Bitcoin Is Simpler Than You Think

You’ve probably heard the word “Bitcoin” a thousand times and still feel like it’s some mysterious tech nerd thing that doesn’t apply to your life, I was like that too, this is usually the case with crypto, but we have to make a distinction between Bitcoin and crypto later in this article.

Most people have a default neuron activation when they hear “Bitcoin” and think “Bitcoin?! Oh no, that’s gambling!”

I’ll explain what Bitcoin is, why it’s useful, and why it’s better than the currency we use to day. We’ll also get into how you can start using Bitcoin.

This article is essentially a heavy summary of the Anti-Riba Money by Abdullah ibn Oda, highly recommend reading to go in depth.

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What Is Money, Really?

Before we even get to Bitcoin, we need to talk about what money actually is.

Money is just a tool we use to store and transfer value, it’s a trading medium. That’s it. Money is just a middleman in trade.

For many years, humans used gold and silver as money because those things are rare, durable, and hard to fake. You can’t just print more gold out of thin air.

Then governments came along and said “hey, trust us, this paper represents gold.” And for a while, it did. But in 1971, the United States broke that link entirely. The dollar became backed by nothing except the government’s promise. Every major currency in the world followed suit.

That system is called fiat currency. Fiat just basically means “because we said so.” Your dollar is worth something because the government says it is. Full stop.

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The Problem With Fiat Money

Here’s where things get bad.

When money is backed by nothing and controlled by a central authority, that authority can create more of it whenever it wants. And they do. Constantly.

The US Federal Reserve has printed trillions of dollars over the past two decades alone. When more money is created, each dollar you already have becomes worth a little less. This is called inflation, and it’s not an accident. It’s a feature of the system.

It’s ridiculous, why? Think about what that means for you personally! You worked hard, saved your money, you’re thinking “Man I might finally be able to buy that thing I’ve always wanted for $1000!” and over time your savings quietly lose purchasing power while you sleep. You did nothing wrong. The money just eroded. This is essentially a hidden tax on savers.

And it goes deeper than that.

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Usury and the Debt Trap

Usury is an old word. It used to mean lending money at any interest at all. Over time the definition got softened and now it usually refers to excessive interest. But the original concern stands: when you build an entire economy on debt and interest, you create a system where people are always running to stand still.

Here’s how it works. Banks don’t actually have the money they lend you. Through something called fractional reserve banking, a bank can lend out far more money than it actually holds in deposits. The money it lends you is created at the moment of the loan. You then have to pay that back with interest. But the interest itself was never created. So more debt has to be created somewhere else to cover it. The whole system requires constant expansion just to function.

Think of it like this: Omar walks into a bank and says “I would like to deposit $100.” The bank takes the $100 but only actually deposits $20. The rest of that $80 is loaned to John. John has to return the loan with interest, so he gives back $150. Omar walks in to withdraw his $100, the bank gives the $100 to him, but now they’ve profited $50. Essentially, they created money out of thin air.

This is why governments and central banks are obsessed with “growth.” The system collapses if it stops growing. Ordinary people take on mortgages, car loans, credit cards, and student loans. The interest compounds. Wealth flows steadily upward toward the people who own the debt. The people who owe the debt work harder and harder just to keep up.

Historically, usury was forbidden or atleast heavily restricted for most religions like Christianity and Judaism (jews couldn’t charge other jews interest, but it was allowed for non-jews). Until.. It just wasn’t. I mean, look, the whole system kind of forces you to deal with interest and how their banking works. Christians and other religions later “removed” the restriction on usury.

Islam still forbids interest and usury to this day, but Islamic banking uses loopholes to kind of move around the thing, but it still deals with the fractional reserve and still works essentially the same way as interest!

Bitcoin is relevant to all of this. Here’s why.

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Bitcoin

Bitcoin was created in 2008 by someone using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Nobody knows who this person or group actually is. They released the code, launched the network, and then disappeared. That’s actually important, and we’ll come back to it.

Bitcoin is digital money with a hard cap. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins. Ever. That number is baked into the code and cannot be changed. Nobody can print more. No government, no central bank, no tech company, no Satoshi. The supply is fixed.

That alone makes it different from every fiat currency in existence.

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How Does Bitcoin Actually Work?

Okay, layman’s terms. Here we go.

Imagine a paper that records every transaction ever made. Every time someone sends Bitcoin to someone else, it gets written into this paper. Now imagine that instead of one company keeping that paper on their server, thousands of computers around the world each have an identical copy. Nobody owns the paper. Nobody controls it. Everyone can see it.

That’s the Bitcoin blockchain. It’s just a record of who owns what, shared across thousands of computers worldwide.

When you send Bitcoin to someone, you’re broadcasting a message to the network saying “I want to send this amount from my address to that address.” The computers on the network (called nodes) check that you actually have that Bitcoin to send. A special group of computers called miners then bundle your transaction together with others into a “block” and solve a complex math puzzle to seal it. Once sealed, that block gets added to the chain of all previous blocks.

The math puzzle is intentionally hard and requires real computing work. This is called “proof of work.” It means that to change or fake a past transaction, you would need to redo the math for that block and every block that came after it, faster than the rest of the entire network combined. In practice, this is impossible. The history is locked in.

Your Bitcoin is controlled by a private key. Think of it like a password so secure that no computer on Earth could ever guess it by brute force. If you have the key, you can spend the Bitcoin. If you don’t, you can’t. Nobody can take your Bitcoin without that key. Not a bank, not a government, not a hacker halfway across the world.

