The Bitcoin ReferenceAn encyclopedia of plain words

From The Bitcoin Reference, the plain-language encyclopedia of Bitcoin vocabulary

About this reference

The Bitcoin Reference is a small, independent encyclopedia with one job: to explain the words people use about Bitcoin accurately, in plain language, and without hype. It is meant for newcomers who want a trustworthy starting point and for teachers who need definitions they can put in front of a class.

Why it exists

Bitcoin is discussed in a thicket of jargon, and much of the writing about it is either too technical for a beginner or too eager to persuade. A reader who simply wants to know what a UTXO is, or what happens at a halving, often has to wade through opinion to find out. This reference separates the two. It describes how the system is designed and leaves the arguments to others.

It is organised like a traditional encyclopedia: an index of entries, a guided route for first-time readers, and cross-references so that every word leads to the words it depends on.

Editorial standards

  • Accuracy before brevity. A definition should be short enough to remember and exact enough not to mislead. Where a simple statement would be false in some case, the entry says so.
  • Neutral voice. No entry praises, warns or persuades. Where people disagree, the entry sets out the choices and the trade-offs.
  • Only settled facts. Figures that are fixed by the design are stated: the 21 million cap, the ten-minute target, the 210,000-block halving cycle, the use of SHA-256. Anything that changes with the day, such as prices, totals and rankings, is left out on purpose.
  • No predictions and no advice. This reference does not say what anything will be worth, and it is not financial, legal or tax advice.
  • Plain words first. Every entry begins with a sentence that makes sense on its own, and technical vocabulary is explained where it first appears.

Notes for teachers

The three parts of the reference are designed to be used together in a lesson sequence.

  1. Read. Set one step of the reading path as preparation. The steps are short, and each ends with a question you can use to open the discussion. The path can also be printed using the button at the top of that page.
  2. Look up. During class, use the glossary search to settle a question about a word. Because every entry has its own web address, you can share a link to exactly the definition you mean.
  3. Check. Finish with the quiz. Learners can take it alone and see their own results; nothing is collected, so there is no pressure and no record kept for anyone else.

Some discussion prompts that work well with the entries: Why does a payment need inputs as well as outputs? What is the difference between a wallet and a private key? Why do nodes reject a block that has valid proof of work but breaks a rule? Each can be answered from the glossary alone.

Independence

The Bitcoin Reference is independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any company, exchange, wallet maker, mining business, foundation or software project, and it names none as a source or partner. Nothing here is an offer, a recommendation or an invitation to buy, sell or hold anything.

Privacy and how it works

The whole site is a handful of static files. It loads no outside scripts, fonts or images, and it makes no network requests of any kind. Searching, the term of the day, the reading path and the quiz are all calculated by your browser.

Two small things are remembered on your device, using your browser’s own storage: which reading-path steps you have marked as read, and your best quiz score. Neither leaves your device. If storage is unavailable, the site works normally and simply forgets them when you close the page. You can erase both now:

Suggest a correction

Found an entry that is unclear, out of date or wrong? Please say so. The form below prepares an email in your own email program, addressed to hello@btcsite.org. Nothing is sent until you press send there, and this page itself sends nothing.

At least a sentence, please. Up to 1,500 characters.

If your email program does not open, write to hello@btcsite.org directly.

Colophon

The pages use the serif fonts already installed on your device (Baskerville, Hoefler Text or Garamond where available, with sensible fallbacks), so nothing is downloaded. The illustrations are drawn in code. The layout follows the familiar three-column plan of printed reference works: an index on the left, the article in the middle, and a margin of quick facts on the right.