I'm an engineer IRL. Engineers examine system characteristics. Here are the objective facts about Bitcoin, undistracted by controversial headlines, haters screaming "scam" and crypto bros screaming "number go up".

As we go through each system characteristic, I'm going to explain to you why your intuition will work against you to derail your understanding of Bitcoin, and why understanding Bitcoin requires work. This effort threshold often leads people to take the easy way out and scream "scam" or, if you are motivated by greed, "to the moon".

Why should you, an ordinary person, go through the work of understanding Bitcoin? Because - whether sceptics like it or not - it has fundamentally changed the way "money" is defined, and right now banks are looking into the technology in the form of CBDCs. This will impact your life in the next couple of decades, in some way shape or form. If you do not understand the technology, then banks will be able to roll out technology that fundamentally alters how money works without critical thought from the general populace. I believe that should not happen.

Here is your little list of the top ten properties of Bitcoin, and why your intuition and natural scepticism makes it difficult to understand. For this exercise, I will assume that you're an ordinary first-world person with an average financial and digital literacy, like I was five years ago:

It exists only on computers, not in paper or coin form. You can send it, store it, and receive it just like email but it was designed with an intent to be money.

How your intuition hinders you: Your digital literacy tells you that computers are for typing up emails, social media posts, Word documents and Excel spreadsheets. Those things are easily editable by other people, and thus, how could you trust a digital thing to be currency!

The reality: Bitcoin was designed to be money, and its purpose was written down in something called a whitepaper by an anonymous person called Satoshi Nakamoto. It can be a currency because of the way it was designed, which is nothing like how Word documents and Excel Spreadsheets work.

Bitcoin runs on a peer-to-peer network, meaning people send it directly to each other like email — no middlemen.

How your intuition hinders you: you probably can't imagine a world where money is not run by banks. That's what they have been doing for thousands of years. How can you trust money without a bank holding for you?

The reality: Bitcoin can operate without middlemen and send representations of value peer to peer because of the security built into the network's design. This security is powered by a branch of mathematics called cryptography.

Thousands of machines around the world run the Bitcoin software. No single person, company, or country controls it.

How your intuition hinders you: You've probably never encountered anything like this before. Everything in your world is either controlled by government or private interests, so it's difficult to wrap your head around how Bitcoin is run by nobody.

The reality: The machines running Bitcoin runs special code that tells them what to do. (see what this is: below) That code has very little human input, unlike most PCs. It just runs. Hence, no single entity has complete control of Bitcoin, because the code is the central control point, not people. Changing the code is very, very difficult, and happens after being voted on by a lot of people.

This is like a huge online spreadsheet that records every transaction ever made. It’s open for anyone to see but can’t be changed.

How your intuition hinders you: Most people don't care about ledgers, because they don't understand their purpose. To them, money is what appears in their bank account.

The reality: Bitcoin creates its tokens and then creates an unalterable record of where they are sent (spent) with cryptography. This transparency makes it easy to verify that the people sending the coins are honest and not creating tokens falsely. Thus, the ledger, secured with math, is a core feature of the system that creates trust in its use.

Special computers solve difficult math puzzles to confirm transactions. The first one to solve it gets rewarded with new bitcoin. This is called “mining.”

How your intuition hinders you: This is honestly the easiest thing to understand about Bitcoin, because it's quite simple and elegant. But understanding how it fits in with the other pieces can be tricky. Many people take righteous anger with the energy useage, calling it wasteful, but it is an entirely deliberate part of the design.

The reality: Bitcoin's mining distribution can be independently verified, and as a reward for executing the protocol they are rewarded with Bitcoin. This reward, while the energy useage seems wasteful without context, is what secures the system. Hence, all mining machines own Bitcoin, but no single person or entity controls it.

Bitcoin has been deliberately designed to have a limited supply by its creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

How your intuition hinders you: You probably are still struggling to understand how a digital system can only have a limited number of "things" in it, because, for you, digital systems still are for making spreadsheets and Word docs and social media posts.

