learn Bitcoin in bits.

[Zoomic]

2m 45s read without quotes
5m 35s read with quotes

The title of my thread is the secret I have learnt here in this forum. So many new people in bitcoin including myself are found of complaining about the technicalities of bitcoin. To be honest, bitcoin is truly technical and that is why some people run from it and that is why many people that join bitcoin do not bother to join the network by contributing to the network, either by running a node or atleast understanding how things work.

The secret to understanding bitcoin that I discovered is to learn bitcoin in bits.
Anyone that is having problems understanding bitcoin technicals should join in my method and you will not regret it.

THE PLAN:

• Choose one topic of your interest and study it very well for weeks, try to practice it and after which start asking and answering questions about the topic. You will be surprised how you will easily fit in
• Remember, I said you should practice it. It is only when you have tried your hands at it, probably get stocked and ask for help that you will truly understand how bitcoin works
• When you take up another topic to study, you will then understand that the previous topic, with the present are inter connected. Most of the technical things of bitcoin are constant, so when you have known it, you can apply it in different places
• Any technical term you don't understand, don't skip it, check out for the meaning or atleast bookmark it for later read

WHAT I HAVE ACHIEVED SO FAR!
1. The SegWit wallet Address:
This is a big plus to bitcoin scalability. Before now, I have only know it's advantage to be  reducing the transaction size but at the process of my study, I understood the most important part of segwit wallet to me. I.E security of your bitcoin. With 3-2 signature wallet, 2 parties have to sign for a transaction to be executed. So, if you set up your segwit wallet correctly with 3 devices, your bitcoin will be regarded safe to a high degree because it will highly be unlikely for the 3 devices to be compromised.

Thank you o_e_l_e_o and Little Mouse for putting me through

Download the electrum wallet and launch the wallet.

1. Select multisig wallet in the first step.
2. In the next step, select how many total cosigners will be there and out of the total cosigners, to execute a transaction, how many will have to sign the transaction. Say, a total of 2 cosigners will be there and from the 2 cosigners, 2 cosigners will have to agree to send funds from the wallet. It's 2 of 2.
3. Create a new seed
4. You will be given a master public key. Send it somewhere.
5. Ask your cosigner to do the same.
6. In the next step, you will be asked to add cosigners. Ask for the master public key from your cosigner and add it by selecting "Enter cosigner key", ask your cosigner to do the same.
7. You have created the multisig wallet. Check addresses in your wallet and in your cosigner's wallet. Make sure they are the same.

I used multisig wallet long ago and totally forgot how to spend lol. The basic is, out of the 2 consigners, anyone will create a transaction that will be partially signed and save the partially signed transaction data and send the file to your other cosigner. He will have the option to sign the transaction by accessing the transaction through the file you sent. That's it.

In case, you need help, feel free to reach out to me. Don't trust anyone with a big sum of money, not even with a small sum unless they are reputed. Be sure that I will not PM you first.

I was given one file to share, but at a time I couldn't see the file to share. I had to alternatively type in the seed phrase from my mobile to the laptop and that served as the master key.

So by doing this, you have lost all the security of the multi-sig.

By typing the seed phrase from your phone in to your laptop, the wallet on your laptop now contains two seed phrases - the one the laptop generated, and the one you entered from your phone. This means it has all the information needed to spend your coins on its own, without requiring any input from the wallet on your phone. Although you still have a multi-sig wallet, the compromise of a single wallet (the one on your laptop) will let an attacker steal your coins.

You'll need to start again from scratch and make sure the seeds phrases stay completely isolated to the devices which generated them. The only thing you should be transferring between devices are your master public keys.

2. The use of Decentralized Exchange:
All through my life I have used centralized exchanges where I did all levels of KYC but o_e_l_e_o pointed me to Bisq and I have downloaded it and start running it on my computer. They use 2-2 segwit between the buyer and seller and then uses timelock transaction to lead the transaction to Bisq DAO.

Is there such truly decentralized and functioning exchanges. Please point me to it.

Bisq is a great example of a decentralized exchange which utilizes multi-sigs like this.

