^ tell

Darn typos

You really earned it! 🤣

People usually only want to help those who appreciate it and don’t act like an asshole.

Haha, GFY Pedro. You’re free to speak all you want here. Doesn’t mean anyone has to listen to you.

Let me ask you something #[2] — I think you're the same guy with the username Pedro who joined the #Nodestrich telegram a few weeks ago and were extremely rude to the rest of us who were trying to help you.

You came in asking questions, and everyone took the time to help explain complicated concepts to you about how bitcoin works, and you insulted them becuse you got frustrated, so you were kicked out of the chat. That was you, right?

I am seeing that happening again. You ask questions, seem genuinely curious, and then when we respond to you, you become hostile. Maybe the reason people don't want to talk to you is because you're a jerk to them. I'm done with this conversation unless you're willing to work on your attitude.

You’re only doing a disservice to yourself. Remember it was always your choice.

Let me ask you something #[2] — I think you're the same guy with the username Pedro who joined the #Nodestrich telegram a few weeks ago and were extremely rude to the rest of us who were trying to help you.

You came in asking questions, and everyone took the time to help explain complicated concepts to you about how bitcoin works, and you insulted them becuse you got frustrated, so you were kicked out of the chat. That was you, right?

I am seeing that happening again. You ask questions, seem genuinely curious, and then when we respond to you, you become hostile. Maybe the reason people don't want to talk to you is because you're a jerk to them. I'm done with this conversation unless you're willing to work on your attitude.

My Family?

Lol...i'm from the 3rd world, and they see me CRAZY just mentioning it...i have no more friend because i felt i was right about Bitcoin...

i been trying to learn bitcoin by reading the only available materials there is on the internet and still i don't see myself progressing...if Bitcoin is hard to understand i see lightning much harder,that's i hardly ask questions about...we ARE SO FUCKING LATE.. is what i feel...while everyone's doing all their meet ups and online discussions around the world,our mainstream media and other well known schools are teaming up with BSVblockchain shitcoin...

Whats the use of learning when you cant even experience of what you thought you are knowing...

I would disagree and say that bitcoin is indeed for everyone, but some aspects of the infrastructure may be out of reach for some people based on their circumstances.

We know that the billions of people in the world who are unbanked or living in low-income situations will not be able to run their own nodes. That's why we're building the Lightning Network, to provide a reliable decentralized payment system that allows everyone to participate in the bitcoin experience.

It's not required that you personally run your own node to use bitcoin, just that if you have the ability to, you can better verify the state of the network and prove in a trustless way that all of the data is valid. That's what having your own copy of the blockchain allows you to do.

Whether or not you have your own node, you can still download a free app, or use a simple on-chain wallet to store any amount of bitcoin that you can acquire, securely, with your keys backed up offline. As you earn sats over Lighting, you can move them to your long-term wallet for safe storage.

I know can be frustrating to live in a place where you may think you are far behind other parts of the world in terms of economic opportunity, but remember that you are learning about and beginning to acquire bitcoin, and most of the people you see walking around every day still have no idea what it is. Because of this technology, you will be in a position to help yourself, your family, and your community in ways that you might not yet be able to appreciate.

Give it time, keep asking your questions, and learn everything you can. This is something that comes along once in many lifetimes, and you are still very early.

Not sure I’m following you. I only have this one account.

Regardless of what happens with the US Dollar, Americans will survive it. We have survived many great threats and catastrophes in a very short period of time, historically speaking.

Wait…what? What are you asking?

Global is a shopping mall now.

The beautiful land down under 🦘

Sunset from the future…

“NO ECONOMY IS

POSSIBLE WITHOUT

STRONG MONEY AND NO ECONOMY IS POSSIBLE

WITHOUT PROPERTY

RIGHTS.” -@MICHAEL SAYLOR

No friend, I’m living in the future 🫂

You’re welcome. 😊

With Wallet of Satoshi, you're essentially using someone else's node out of convenience. When you do that, they are holding your sats for you, and they have access to all of the transaction data. That wallet doesn't provide you with the hash, it just displays the invoice, but it will not show your invoice as paid if it wasn't able to verify the transaction.

Zaps work by telling your wallet to generate an invoice for me to pay. If I don't pay it, it will simply expire at some point in the future. Once I pay it, your wallet's node shares the final data with mine, which includes the hash and preimage.

For reference, because I zapped you with my node, this is what I can see on my end:

There definitely are startup costs of running your own node, depending on what type of system you want to use. An old PC can usually do the job, but you’ll want to at least outfit it with a fast SSD drive. You can even use a Raspberry Pi, which is what I have. Just be aware that computer parts need to be replaced over time because they will eventually fail at some point. Your initial hardware costs might be somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-500. The bigger expenses are actually in setting up enough Lightning channels for your node to route reliably. For example, if you open 5 channels for 1 million sats each, you’re committing about $1400 worth of bitcoin to your node for an indefinite period of time.

For those who want the benefits that running a node can offer, this is an acceptable starting cost. But it really depends on each individual’s comfort level and commitment. You won’t make back your initial dollar investment quickly (if ever), but imagining that the value of bitcoin is higher in a few years, that, plus the advantages of keeping your own copy of the blockchain and securing your own sats might be enough to make it feel worthwhile.

I’ll restate my earlier point: If you’re not running your own node, you’re always using someone else’s.

If you have control over your own UTXOs (unspent transaction outputs), you can verify they exist by checking these transaction hashes in a block explorer. If you run your own node, you can be sure that the data you're seeing is true, otherwise, you're depending on the party running the node to do this for you.

I’m not trying to be condescending, it just helps me to understand your frame of reference. I'll do my best to explain.

On the bitcoin blockchain (base layer), the transaction hash (the same thing as the transaction ID) is the reference (you can think of it as a receipt) that proves a transaction is valid. It always has 64 characters (32 bytes). Even the Genesis block has one, from the first 50 bitcoins ever produced on the network. The hash is 4a5e1e4baab89f3a32518a88c31bc87f618f76673e2cc77ab2127b7afdeda33b and you can check it on any bitcoin block explorer.

On the Lightning Network (second layer), there is a similar term called a payment hash, but it isn't itself validated on the blockchain. Instead, payments pass between nodes using channels. When you create an invoice for me to pay you, your wallet's node generates a payment hash of some secret data called a preimage. When I pay the invoice, the payment hash proves that you generated the invoice, and we can both use this as a receipt to verify that the transaction is valid. I just zapped you 21 sats, and the payment hash is 2f60255f5017ba6fdfe6d680b678858b60b4b6bef9973f8f9af54bc210d94a1e so you should be able to see that in your wallet.

Hopefully I described that well, and if not, someone else please jump in and correct or clarify.

There are a lot of tutorials and videos that explain these concepts better than I can. You can look for Andreas Antonopoulos or BTC Sessions on YouTube and start exploring there, and you should also read the book Inventing Bitcoin by Yan Pritzker. One of the best tools I recommend to start learning.

It seems like you’re mixing on-chain and Lightning terminology. Do you know the difference between these types of transactions?

I know you’ve asked this before but I still don’t think I completely understand your question.

Are you asking just about the Lightning Network? An invoice is a single-use text string that contains information about a payment being requested by a node that another wallet can pay.

Once the invoice is paid, either party can check the payment hash to verify that it was delivered. That could be considered a “receipt,” but it’s not really a word used much in bitcoin lingo.

What’s an invoice?

Glad to have you here, #[3] — please don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if you think they’re stupid. They might help someone else, and honestly, people here love sharing their knowledge with anyone who’s interested enough to ask.

We all started somewhere. 🫂💜🤙