Beginners

This section is for people who are new to Bitcoin. It explains how Bitcoin works, how to get your first coins, how to send them and how to keep them safe. The pages use plain words and pictures. When a term matters, the page explains it once and links to the course page that goes deeper.

What does this section cover?

The section has three parts. The first page gives the big picture: a payment, the network, the miners and the record they keep. The next four pages cover getting started, which means wallets, exchanges, sending and security. The rest of the section explains the technology behind them, such as nodes, blocks, keys and signatures.

You can read the first five pages and stop there, because the later pages are for when you want the details.

Why start here?

Bitcoin has its own vocabulary, with words such as blockchain, mining, private key and confirmation. Each sounds technical, but each has a plain meaning that you can learn in a few minutes. The pages build on each other, so reading them in order is the easiest way to learn those terms.

In what order should you read these pages?

1. How Bitcoin works: the big picture, in one read.
2. Wallets: where your keys live, and the main kinds of wallet.
3. Exchanges: how to choose one, custody and KYC.
4. Sending: addresses, fees and confirmations.
5. Security: how to protect the keys behind your coins.
6. The network: how the computers talk to each other.
7. The node: the computers that check the rules.
8. Mining: how new blocks are added.
9. The blockchain: the shared record, block by block.
10. Blocks: what a block holds.
11. Difficulty: how the network keeps blocks arriving at a steady pace.
12. Transactions: what a payment is made of.
13. Outputs: the locked boxes that hold coins.
14. Locks: the conditions that let an output be spent.
15. Keys and addresses: how keys turn into addresses.
16. Private keys: the secret that proves ownership.
17. Public keys: the part you can share.
18. Digital signatures: how you prove ownership without revealing your key.
19. SegWit: the upgrade that changed how transactions are stored.

Where do the other sections fit?

After this section, the course moves on to data formats, cryptography, keys, transactions, scripts, blocks, mining, the blockchain, networking and upgrades. Each of those has its own section page, and all of them are listed on the course page.

Try it on a real chain

Our explorer reads every block and transaction from our own node, so you can look at real data as you learn. Start with block 0, the first block ever mined. Then open a recent block and see the payments inside it.