What feature of Bitcoin do you think is most difficult to understand?

[Z-tight]

In my humble opinion, what i feel many people do not understand is the correct way to store their BTC, between self-custody and keeping it with centralized services. Ftx exchange went bankrupt and was breached too, many people lost their money because they kept it in an online account and not in their custody, but the point here is that many people have their crypto in online accounts. I feel people are yet to trust themselves with self-custody, or some of them think it is very difficult to own your own keys and funds.

Sending or receiving BTC is very easy, but storing it yourself without losing it requires the responsibility of the owner of the funds, it is not too difficult to understand and safer than with centralized services, but people are so used to the conventional banking system and they want to store their crypto like it is fiat, this is what i feel many people have found difficult to understand yet.

[Leviathan.007]

This can be different for anyone depending on their knowledge, talking about myself, for me I think I know partly know how things work in blockchain and I know the fundamentals of blockchain so I think I know a bug part of bitcoin basics, also I know the decentralized networks from university and books that's why understanding this decentralized systems won't be hard for me. but on the other hand, the part I don't understand is the encryption systems on bitcoin and how this work with a private key.

[S A KHAIR]

In my humble opinion, what i feel many people do not understand is the correct way to store their BTC, between self-custody and keeping it with centralized services. Ftx exchange went bankrupt and was breached too, many people lost their money because they kept it in an online account and not in their custody, but the point here is that many people have their crypto in online accounts. I feel people are yet to trust themselves with self-custody, or some of them think it is very difficult to own your own keys and funds.

Sending or receiving BTC is very easy, but storing it yourself without losing it requires the responsibility of the owner of the funds, it is not too difficult to understand and safer than with centralized services, but people are so used to the conventional banking system and they want to store their crypto like it is fiat, this is what i feel many people have found difficult to understand yet.

Do not think that people who put money on exchanges mean they are having trouble keeping their own assets, simply because they want to make money on exchanges such as trading, buying and selling P2P ...There are many investors who store millions of dollars on FTX who can afford to buy cold wallets or know how to store them safely. A lot of organizations also lose when leaving money on FTX, you think they are sharks but don't know how to keep their assets safe.

[Yatsan]

From years of being in this industry, there are things that made me hard to understand and one of it is its origin, to how it was created and to how it became listed to many exchanges or basically to how it all started. The known founding father is Satoshi which we do not still know his real identity. The extent of how he is still planning to improve Bitcoin as our technology advances. It is a mixed of curiousity and excitement for this industry in general. All in all, the future of this industry not only Bitcoin is promising. It can be both used as a currency and investment at the same time. And as years are passing by, it is being known by more people in line with adaptation. So for sure there's more to come.

[BTCapsule]

I have created a GUI for timelocking bitcoin. It allows you to easily timelock, while giving you full access to your coins at any time, just in case you change your mind.

You can read about it’s development here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5420600.0

You should open source everything including the GUI (an easy to use html file that user can just double click to open) not just the class that does the underlying stuff. Something like what https://coinb.in/#newTimeLocked is doing which is completely open source and the user can see and download the source code to run it offline.
Otherwise entering the private key into a website is not secure for many reasons...

I’m not sure I understand what you mean. BTCapsule is 100% open-source and can be built with Python. It does not require the internet to do anything other than broadcast your redeem script on the Bitcoin network.

BTCapsule is different than coinb.in because it allows the creator of the transactions to redeem their bitcoin at anytime. Coinb.in creates a P2SH address that timelocks your coins and offers you one redeem script.

BTCapsule creates a P2SH address that timelocks your coins and offers you two redeem scripts. One redeem script must wait until the specific date to broadcast the transaction, and the other redeem script has a Locktime of 0 (actually it’s 500000001 because that is the minimum for UNIX timelocks), so it can be redeemed at anytime.

The GUI is built using TKinter and you don’t have to enter your private key. BTCapsule creates two paper wallets, and you just have to send funds to the generated P2SH address. Here is the source code:

https://github.com/BTCapsule/BTCapsule

[serjent05]

I am not a programmer so definitely the most difficult to understand is Bitcoin codes.  But even though I don't understand bitcoin source code, I have faith in it 100% because its source code is published publicly and can be verified by any individual who is knowledgeable on that aspect.

Everything else is quite easy to understand, the usage, the wallet setup, the extraction of the private key, and the economic aspect of BTC the dramas, the scandals, and the fiasco the involves BTC.

[GeorgeJohn]

What most people including me didn’t understand at first, was that all the addresses that people „create“ are basically already there and you yours create a private key and derive the public adress from there.

Try to make some to understand or comprehend the areas you are deriving at. Over to op, the features of Bitcoin can be difficult for you not to understand exactly, will just take place when you are lacking research or investigation concerning cryptocurrency and especially bitcoin. Nothing in the technology of Bitcoin that is not understandable when you devote out time to invest in cryptocurrency.

