Interactive lesson4 min
What actually happens when you send bitcoin?
Follow one payment from your wallet to a block, and account for every sat along the way.
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Bitcoin transactions
A Bitcoin payment connects software, spending conditions, a network of peers, and a changing chain of blocks. Follow one fictional payment, then inspect the details: outputs, change, virtual size, and confirmation. The aim is to explain what each observation tells you, and what it leaves uncertain.
Where does your wallet balance come from?
Where do change and fees go?
When is a payment confirmed?
In this collection
Visual guide3 min
Your wallet, your keys, and your bitcoin: what lives where?
Separate the app on your phone from signing authority and the outputs recorded by the network.
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UTXOs and change: why one payment can create two outputs
Work through coin selection without imagining a single account balance being edited.
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Bitcoin transaction fees and virtual size
A bigger payment does not necessarily make a bigger transaction. Separate amount, size, rate, and total fee.
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Pending, confirmed, and reorganized: a payment’s changing status
A status label is an observation about a transaction and a chain, not a promise about the future.
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Read a Bitcoin transaction explorer without getting lost
Use a fictional transaction to separate recorded facts from an explorer’s interpretations.
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