's gets a lot more complicated very quickly.

-Dave

Some parts are complicated because proper cryptography isn't an easy topic. And if you're not familiar with hardcore cryptography then some aspects of why things are done the way they're done in Bitcoin are very likely not obvious and intuitive.

I suggest to dig deep into https://learnmeabitcoin.com which helped me a lot to grasp some details of Bitcoin. I like this site very much, I admit I'm a fan of it. More fun than reading "Mastering Bitcoin", see free version at https://github.com/bitcoinbook/bitcoinbook#mastering-bitcoin, which is also a decent source to dive into Bitcoin.

When you want to spend your bitcoin, you are spending a very specific output from a previous transaction. A dumbed-down way of looking at a UTXO is that you are spending a very specific dollar bill with a specific serial number. A UTXO is an output that has not yet been spent in a subsequent transaction.

A coinjoin transaction will combine inputs from many participants, and will send outputs to many different participants. The result of this is that it is more difficult to follow the flow of money from the inputs to the outputs. Often times, each participant will send more than one input and will receive more than one output, and the respective amounts are not equal.

Ive never paid attention to this, but Lately, I became really interested in knowing the technicalities of Bitcoin, that is understanding how Bitcoin works technically, I've google searched almost all technical words I find that I do not understand what they mean....Like
-What is UTXO - This I learnt meant Unspent Transaction Output - The true definition of this which according to google states that and I quote below...
I still do not understand, infact, the true definition left me more confused than I was when I learnt the meaning of the abbreviation.

-what is whirlpool - through my search to know what whirlpool means, I found another word "Coinjoin" which I learnt has to do with making your Bitcoin transaction mix with other transactions so that spying eyes wont be able to know or pinpoint the particular place or address you sent your Bitcoins to, this is for some sort of privacy purpose - clearly, I understand this, but I still do not understand the deep explanation of how it works.

There are still several others, but the words I do not understand is not my main reason of creating this discussion thread, my main purpose of creating this thread is to ask...

Why is it so hard to understand the technical aspects of Bitcoin?
I have searched, and read, and re-read again and again, but it seems the more I read, the more confusing the whole explanation gets for me.
Am I the only one that feels this way about the technicalities of Bitcoin, or are there other users that feel the same way too?
Is it that I must go full practical to really understand how Bitcoin works technically?

Your inputs are welcomed and highly appreciated.