Their old system used a 2-of-3 multi-sig, where one key was held by each of the buyer, the seller, and Bisq themselves. All coins being traded, plus a security deposit from both parties, were deposited to this multi-sig escrow. Once the fiat trade was complete, buyer and seller would sign to release the coins to the appropriate party and return the security deposits to both parties. If there was a dispute, Bisq could step in and sign with one of the trading parties to release the funds.

Now they've transitioned to a 2-of-2 multi-sig between buyer and seller only, without Bisq having a private key at all. The system is otherwise the same as above, but now additionally both parties also sign a timelocked transaction which empties the multi-sig in to the Bisq DAO, which can be broadcast after the timelock expires in the event of a dispute.

3. I have also learnt bitcoin timelock transaction where you will be able to define the particular time or block height you would want your transaction to be included in the blockchain. I learn this very well in YouTube and also in this some like threads here such as this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2415595.msg24710770#msg24710770
This could be a plan to make your bitcoin hereditary.

4. I also learnt how to sign messages from a link in Ognasty thread  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5275043.msg55173739#msg55173739

Newbies, learn bitcoin in bits, before you realise you will be an expert. Having a good knowledge of bitcoin technicals can keep you in high demand  in the future when bitcoin hits massive adoption.

[Faisal2202]

Dear Op, Your points are totally legit. Because drop by drop fills the Ocean. And as you aforementioned, at some point you are still considering yourself a pro learner while other newbies will take you as an expert because they lack knowledge that you have. In this case, i am that newbie, because i have never used Bisq, SegWit Wallet, and i have never tried any of the other things which you have learned. The point is, for me you have already become a pro.

I really like the way you explained things, but point is, i am not that much involved in making transactions because i do not have that much funds which requires heavy security like SegWit wallet's have. I always think before testing these things, why i need them. So, at the end i chose not to use them. Another reason is, i do not like to spend time on things which goes above my understanding. (Haha). Well, after all, i do try my best to learn more but never got into one thing which you have mentioned in your "Plan"

• Remember, I said you should practice it. It is only when you have tried your hands at it, probably get stocked and ask for help that you will truly understand how bitcoin works

Most of the time i just learn them and never try to do them practically

[Coyster]

1. The SegWit wallet:
This is a big plus to bitcoin scalability. Before now, I have only know it's advantage to be  reducing the transaction size but at the process of my study, I understood the most important part of segwit wallet to me. I.E security of your bitcoin. With 3-2 signature wallet, 2 parties have to sign for a transaction to be executed. So, if you set up your segwit wallet correctly with 3 devices, your bitcoin will be regarded safe to a high degree because it will highly be unlikely for the 3 devices to be compromised.

There is no such thing as segwit wallet, it is segwit address, and what you are trying to describe is a multi signature wallet. Whichever Bitcoin wallet address type you use is safe.

I really like the way you explained things, but point is, i am not that much involved in making transactions because i do not have that much funds which requires heavy security like SegWit wallet's have. I always think before testing these things, why i need them. So, at the end i chose not to use them.

There is no security feature in your wallet address type, that is why you can share it to people to receive funds from them. Segwit is just one of Bitcoin's wallet address types, it isn't a wallet, what op wanted to describe is a multi signature wallet which is another layer of security for your wallet. If you want wallets with good security, use good hardware wallets (definitely not Ledger) or use airgapped/offline wallets.

[Upgrade00]

All through my life I have used centralized exchanges where I did all levels of KYC but o_e_l_e_o pointed me to Bisq and I have downloaded it and start running it on my computer. They use 2-2 segwit between the buyer and seller and then uses timelock transaction to lead the transaction to Bisq DAO.

You again here was confusing a multi signature wallet with a segwit address. As you can see in the quoted message from Leo, Busq uses a 2-of-2 multi sig wallet with each pair of the key held by both parties involved in the trade, completely eliminating any intermediary, making the transaction Peer to peer.

[BitDane]

@OP it looks like you need to allocate more time in studying topics bits by bits since 1 week is not enough for you to know that there is no segwit wallet per se, and the term should be segwit-ready wallet.  Anyway, good advise on how to approach learning though.  Asking question is the best choice if we don't understand anything.  We are lucky that there are lots of old members here who often answers inquiries even though it is already asked several times.  They even correct wrong input or information to set things straight and avoid misconception or misunderstanding.  

