- Educate
- Use Bitcoin
- Use a Full Node
- Keeping Up w/ Technology
- Contribute Code
- Find a Bitcoin job
- Mine
- Discuss
- Meet-ups & Conferences
- Privacy
- Other
Bitcoin is a new and radical disruptive technology. It is redefining money and has us questioning; what is money?
If you want to help educate others, even just the basics, you need to learn it yourself. The space is always changing too, so try to keep up! If you get some things wrong, don't take it too hard, people always get things wrong in this space and no one knows everything. Just make sure you learn from your mistakes as with anything and try not to take things personally.
When you are confident in your own basic knowledge start educating family, friends, advocates, the curious, the skeptics, the neutral and the critical about the benefits and strengths of Bitcoin. Let them know what makes Bitcoin special, what differentiates it from anything else that exists and what differentiates Bitcoin from other cryptocurrencies.
Not good at explaining? Not a coder? No sweat - you can help Bitcoin by just simply using it.
Store some wealth in bitcoin long term, it is a savings technology after all.
You can spend a little bit once in a while too! Did you know places like Microsoft, NewEgg, Expedia and many other large and small online shops accept Bitcoin?
There are more usecases being created all the time!
For Everyday People
People like you and I are now storing wealth in bitcoin and using it for things like shopping.
For Corporations
Public and private companies are now converting corporate cash reserves into bitcoin. If you are a company looking to preserve their value over the long term, you can check out MicroStrategy's Bitcoin for Corporations info.
For Countries/States/Provinces/Cities/Etc.
Countries like El Salvador are converting fiat into bitcoin.
ResourcesThis section is directed towards everyone.
Please do your due diligence and follow the trends and technological advancements in the Bitcoin space. We all benefit from adopting the latest and greatest technologies aimed at optimizing the network.
Segregated Witness (SegWit) was added as an opt-in upgrade to Bitcoin in August of 2017 to help securely scale Bitcoin, reduce transaction fees, enable more innovation and fix a long standing malleability bug among other things.
All wallets should have SegWit integrated by now. If not, you should be questioning that wallet / service.
You use SegWit by sending and receiving from a SegWit Bitcoin address. You can tell if an address is SegWit by checking if the address begins with a "3" (P2SH) or a "bc1" (Bech-32).
Example:
bc1qnc69v3hfznag9zdrwgutusp0f95js6c38ckvwj = Native SegWit / bech32 (Best)
35JZ72myPm2HUNLHq2ozA6Z2dvbmSCFV3W = SegWit / P2SH (Better)
1FnN243Tu3oNaZazwTNpgvvh6Hi8jpjK2U = Legacy / P2PKH
For Everyday Users
Use wallets and services that have SegWit integrated. By now, all wallets/services should have SegWit integrated. If not, you may need to question the service's integrity.
For Companies
Any company that uses Bitcoin should have SegWit integrated by now, even if it's something as small as accepting donations. Companies should get their developer(s) to work on getting SegWit integrated.
Transaction batching became more relevant when the Bitcoin mempool began getting bloated which raised the transaction fees during the 2017 bull run.
Some exchanges and companies that had high transaction traffic were unintentionally spamming the network with thousands and thousands of legitimate transactions in a very inefficient manner.
Transaction batching increases efficiency by combining many transactions into a single transaction to pay out multiple users thus greatly reducing the transaction efficiency of Bitcoin companies. Batching optimizes the network, reduces the transaction fess for everyone and significantly reduces the accumulated transaction fees of large companies.
Example: An exchange needs to pay out 7 users that want to withdraw their bitcoin. Instead of creating 7 separate transactions, the exchange creates 1 transaction (1 input versus 7 inputs) to pay the 7 users.
For Companies
Companies need to get their developer(s) to setup transaction batching for them. All exchanges and services should be utilizing transaction batching if not implemented already.
Liquid is a federated sidechain network of Bitcoin designed for exchanges / traders to enable faster, cheaper and more private settlement of transactions and the issuance of digital assets.
In addition to the benefits mentioned above, the Liquid Network moves transactions that would otherwise take place on the bitcoin blockchain onto the Liquid Network, creating a more effecient Bitcoin network.
For exchanges
Exchanges need to get their developer(s) to integrate Liquid Network for them. All exchanges should be taking advantage of the Liquid Network if not implemented already. Want to integrate the Liquid network into your service? Sign up here. Many services (large, medium and small) have Liquid integrated.
Bitcoin miners race to be the first to solve a complex mathematical puzzle using special hardare called ASICs. If they win, they get to add a transaction block to the Bitcoin blockchain and get paid bitcoin.
Bitcoin mining requires expensive hardware, high capital and a lot of planning to be profitable.
More independent miners means a more decentralized mining network
Join forums and social media platforms to discuss, debate and educate Bitcoin to the uneducated..
Meet people face to face to discuss Bitcoin and build connections! Make some friends with like-minded people along the way too!
Privacy in general is very important and this includes your finances. However, keeping your privacy is quite challenging. Did you know that every Bitcoin transactions can be tracked on the blockchain?
Check out this in-depth guide on how you can work towards keeping your privacy: bitcoinprivacy.org
Here is a checklist of some things you need to do to reach a high level privacy (if not more things):
- Purchase your bitcoin from a non-KYC source
- Separate bitcoin into different addresses
- Avoid re-using bitcoin addresses
- Use wallets that have coin selection
- Use VPN and/or TOR for internet browsing
- Use a Bitcoin full node over TOR
- Run open source wallets over TOR
- Use coin mixing services / wallets
- Use open source operating system, hardware and firmware
And this is why a high level of privacy is hard to grasp and maintain.
Use Bitcoin via satellite anywhere in the world without an internet connection and without consuming internet bandwidth.
- Blockstream Satellite Info Page
- Buy Blockstream Satellite Kits
- Build Your Own Bitcoin Satellite Node Guide
- Completely Offline Bitcoin Transactions
Use Bitcoin on your phone through a mesh network of other goTenna users. The larger the mesh network, the stronger your signal will be.