KeyWise Press
Cover of Bitcoin: Eyes Open by Nikola Dimov

Nikola Dimov

Bitcoin

Eyes Open

What actually happens when you use Bitcoin, and who else can see it. A practical guide from the ledger up. No coding, and no maths beyond adding up amounts.

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The Kindle edition is also free to read with Kindle Unlimited. · Or read Chapter 3 free first

Every time you tap a card, money moves behind a counter you're not allowed behind. Bitcoin is the exception: the ledger is public, and anyone willing to look can read it for themselves.

Bitcoin: Eyes Open is a practical, no-slogans guide to actually doing that. Starting from the ledger itself, it builds your understanding block by block: how transactions really work, how keys and signatures secure them, how wallets and multisig let you hold your own coins, and what a chain-analysis firm or a tax authority can and can't see when you spend.

By the end you won't be repeating “not your keys, not your coins” as an article of faith. You'll be able to open a real transaction and read every field of it yourself, and know exactly what it reveals and to whom.

Not a way to disappear. A way to see the whole board, clearly and on your own terms.

Two questions, every chapter

Most Bitcoin books stop at the slogan. This one keeps asking.

What actually happens?

When you receive, spend, consolidate or co-sign, the book shows the transaction itself: its inputs, outputs, change and fee, traced field by field.

Who else can see it?

At every step, what an exchange, a chain-analysis firm and a tax authority each learn, and why the tax authority ends up with the most complete picture.

What's inside

Sixteen chapters in four parts, 51 figures, and a full glossary.

Part I

Foundations: the machine and the ledger

  1. 1What Bitcoin actually is
  2. 2The ledger: blocks and transactions
  3. 3The UTXO model — free sample
  4. 4Cryptography you actually need
  5. 5Mining and consensus
Part II

Keys, addresses and wallets: owning Bitcoin yourself

  1. 6From private key to address
  2. 7Wallets and seed phrases
  3. 8Self-custody in practice
  4. 9From single-sig to multisig
Part III

What actually happens: following the coins

  1. 10Receiving bitcoin
  2. 11Spending bitcoin
  3. 12Consolidating and coin control
  4. 13A multisig, end to end
  5. 14Between custody and exchanges
Part IV

Who's watching: surveillance and the regulated perimeter

  1. 15On-chain analysis
  2. 16The regulated perimeter: KYC, the Travel Rule, MiCA, DAC8 and CARF

Plus an introduction, a conclusion (“Working with Bitcoin, eyes open”) and a glossary of every term the book defines.

Look inside

Four of the book's 51 figures.

Diagram of a Bitcoin transaction: inputs pointing back to earlier outputs, and new outputs created, including change.
Figure 3.1 — Anatomy of a transaction. Notes go in, different notes come out, and every input points back at an earlier output.
Diagram of the PSBT signing round-trip for a 2-of-3 multisig: built in the coordinator, signed on two hardware signers, combined and broadcast.
Figure 9.3 — The PSBT signing round-trip (2-of-3). How one transaction is built, signed on two devices, combined and broadcast.
Diagram showing how spending two coins together in one transaction lets an analyst link them to a single owner.
Figure 15.2 — Clustering by common-input-ownership. Every multi-input transaction is a small confession that its inputs were controlled together.
Diagram showing how exchange reports flow to the tax authority, which ends up holding the combined view.
Figure 16.4 — The consolidated view. Why the tax authority, not the chain analyst, holds every corner.

Who it's for

  • You're curious about Bitcoin and want to understand it properly, not by analogy alone.
  • You have no technical background. You won't write code or do maths beyond adding up amounts.
  • You hold, or plan to hold, your own keys, and want to know what that really involves.
  • You want to know what exchanges, chain-analysis firms and tax authorities can see, and why.

Details

Author
Nikola Dimov
Published
September 2026
Language
English
Paperback
161 pages · 7 × 10 in · ISBN 978-619-04-0908-3
Kindle eBook
ISBN 978-619-04-0909-0 · ASIN B0HHQ99QNG
Figures
51 diagrams

About the author

Nikola Dimov writes plain-language guides to the technology people rely on. Bitcoin: Eyes Open is his first book.