I believe learning process is not just a week or two.  It is a continuous process that we have to take if we are interested enough about the all around of Bitcoin and blockchain technology.  Aside from that, every Bitcoin knowledge is interconnected to each other so we must know how to differentiate them and their functions. Just like the simple question of the difference between Bitcoin and bitcoin and raised as a topic that is created recently.

There is no such thing as segwit wallet, it is segwit address, and what you are trying to describe is a multi signature wallet. Whichever Bitcoin wallet address type you use is safe.

Indeed, it should be called segwit-ready wallet (if I am not mistaken) where the wallet can support segwit protocol.

[Zoomic]

You again here was confusing a multi signature wallet with a segwit address.

Multi-sig wallet as the name implies is the type of wallet that supports more than 1 signature.
Segwit (segregated witness) address is the address in which the transaction and the signature is handled in a different block for scalability purposes. No confusion.

There is no such thing as segwit wallet, it is segwit address, and what you are trying to describe is a multi signature wallet. Whichever Bitcoin wallet address type you use is safe.

Indeed, it should be called segwit-ready wallet (if I am not mistaken) where the wallet can support segwit protocol.

I do not think the emphasis is on what you call it. But understanding the technology behind it. I am happy I learnt the technology behind it, what to call it shouldn't be a problem to me.

[Husires]

Multi-sig wallet as the name implies is the type of wallet that supports more than 1 signature.
Segwit (segregated witness) address is the address in which the transaction and the signature is handled in a different block for scalability purposes. No confusion.

It's the first time I've heard such a definition, what do you mean?

In general, to simplify the idea, imagine that we have a box, and this box has a limit of 1 megabyte. The transactions are the data that we enter inside this box. All that happened in Segwit was an attempt to improve the exploitation of that space by removing unnecessary signatures. It is like compressing and reorganizing the space inside the box, and thus instead From bringing a bigger box, the same box has more stuff in it.

To explain it in detail, I hope you start with some specialized books than articles spread on the Internet. Start with Mastering Bitcoin 2nd Edition, the link https://github.com/bitcoinbook/bitcoinbook, and when you do not find an answer to your question, ask it here.

[Queenes]

Am a new member and still a learner too I want to ask concerning the sewgit and opening 3 account will the accounts be with different names and login details or same.

[BitDane]

You again here was confusing a multi signature wallet with a segwit address.

Segwit (segregated witness) address is the address in which the transaction and the signature is handled in a different block for scalability purposes. No confusion.

Eh? You just make it more confusing.  Segwit address as define is the type of Bitcoin address that uses segwit protocol.  Then we can know how it function by looking at how segwit protocol works and how it differs from legacy and pay-to-scripthash address.

There is no such thing as segwit wallet, it is segwit address, and what you are trying to describe is a multi signature wallet. Whichever Bitcoin wallet address type you use is safe.

Indeed, it should be called segwit-ready wallet (if I am not mistaken) where the wallet can support segwit protocol.

I do not think the emphasis is on what you call it. But understanding the technology behind it. I am happy I learnt the technology behind it, what to call it shouldn't be a problem to me.

I do think getting the right term is important because not knowing the right term may result in confusion and misconception.  Like for example, your name is A, is it ok to you if I call you B? Where B is someone sitting beside you in  your elementary school days.

[nakamura12]

I agree with you op and it's not bad learning about Bitcoin little by little but there are times that what we learned is not the correct one or should I say, misinformation and I also agree with them that you made it even confusing because multi-sig wallet doesn't support more than 1 signature but requires more than one signatures before the transaction is approved.

Am a new member and still a learner too I want to ask concerning the sewgit and opening 3 account will the accounts be with different names and login details or same.

If you are creating different wallet that supports segwit protocol or uses segwit address then the login details will be different from each of the wallet or in short, the seed phrase is different from each other but if it's a multi-sig wallet then the login details will be the same (depends on you if you want another seed phrase and you must send them the master public key so that they can sign the partially signed transactions so that it will become valid transaction.