[SirLancelot]

What most people including me didn’t understand at first, was that all the addresses that people „create“ are basically already there and you yours create a private key and derive the public adress from there.

We did not know, not understand. but it's quite interesting or surprising if that was true. I really thought each address that are shown in the wallet right after we install and access them are freshly generated because there is even a generate new address feature on some wallet where you can replace the old receiving address you have for some reasons including privacy or security.

We all won't understand all these basic features of btc or a btc wallet if we are new to it or not until we play them around but there are really advanced features which are not necessary to learn IMO for a typical person who only wants to buy and sell a btc.

[WhyFhy]

What most people including me didn’t understand at first, was that all the addresses that people „create“ are basically already there and you yours create a private key and derive the public adress from there.

Try to make some to understand or comprehend the areas you are deriving at. Over to op, the features of Bitcoin can be difficult for you not to understand exactly, will just take place when you are lacking research or investigation concerning cryptocurrency and especially bitcoin. Nothing in the technology of Bitcoin that is not understandable when you devote out time to invest in cryptocurrency.

Here is the thing with that, Bitcoin has a hell of a learning curve to the uninitiated, Most people are not even initiated in traditional currencies.
Having some trusted definitive tools that simplify process to retail investors are pretty much so a must have if you want to see continued adoption.
 

[ABCbits]

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).

[BTCapsule]

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).

Thanks, I included your response at the bottom of my reply. I still get a bit confused over all the terms. I've been reading through Mastering Bitcoin, but it will take a while before everything sticks.

[_act_]

In my humble opinion, what i feel many people do not understand is the correct way to store their BTC, between self-custody and keeping it with centralized services. Ftx exchange went bankrupt and was breached too, many people lost their money because they kept it in an online account and not in their custody, but the point here is that many people have their crypto in online accounts. I feel people are yet to trust themselves with self-custody, or some of them think it is very difficult to own your own keys and funds.

Some people think that exchanges are wallet, that they use it to buy, sell, deposit, withdraw and store coins. It is true that exchanges are used for those, but not for storing, they should even see the meaning from the name 'exchange', that it should not be used more than trading, after buying, depositing and converting to a coin of choice, the best is to just send the coin bought or converted to, to a noncustodial wallet.

But some people are traders, which are kind of people that still leave some amount which they are using for day trading on exchanges, which could be the people that are exposed to this risk. But not your key not your coin is very important to take note of.

[yazher]

When you send transactions from other countries easily, this is one of the common use of bitcoins and for me, it is underrated because only a few talk about it. When you are having a hard time sending some money from abroad to your families, you can try bitcoin and it's really convenient to do so assuming the receiving parties do know what they are doing. Also, its usefulness when it comes to payment when you don't have any money at the moment, Bitcoin can really be used as an alternative payment as well.

[Cookdata]

Bitcoin has many features that make it the greatest money ever created, but sometimes it’s difficult for non-technical people to understand how to use these features. There are very smart people working on Bitcoin, and I think sometimes they assume coding terms they use everyday should be easy for everyone to understand.

What features do you find difficult to use? Maybe we can help each other understand, or find serious user experience (UX) problems that can be solved.

For example, Bitcoin has a timelock feature that can create a transaction that is impossible to spend until a certain date or block height is reached. You can do this using OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY, but it seems most people don’t know how to use this feature or where to even begin.

Some people seemed worried about self-custody and storing their private key or seed phrase securely. Hardware wallets make this easier by requiring a pin or password to access your Bitcoin.

I believe that everything about bitcoin is difficult to comprehend, but most of the basic elements for self-custody have been updated by hardware wallets to provide everyone with a starting guide and simplicity. Nothing about a personal wallet needs to be complicated; the only thing you need to do is ensure that you properly back up your seed phrase or recovery phrase, and if there is a passphrase, that you have it all backed up and safe.

OP CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY opcode is one of the bitcoin scripts, there are others that you are actually running making simple transactions but they aren't visible until you use an explorer to see what kind of script you run and with your private keys or a seed phrase, you can run this script with Bitcoin core smoothly but you must understand how bitcoin scripts work.

[Reid]

What's in front is easy. Usage. It's actually too user-friendly that it becomes easy to understand. Just keep your private keys and no one should know about this. Public keys are the one you are supposed to bring. Sending, receiving, and other basic stuffs are also shallow for those who have basic knowledge about computers to understand.
So, what's difficult?
Yes, the coding stuff/scripts. If an individual didn't educate himself about it, then you can't understand it even if you force yourself.
I let that role be taken care of by specialists like the members here in our forum. Honestly, I will just stay being the consumer/investor.