This is a small initial summary for the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency universe, divided by topics. Each topic is shown in a very summarized way, so I won't go into technical details, but in the future I can explain each topic.

What is it?

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto and based on Proof of Work. Its value is determined solely by the demand and supply of cryptocurrencies within the ecosystem, transactions are validated through a process known as mining.

Who is Satoshi?

Nobody knows, he is a completely anonymous person. What we have are some hypotheses and some wallets that he "abandoned" with a few billion dollars worth of Bitcoins.

Craig Wright

Craig Wright is a guy who won in court the right to "be" Satoshi Nakamoto. However, he never really proved that he was the real Satoshi Nakamoto, and he even became a joke in the community:

We are all Satoshi except Craig Wright

Who holds Bitcoin?

The community, through Git (code versioning program), fullnodes (programs that keep a record of all transactions ever made in Bitcoin), information sharing and the mining process. There is no centralized entity behind Bitcoin, just multiple developers, enthusiasts, and maintainers around the world maintaining it in a decentralized way.

Is Bitcoin the same thing as blockchain?

No, blockchain is a data structure that allows you to store data immutably, while Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that was created based on Bitcoin technology.

You can better understand what a blockchain is here.

Is it a crime to use Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies?

No, at least in most parts of the world.

Do I need to pay tax on cryptocurrencies?

Yes and no, depending on your country's legislation. In most countries you are required to declare that you own your Bitcoins, but the taxes on them vary. In Brazil, for example, you are only required to pay taxes when converting Bitcoins and other cryptos to fiat currencies, such as the Real or the Dollar.

Proof of work

Proof of work, or proof of work, is the way used by Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies to validate network transactions. To validate a block, the miner must generate several cryptographic hashes until he finds one that matches the difficulty pattern (usually with a specific amount of zeros at its beginning), and the first miner who achieves this result will earn the right to mine the block. block (along with a reward).

Proof of stake

It is considered an alternative to proof of work, where there are several wallets with certain amounts of currency, and one of them is chosen randomly to have the right to validate the block (and earn a reward). In this case, the more coins, the greater the chance that your wallet will be chosen. Cardano uses a system based on proof of stake.

What is hold? And holders?

The word hold in English literally means "hold", and that's what a good part of the community is encouraged to do, precisely because of the currency's deflationary behavior.

So-called "holders" are people who take a certain currency and hold it in their wallet until the price of it rises. There have been Bitcoin holders since BTC reached 50 cents on the dollar, for example.

What are traders?

Traders are people who try to profit from currency variations in the market (the famous "buy low and sell high"), some of them do this even within a single day.

In a very simple way, a trader's job is to analyze the chart of the variation of the value of the currency in the day and try to predict if the trend is going to go up or down, and, if it will go up, he buys coins before, and, if it goes down, he sells before (they do the same with stocks of companies, NFTs, works of art, among others).

Statistically, there are several patterns of curves and indicators that a trader can use to make their buying and selling decisions, based on the average and median volatility of the asset, as indicated below.

Personally, I do not recommend this type of operation.

Bitcoin crashed, will it die?

Typically, Bitcoin has a very large variation in the value of the currency, which can vary by more than 500% overnight. Watch:

Currently, Bitcoin is following a deflationary pattern, but with occasional drops. Because of this, the "holder mentality" is very popular in the community, where people want to keep Bitcoin in their wallet and just accumulate more and more Bitcoin, waiting for its value to increase.

Unlike traders, holders feel that they don't need to worry about currency fluctuations as, unlike traders, holders see Bitcoin as a long-term investment rather than a short-term one.

What are shitcoins?

The term has emerged since the early days of Bitcoin to describe worthless cryptocurrencies, scam projects, and more.

What is a scam?

Scam is a scam, a fraud, an attempt to deceive people. A famous scam in the community is the Squid Game Token, a token that was supposedly created to finance a game from the Squid Game series, and the developers simply closed the project and disappeared.

Energy efficiency

Mining Bitcoin and other coins based on proof of work tends to increase the energy cost as the value of the token rises (since more computing power will be needed to mine). Does this mean that Bitcoin is energetically unsustainable?

So-so. As the cost of mining is high, miners tend to look for places where energy is cheaper and computers are more energy efficient, with rare exceptions, such as when there are energy subsidies or some source of fossil fuel in large quantities, such as embargoed oil. economically in Iran.

There are also coins based on proof of stake, where several wallets have the crypto and one of them is randomly chosen to be used to validate the block, guaranteeing the reward. In this model, energy expenditure is much lower.

Bitcoin is for committing crimes?

