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Topic 02

How the Bitcoin network works

Blocks, nodes, consensus and the engineering that lets strangers agree without a central operator.

What you will learn

This path follows a transaction from a wallet into the peer-to-peer network, through node validation, a miner's candidate block, and growing confirmations. It also explains UTXOs, supply, and the halving so the moving parts form one system instead of a list of vocabulary words.

By the end, you can

  • Describe the separate jobs of wallets, nodes, and miners
  • Read a basic transaction and confirmation history
  • Explain how issuance rules are independently checked

Guides in this topic

Follow the lessons in order, or open the question you need now.

01
Intermediate · 12 min

How Bitcoin Works

Follow one transaction from a wallet to the mempool, a mined block and final verification.

  • Wallets sign; nodes verify; miners order transactions.
  • Broadcast is not the same as confirmation.
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02
Intermediate · 12 min

The Bitcoin Blockchain

What the blockchain stores, why it is intentionally limited and how nodes agree on its history.

  • Hashes make historical tampering evident.
  • Nodes verify miners, not the other way around.
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04
Intermediate · 12 min

Bitcoin Transactions, Inputs and Outputs

Understand UTXOs, change, signatures, fees and confirmations without reading source code.

  • Bitcoin tracks UTXOs, not mutable account balances.
  • Wallet-generated change is a normal transaction output.
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05
Intermediate · 12 min

Bitcoin Supply and the Halving

How issuance approaches 21 million and what the four-year subsidy schedule does—and does not—guarantee.

  • The halving changes new issuance, not existing coins.
  • A known schedule does not dictate a market price.
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