What does the transaction list actually look like?
Please read before continuing: Technical Explanation of Bitcoin
Don’t be scared off by the seemingly random assortment of numbers and letters. The list isn’t nearly as confusing as it might look.
If you remember our privacy lesson, you might realize these long strings of characters are actually people’s “codenames”, however they are really called “addresses”. This is what you give someone when you want them to send you bitcoin. Speaking of bitcoin, notice that the bitcoin list tracks payments of bitcoin, not $.
For example, you’ll see string “37zhMqtceYYsdkTjyY1vB9XLn8z78FXACs” is an address that someone sent 5 bitcoin to. This was actually Alice’s payment to Charlie!
Why do addresses have to look so confusing? Well, these random characters aren’t just to conceal our identity. They are actually one of the things that makes bitcoin possible in the first place. Continue on to our cryptography lesson to learn how.