Hello and welcome.

Regarding your hope about wrapping your mind around the inner workings of the bitcoin, I often feel the same way about many technological things.  I think I've gradually come to a philosophy that anything that is large and complex enough to hold the attention of a great many people is probably too big for any one of those people to completely understand and master it.  You can spend many days and nights reading and working on it, just to feel ever more inadequate in your understanding.  Everybody has their own understanding, and somehow it all comes together and works, like magic.  It's the Bitcoin Magic.  It will consume you, and you will thank it.

Well anyways, good luck out there.

--Michael