Frequently asked questions
Your Bitcoin Questions, Answered
New to Bitcoin? Wondering about Project Sixty-Two? Confused about wallets, seed phrases, or security? You’re in the right place. Here are clear, straightforward answers to the most common questions about Bitcoin and our mission to close the wealth gap.
What is Project Sixty-Two?
Project Sixty-Two is the Institute for Black Wealth Empowerment’s initiative to close the racial wealth gap through strategic Bitcoin accumulation.
The goal: Every Black American household acquires 0.062447 Bitcoin (we call it 0.062 for short).
What if I can't afford to buy 0.062 BTC all at once?
You don’t have to buy it all at once. Most people can’t.
The strategy is Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA):
- Buy a small amount weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly
- $50/week = $2,600/year
- $100/week = $5,200/year
- Over 3-5 years, you reach 0.062 BTC at current prices
Even if you can only afford $20/week, that’s progress. Every satoshi (the smallest unit of Bitcoin) brings you closer to the goal.
The important thing is starting and staying consistent.
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is digital money that you can own, hold, and transfer without needing a bank, government, or any middleman.
Key features:
- Fixed supply: Only 21 million Bitcoin will ever exist (scarcity like gold)
- Decentralized: No single person, company, or government controls it
- Digital: Exists entirely online, but has real value
- Borderless: Works anywhere in the world with internet
- Permissionless: Anyone can buy, own, and use it
Who created Bitcoin?
Bitcoin was created in 2008 by someone (or a group) using the name Satoshi Nakamoto.
Why? In response to the 2008 financial crisis, when banks crashed the economy and were bailed out with printed money while ordinary people lost everything.
Satoshi’s goal: Create money that couldn’t be controlled or manipulated by governments or banks.
What happened to Satoshi? They disappeared in 2011 and have never been identified. Bitcoin is now maintained by thousands of developers worldwide.
This anonymity is actually a feature: No single person controls Bitcoin, making it truly decentralized.
How does Bitcoin work?
In simple terms:
Bitcoin uses a technology called blockchain—a public ledger that records every transaction ever made.
Think of it like this:
- Everyone has a copy of the same record book
- When you send Bitcoin, it’s recorded in everyone’s book
- Thousands of computers verify it’s legitimate
- Once verified, it can’t be changed or reversed
This means:
- No one can fake Bitcoin transactions
- No one can spend the same Bitcoin twice
- No middleman is needed to verify transactions
- The network is secured by math and cryptography
You don’t need to understand the technical details to use it—just like you don’t need to understand how email works to send an email.
What is a Bitcoin wallet?
A Bitcoin wallet is a tool that stores your private keys—the cryptographic passwords that prove you own your Bitcoin and let you send it.
Important: Your Bitcoin doesn’t actually “live” in your wallet. It lives on the blockchain (the public record). Your wallet simply holds the keys that give you access to your Bitcoin.
Think of it like this:
Bitcoin = Money in a bank vault
- The vault is the blockchain (public, everyone can see the balances)
- Your Bitcoin is recorded there permanently
Bitcoin wallet = Your key to that vault
- Proves which Bitcoin belongs to you
- Lets you access and move your Bitcoin
- Without the key, you can’t access what’s yours
Even better analogy:
Blockchain = Global mailbox system
Your Bitcoin = Mail sitting in your mailbox
Wallet = The key to your specific mailbox
- Proves it’s your mailbox
- Lets you retrieve your mail
- Someone else can put mail in (send you Bitcoin)
- But only you can take mail out (spend your Bitcoin)
WHAT A BITCOIN WALLET DOES
Your wallet allows you to:
✓ Receive Bitcoin
- Generates addresses where people can send you Bitcoin
- Shows your balance
✓ Send Bitcoin
- Sign transactions to move Bitcoin to others
- Proves you own the Bitcoin you’re sending
✓ Store your keys
- Keeps your private keys secure
- Manages your seed phrase
✓ View your balance
- Shows how much Bitcoin you own
- Displays transaction history
✓ Generate new addresses
- Creates new receiving addresses for privacy
- All addresses connect to the same wallet
What is a Bitcoin wallet address?
A Bitcoin wallet address is like your account number—it’s where people send Bitcoin to you.
