Don’t get mad at me; it’s the truth, that’s all. bitcoind is a terminal client, and P2P censorship-resistant transactions are for those of us who can use a command line. Luckily, it’s easy to run your own node and send transactions through the terminal. You just need to compile Bitcoin Core, run bitcoind in a process, and interact with it using RPC commands through bitcoin-cli. Remember to pass the proper RPC auth you set up in your bitcoin.conf. Then when your node is synced, it’s all quite easy; first, you’ll run bitcoin-cli createwallet. But make sure to look at the help information for the command; there’s a few parameters you’d want to set up, like avoiding reuse, making sure it’s a descriptor wallet, and loading on startup.

What’s that? You don’t know what a build system, dependencies, and a terminal is?

Okay, perhaps you need to “#learntocode”. There are other options. Let me show you this node-in-a-box solution that you can DIY. There are some excellent guides and videos online. You just need to order a Raspberry Pi; it should only take a few months now that the supply chain issues have improved. Then, get an external SSD, flash an Operating System, and hook it all up. It’s really not that difficult; you can even access your node when you’re out on the go.

That sounds intimidating? Listen, this is Bitcoin we’re talking about. You’re going to have to put in a little proof of work, just don’t forget to stay humble.

If you can’t DIY it, you can pay for a premade box; it’s only $499, and a 5% discount if you pay with Bitcoin. Or maybe you’re interested in renting a cloud node for only about $35 a month.

Are you serious! “That’s too much money, and it sounds like rent extraction because you’re not technically literate; why can’t Bitcoin core be usable for you?”! I’m sorry, but if you aren’t technical, you should be happy that these solutions exist for you, no matter their cost. Bitcoin Core should not have a GUI; it’s just not important enough. It’s not the actual “core core”; we need to focus on the “core core” of all of this.

Luckily, bitcoin is a large and vibrant ecosystem; if you really don’t want to pay, there’s this company that has a nice non-custodial wallet. The only catch is you’re transacting through API’s. A centralized server performs the validation, enforces the rules of the network for you, you trust that it won’t lie to you about your UTXOs, and performs the relay for your transactions.

Oh, your country is sanctioned? You can’t use our service; we’re trying to run a business here, we’re regulated. Looks like you don’t have permission to use Bitcoin.