Here are some important points to highlight:

• Firstly, one of the advantages of Bitcoin is that a wallet is not necessarily tied to a person. This allows a person to keep a store of value in Bitcoin hidden from society. But this in no way means that Bitcoin is an anonymous and untraceable cryptocurrency, every transaction is stored on the blockchain and you know exactly where a Bitcoin came from and where it went, so if you know who owns a wallet x, it is not very difficult to link his earnings to criminal activities;
• Precisely because each bitcoin is traceable, most criminal transactions are carried out using fiat money in cash (banknotes), which, despite being more difficult to transport, are less traceable than most cryptocurrencies;
• There are more privacy-friendly coins such as Monero. Coins that are not privacy-focused are much less suitable for activities that require anonymity than Bitcoin (and this is one of the most common criticisms of the Monero community).

I'm not saying that Bitcoin is not used to monetize criminal acts (see the now defunct marketplace Silk Road), but there are more widely used and better currencies for such activities, so associating Bitcoin and all its uses with crimes is a mistake.

NFT

Non-Fungible Tokens was a technology that emerged in the Ethereum ecosystem based on smart contracts to represent items within the internet.

NFT technology is likely to come to Bitcoin via the so-called taproot, a future upgrade that will allow smart contracts within the BTC network.

You can read more about NFTs here.

Other Bitcoin-derived networks

Bitcoin has many networks derived from or based on it. These three are my favorites at the moment:

Litecoin

Litecoin was one of the first Bitcoin forks, and one of the best known. Litecoin has most of the features of Bitcoin like mining, upgrades, limited blocks, etc. However, it uses a different algorithm than the one used by BTC to generate the hashes, has an issuance limit of 84 million units (more than Bitcoin's 21 million) and an average block generation time of 3 minutes instead of 10 of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was a "hard fork", or an offshoot, of the original Bitcoin project, which allows for the creation of a block with a much larger size than the original. However, it didn't have the same acceptance as the main project, and many today consider it a shitcoin.

LBC and the LBRY network

The LBRY network was created to be as difficult as possible to censor, using Bitcoin's transaction system plus decentralized file downloads from torrents to generate a decentralized media sharing system. By its nature and essence, naturally LBRY is almost impossible to censor, since anyone can maintain a full node that indicates the location of files.

Currently one of the best frontends for the LBRY ecosystem is Odysee.

What are cryptanarchists?

These are movements of cryptocurrency enthusiasts who believe that the use of Bitcoin and other decentralized currencies will lead to the fall of states and bring stability to society without the need for it.

In these groups there are several ideological strands, such as the "cryptocommunists" and some groups of anarcho-capitalists.

How can I acquire cryptocurrencies?

There are a few ways you can earn or buy cryptocurrencies. Here are some of them:

Faucets

Faucets are sites that give you some cryptocurrency to do some tasks. You don't earn much per task (typically less than 1 cent) and you usually need to accumulate a large amount of this crypto in order to cash out.

Centralized brokerages

On centralized exchanges like Binance, you can get your Bitcoins, Ethereum, or other cryptos you want and transfer them to your wallet. It is the most popular option.

Decentralized brokers

On decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap, SushiSwap and others you can exchange your cryptos for other cryptos, provide liquidity, stake, buy cryptos, among others. They are usually connected with Ethereum wallets, such as the popular Metamask.

P2P

You can find someone who has Bitcoin, or whatever cryptocurrency you want, and buy from them. It is the oldest way to buy cryptocurrencies.

Mining

Mining is the oldest way to earn crypto: when you successfully validate a block, you'll earn the transaction fee plus a small amount of bonuses (and that's how bitcoins "come"). However, in many parts of the world, mining is practically unfeasible with most cryptocurrencies that mine for proof of work.

How can I keep my cryptocurrencies safe?

First of all, you have to be aware of the dangers of having your cryptocurrencies inside the exchange: if you don't have the wallet keys, the money is not yours. Choose a Bitcoin wallet to hold your coins (or an Ethereum for your Ethereum coins, a Litecoin for your LTC, etc). In the case of LBC, you don't have to worry, as your LBRY account already serves as a wallet.

Avoid using pirated software or downloaded from any random website on the internet, and also avoid connecting your wallet with any contract on the internet just because it says it will give you a token or NFT (mainly valid for Metamask). If your wallet is compromised just once, that's it...

Using different emails for your crypto investments is recommended because if your account is compromised, you will not lose everything. Some people still recommend using a different account for each exchange, but I don't think it's necessary.

Insecure passwords are a danger for anyone, but for those who own cryptocurrencies they are much more dangerous. Passwords containing phone numbers, dates of birth, children's names and others are the first to be tested in brute force attacks, as well as variations of it (example: changing the letters "i" to "1"). There are also a number of popular passwords such as "qwe123" or "12345" which should not be used.

And there? Did you have any doubts? Tell me in the comments.