The only concept in bitcoin I can never seem to get my head around, and it's like a balloon I just can't burst, cause the needle I use is blunt and the balloon's skin is so thick, no matter how hard I try pricking the needle slips off the skin, is this: how does putting up computational effort for an unrelated math problem create 'trust' in the network? I mean, shouldn't the entire point be merely verifying the transaction- ensuring the bitcoins transferred are genuine and belong to the party which spends them? So why the extra flops on, again, a completely unrelated math problem? What big insight am I missing here?
Have you read the whitepaper?
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdfIf not, please read it first. Then come back and let us know if you still have the same question.
The key to understanding what is being "solved" with a proof-of-work system is to understand what the problem is in the first place.
In your example, if two different "transaction processors" give you conflicting information about "verifying the transaction- ensuring the bitcoins transferred are genuine and belong to the party which spends them", then how do you determine which of those two transaction processors are correct?
