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Unlocking Knowledge: Bitcoin in Plain Language

This series continues to translate the original white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto to plain language. The goal is to have easily shared content, and send new people directly to nostr to read it. The original content will be posted, with the plain language below.

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9. Combining and Splitting Value Paragraph 1
Although it would be possible to handle coins individually, it would be unwieldy to make a separate transaction for every cent in a transfer. To allow value to be split and combined, transactions contain multiple inputs and outputs. Normally there will be either a single input from a larger previous transaction or multiple inputs combining smaller amounts, and at most two outputs: one for the payment, and one returning the change, if any, back to the sender.


Plain Language
Imagine you have a big box of puzzle pieces, and each piece is like a coin. Now, let's say you want to share these puzzle pieces with a friend, but you don't want to give them one piece at a time because that would take too long and be too much work.

What you can do is put some of these puzzle pieces together in a bag, almost like combining coins in a single transaction, so they add up to a total amount. You might have one big piece (input) from a previous puzzle bag you got, or you can put together a bunch of smaller pieces (inputs) to make a new bag.

Each time puzzle pieces are sent to someone, or returned bag to you a change, a new bag is created and labeled with a new name to identify it. Even "change" that is returned back to you is put in a new bag and labeled individually.

Now, when you want to give some pieces (make a payment), you take some out of the bag and put them in a new bag (output) for your friend. And, if you have some pieces left in the bag (change), you make another bag (output) with those and keep it for yourself.

The labeling of each bag of puzzle pieces helps everyone see things clearly.

So, instead of dealing with each puzzle piece separately, you're making these labeled bags (transactions) that have some pieces going out and maybe some pieces coming back to you. It makes things easier and less messy when you want to share your puzzle pieces.

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