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Why Bitcoin Is the Escape From Usury

Here’s the connection.

Bitcoin is not a debt. When you hold Bitcoin, you hold something. It’s not a promise. It’s not a claim on someone else’s balance sheet. It just is what it is. You own it.

Because the supply is capped, nobody can inflate it away. As more people want Bitcoin and the supply stays fixed, each unit tends to become more valuable over time rather than less. That’s the opposite of what fiat does.

You also don’t need a bank. You don’t need anyone’s permission to hold it, send it, or receive it. There are no office hours.

Bitcoin isn’t a speculative investment. It’s access to the financial system. It’s currency.

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Bitcoin Is Permissionless and Censorship Resistant

This is one of the most important things about Bitcoin.

Every financial transaction you make today goes through intermediaries. Your bank, PayPal, Visa, some payment processor. Each one of those intermediaries can decide not to process your transaction. They can freeze your account. They can close you out without explanation. Governments can pressure companies to cut people off from the financial system entirely. This has happened to journalists, protesters, businesses, and individuals all over the world, including in wealthy democracies.

In fact, PayPal right now has been on a streak of closing accounts for no apparent reason! But who dares question the authority of those who control your entire livelihood and wealth?

Bitcoin has no intermediary to pressure. When you send Bitcoin directly to another person, the only thing that matters is whether the transaction is valid. The network doesn’t care who you are, where you live, what you believe, or what you’re buying. It just checks the math and processes it.

Nobody can stop a valid Bitcoin transaction from going through. Nobody can freeze your Bitcoin wallet. Nobody can reverse a payment once it’s confirmed. The network is open to anyone with internet access and nobody has an off switch.

This is what censorship resistance means. Your ability to transact doesn’t depend on anyone’s approval.

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But What About the Volatility?

Bitcoin’s price does move around a lot, especially compared to the dollar.

A few things worth knowing about that.

First, Bitcoin is still young. It’s been around for less than 20 years. New forms of money and financial infrastructure take time to stabilize. Gold was volatile during periods of rapid adoption too.

“It’s volatile and risky” but compared to what? I mean, fiat is also volatile, the US dollar jumps up and down on the graphs too. This claims assumes that any currency in the world is stable.

Bitcoin is in fact MORE stable than fiat currency because of it’s 21 million coin cap.

“While this might sound reasonable at first, it overlooks very basic insights into market behavior and how new forms of money gain adoption.

Yes, Bitcoin is volatile. Its price in fiat terms rises and falls based on market demand. When demand increases, people buy, and the price goes up. When demand decreases, people sell, and the price goes down. But this is not unique to Bitcoin. Every commodity in a free market behaves the same way. So why do critics hold Bitcoin to a different standard?

Do they expect Satoshi to emerge from the shadows and magically stabilize the supply to match fluctuating demand, all so Bitcoin conforms to a so-called “stable” fiat price? We find the naivety here staggering.“

-Anti Riba Money by Abdullah ibn Oda page 324

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How to Actually Use Bitcoin

This part is simpler than it sounds.

** Getting a wallet:**

Go on your phone and install Phoenix Wallet or AQUA Wallet or BlueWallet, mobile wallets are preferred because they’re generally more secure and private, but there’s also web/desktop wallets like Sparrow and Rizful that are less secure but still work.

However, some wallets can be very trustworthy but not self-custodial like Wallet of Satoshi and Rizful. It’s recommended to only keep small amounts in those wallets.

Learn about self custody:

After making your wallet, you’ll usually be prompted to save your “seed phrase”, it’s basically just writing down a 12 or 24 word phrase and keeping it safe. That phrase IS your wallet. Guard it like it’s cash, because it is. Your seed phrase is the password to your wallet.

Do NOT save your seed phrase on your phone’s notepad or a messaging app or something, because if a hacker gets a hold of your seed phrase it’s all downhill from there. Write your seed phrase on a paper.

Buy:

Now 1 bitcoin is worth tens of thousands of USD, but you dont deal with whole bitcoin. Every bitcoin is divided up into smaller units called “satoshis” or “sats” for short, think of them like cents. $1 is equal to around 1000-2000 sats usually.

It’s also not necessary to buy bitcoin to have it. It’s currency. You can get it by selling something or donations, or whatever.

To buy bitcoin, use an exchange like Bisq or another low-KYC (verification) exchange. Then immediately send the bitcoin you bought to your wallet.

Bitcoin has a smaller learning curve than people claim, and it’s the only real decentralized currency we have today.

That’s it. Simple, right?

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The Bigger Picture

Bitcoin’s a response to a problem that has existed for as long as centralized money has. When a small group of people control the money supply, they have enormous power over everyone else. They can expand the supply to fund wars, bail out banks, and reward political allies while everyone else absorbs the cost through inflation and debt.

Bitcoin removes that lever. The rules are in the code. The code is public. Nobody is above it.

That doesn’t mean Bitcoin is perfect or that it solves every problem. It doesn’t. But for the first time in human history, there exists a form of money that is open to everyone, controlled by no one, with a supply that cannot be manipulated and a ledger that cannot be falsified.

That’s worth understanding. Even if you never buy a single satoshi, the ideas behind Bitcoin are worth sitting with. Because they’re really just old ideas about sound money, individual sovereignty, and fairness, dressed up in new technology.

And when you put it that way, it’s actually pretty simple.

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Bitcoin is not a get rich quick scheme. As with any financial decision, do your own research, understand the risks, and only put in what you can afford to lose. This article is for educational purposes only.