It’s all simultaneously less and more complicated than you think. Just look up/get the few pieces of hardware you need and start one up, you’ll figure it out! Plebs love to help plebs. #nodestrich and #plebnet are great resources, also just good ol’ notes with or without (but choose with) #asknostr
Understanding the whitepaper is an interesting one. I feel like you’re overthinking it probably. It has evolved quite a bit from that basic original outline, which doesn’t even cover a lot of what Bitcoin is now. The significance is more of a zoomed out thing for this topic i’d say, and you probably already “get it”