Core Concepts¶
Fifteen short guides that give you the words the rest of the site uses. Read them in order once; afterwards they work as a reference.
| Guide | What it covers |
|---|---|
| What Is Blockchain? | The shared ledger problem, and why removing the middleman changes who is responsible. |
| What Is Decentralization? | What "no central operator" buys you, what it costs, and why it is not the same as "safe". |
| What Is a Decentralized Wallet? | Self-custody versus a custodial account, and what "not your keys, not your coins" means in practice. |
| Private Key, Mnemonic and Wallet Password | The three secrets people mix up, what each one unlocks, and what to do when one leaks. |
| What Is the Gas Fee? | Why every Bitgold transaction needs BTG, who receives the fee, and why the amount moves. |
| What Is DeFi? | Financial services assembled from smart contracts, and the new risks that come with them. |
| What Is DEX? | Trading from your own wallet, how a swap settles, and why slippage is not a bug. |
| What Is Keystore? | The encrypted key file, how it differs from a recovery phrase, and where it goes wrong. |
| What Is a Cold Wallet? | Keys that never touch the internet, and the operational cost of keeping them that way. |
| What Is a Hot Wallet? | A wallet that is online by design: the convenience, the exposure, and the right balance. |
| What Is a Watch Wallet? | An address you can observe but cannot spend from, and what it cannot protect. |
| What Is a Multi-Sig Wallet? | More than one signature before funds move, plus the coordination that requires. |
| What Is a Hardware Wallet? | Signing inside a dedicated device, and the phishing that still gets through. |
| What Is an Extension Wallet? | A wallet inside your browser, and the permissions it inherits from every tab. |
| What Is a Passphrase? | The optional extra word that creates a second wallet — and the backup trap it sets. |
If you only read three¶
- What Is Blockchain? — the foundation.
- Private Key, Mnemonic and Wallet Password — the distinction that prevents most losses.
- What Is a Hot Wallet? — why the wallet you use daily should not hold everything.
Next step¶
When the vocabulary is clear, move to Security Knowledge. It shows how these concepts fail in the real world.