The reality: That limit is built into the code. The code that is run by the miners (explained above). That limit will never change, because, as mentioned above, changing the code that runs Bitcoin is very, very difficult, and it is against the interests of the miners to change the limit.

This is an app or device where you keep your private keys (like a password). If you lose your keys, you lose your Bitcoin; there's no reset button.

How your intuition hinders you: For you, money is accessed via your banking app. Imagine your banking app had no help centre or "reset password" button. Also imagine that there is no banking office storing cash. This may be hard to imagine, fearful, or even a little silly from your perspective.

The reality: There is a reason why your "banking app" has no "reset password" button, or even a physical office. It is because all representations of value in the Bitcoin network are digital, and that there is no need for physical cash. You have to guard your Bitcoins like money under the mattress, and in exchange nobody, not even the banks, can take it away from you, except with extreme force or trickery. Right now, digital money can be seized directly, and I'm personally not a fan of that.

(There are different options for managing your keys, for different situations, but they are outside the scope of this article.)

Every transaction is visible on the blockchain, but names are not attached, just wallet addresses (strings of letters and numbers).

How your intuition hinders you: you might be accustomed to headlines about scammers using Bitcoin because it is "anonymous" and "for criminals". This is a common conflation by media.

The reality: The Bitcoin code that runs the network can use cryptography to generate a string of letters and numbers that are unique to you. This string is generated using your private keys (see above) using mathematics called cryptography. It is safe to use and share your public address, but not your private keys. Because of the mathematics used to generate your public address, it is easy to calculate your public address from your private keys, but not the other way around. Thus, it may feel wrong to share your public address if you understand how it is calculated, but you are being protected by the mathematical properties of the system.

If you have the money, anyone can buy the hardware required to mine Bitcoin, or, failing that, run the software that makes sure that everyone in the system is honest (a "node" or "validator"). Running a node just requires an ordinary laptop and an internet connection.

How your intuition hinders you: again, one of the easier concepts to master in Bitcoin, but if you're accustomed to thinking in terms of banks, where you need licencing or permission from someone else to run a bank, you might still be a little stuck.

The reality: Banks need permission from other people to run because of the human control running the system. The humans move the money around. The humans check that the spenders are honest. Bitcoin has engineered a lot of that out with its design.

There will only be 21 million Bitcoins (point 6) and the reward that miners receive for mining (the supply schedule) is set in the code.

How your intuition hinders you: This might feel like cheating, like copying from your friend in an exam. How can you know how many Bitcoins you receive? Isn't that important information that should only be known by Someone Important (like a bank???).

The reality: if we remember that Bitcoin doesn't need Someone Important to run, we realise that the supply schedule provides Bitcoin miners with the certainty they need to run their equipment. The supply schedule halves every four years (called "the halving"), making Bitcoin more rare at predictable intervals, thus, attempting to make it more valuable. The mining reward started at 50 BTC issued for every block mined in 2009. After 4 years it halved to 25 BTC, and so on. The price of Bitcoin tends to spike after each "halving" event.

It may take some time for all of this to crystallise. I do hope that this isn't taken in a condescending way. I say this because of personal experience. When learning about Bitcoin, your intuition will attempt to tug you in the wrong direction, because Bitcoin is unlike anything you've ever encountered, for the reasons I've outlined. But I'm just a regular old dumbass, so if I can do it, so can you.

To sum up, Bitcoin is code run on hundreds of thousands of computers, scattered all across the world, that attempts to create a representation of value (coins) that can be sent between computers without a central "Important Person". It was invented by an anonymous person, built by a bunch of computer nerds, and has emerged to create its own market through the sheer force of its own gravity.

I think that's pretty neat.

It's very easy to attack the idea of Bitcoin in ways that are logically inconsistent. Critics are guilty of hasty generalisations, poisoning the pot, presentism, and ad hominin attacks, which I intend to also write about.

However, taken together, absolute facts about the characteristics of the bitcoin system - not it's ideology, its price, or any silly, distracting factors, show that it is a remarkable creation. I think, in itself, that is enough.