I didn't understand this when I first got into crypto, either.
Back in 2004, Hal Finney designed the Reusable Proof of Work (RPOW) system.
In Bitcoin's early days, just a handful of developers maintained the network. It was their willingness to mine on their own computers that got the network up and running.
For comparison, $BTC is trading at 81573.79, down 0.96% over 24 hours.
Have you run into any pitfalls related to this? Share them to help everyone else avoid them.