Think of it like:
- Email address (for receiving emails)
- Bank account number (for receiving money)
- Mailing address (for receiving packages)
Bitcoin address = where you receive Bitcoin
What it looks like:
Bitcoin addresses are long strings of letters and numbers that look like this:
- bc1qxy2kgdygjrsqtzq2n0yrf2493p83kkfjhx0wlh
- 3J98t1WpEZ73CNmYviecrnyiWrnqRhWNLy
- 1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
They’re usually 26-35 characters long. Bitcoin wallets generally present your address as QR code to be easily scanned.
What is a seed phrase?
A seed phrase (also called a recovery phrase or backup phrase) is a list of 12 or 24 random words that are the master key to your Bitcoin.
These words ARE your Bitcoin.
What it looks like:
A typical seed phrase looks like this (this is a fake example—never use someone else’s seed phrase):
apple river mountain cloud desk forest
hammer bridge twelve sunset camera notebook
12 or 24 simple English words, written in a specific order.
Why it exists:
Your Bitcoin isn’t actually “stored” in your wallet device or app. It exists on the blockchain.
Your seed phrase is the mathematical key that proves you own your Bitcoin and lets you access it.
Think of it like:
- The master password to your life savings
- The deed to your house
- The combination to a vault containing $624,470
With your seed phrase, you can:
- Recover your Bitcoin if you lose your phone
- Restore your wallet on a new device
- Access your Bitcoin from anywhere
- Prove ownership of your Bitcoin
Without your seed phrase:
- If you lose your device, your Bitcoin is gone forever
- No company can recover it for you
- No customer support can help you
- No amount of money can get it back
Why does Bitcoin have value?
Bitcoin it is the best form of money.
1. Scarcity
- Only 21 million will ever exist
- No one can create more
- Demand increases while supply is fixed
2. Durability
- Can’t be destroyed (exists as data across thousands of computers)
- Doesn’t decay or degrade over time
3. Divisibility
- Can be divided into 100 million smaller units (satoshis)
- You can own $1 worth or $1 million worth
4. Portability
- Can be sent anywhere in minutes
- Easier to move than gold or cash
5. Verifiability
- Anyone can verify it’s real (cryptographic proof)
- Impossible to counterfeit
6. Utility
- Growing acceptance as payment
- Used globally for transactions
- Increasing institutional adoption
Most importantly: People agree it has value, and that agreement creates real market value.
Is Bitcoin the same as "crypto"?
No.
Bitcoin is one specific cryptocurrency—the first and largest.
“Crypto” refers to thousands of other digital currencies (called “altcoins” or “shitcoins”).
What is the Bitcoin network fee?
A network fee is what you pay to have your Bitcoin transaction verified, recorded, and permanently added to the blockchain.
You pay this fee when you:
- Send Bitcoin from one wallet to another
- Withdraw Bitcoin from an exchange to your own wallet
- Send Bitcoin to pay for something
- Move Bitcoin between your own wallets
What is Bitcoin mining?
Bitcoin mining is the process of securing the Bitcoin network and adding new transactions to the blockchain.
Miners are powerful computers around the world that compete to:
- Verify Bitcoin transactions are legitimate
- Bundle transactions into blocks
- Add those blocks to the blockchain (permanent record)
- Secure the network against attacks
How it works (simplified):
Think of it like a global competition:
- Thousands of computers race to solve complex math puzzles
- The first computer to solve the puzzle wins
- Winner gets to add the next block of transactions to the blockchain
- Winner receives a reward: newly created Bitcoin + transaction fees
- Process repeats every ~10 minutes, 24/7/365
Why it’s called “mining”:
- Like gold miners dig to find gold
- Bitcoin miners use computing power to “find” new Bitcoin
- Process creates new Bitcoin (until the 21 million cap is reached)
What miners actually do:
1. Verify transactions
- Check that people actually own the Bitcoin they’re sending
- Prevent double-spending (spending same Bitcoin twice)
- Ensure transactions follow Bitcoin’s rules
2. Secure the network
- Use massive computational power to make the blockchain tamper-proof
- The more mining power, the more secure Bitcoin becomes
- Changing past transactions would require more computing power than exists
3. Add new blocks
- Package verified transactions into blocks
- Attach block to the blockchain permanently
- Create an unchangeable record
4. Issue new Bitcoin
- Currently, winning miner receives 3.125 BTC per block (~$375,000 at current prices)
- This reward cuts in half every 4 years (“halving”)
- New Bitcoin created this way until ~2140 when all 21 million are mined