If anyone can edit the list, can someone steal my balance?

Nope. You’re only allowed to subtract money from yourself.. but you can add money to anyone’s balance.

This will be an easy concept to grasp, as I’m assuming you’ve used a password before.

When you try to subtract money from the list, you are going to be asked to prove that you are the owner of it first. This is actually where the “cryptography” comes into play, but we’ll save that for a future lesson. For now, just think of it as a password. It’s not too far off.

Before Bob can subtract from his balance and add to Dave’s, he just needs to type in his password.

Be careful with this! If someone else finds out your password, they are free to edit your balance in any way they like.

Ready to learn more about bitcoin security?