Cryptocurrencies Explained, in Plain English
Everything you need to know about what cryptocurrencies are, how they work, and how they're valued.
Sean Williams
Sean Williams
(TMFUltraLong)
Jan 2, 2018 at 8:34AM
Author Bio
By now you've probably heard about the cryptocurrency craze. Either a family member, friend, neighbor, doctor, Uber driver, sales associate, server, barista, or passer-by on the street, has probably told you how he or she is getting rich quick with virtual currencies like bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, or one of the lesser-known 1,300-plus investable cryptocurrencies.
But how much do you really know about them? Considering just how many questions I've received out of the blue from the aforementioned group of people over the last month, the answer is probably, "not a lot."
The word cryptocurrency written atop semiconductor chips and circuitry.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
Today, we'll change that. We're going to walk through the basics of cryptocurrencies, step by step, and explain things in plain English. No crazy technical jargon here. Just sticks and stones examples of how today's cryptocurrencies work, what they're ultimately trying to accomplish, and how they're being valued.
Let's get started.
What are cryptocurrencies?
Simply put, cryptocurrencies are electronic peer-to-peer currencies. They don't physically exist. You can't pick up a bitcoin and hold it in your hand, or pull one out of your wallet. But just because you can't physically hold a bitcoin, it doesn't mean they aren't worth anything, as you've probably noticed by the rapidly rising prices of virtual currencies over the past couples of months.
How many cryptocurrencies are there?
The number is always changing, but according to CoinMarketCap.com as of Dec. 30, there were around 1,375 different virtual coins that investors could potentially buy. It's worth noting that the barrier to entry is particularly low among cryptocurrencies. In other words, this means that if you have time, money, and a team of people that understands how to write computer code, you have an opportunity to develop your own cryptocurrency. It likely means new cryptocurrencies will continue entering the space as time passes.
Why were cryptocurrencies invented?
Technically, the idea of an electronic peer-to-peer currency was being tinkered with decades ago, but it wasn't truly successful until 2008, when bitcoin was conceived. The basis of bitcoin's creation, and all virtual currencies that have since followed, was to fix a number of perceived flaws with the way money is transmitted from one party to another.
What flaws? For example, think about how long it can take for a bank to settle a cross-border payment, or how financial institutions have been reaping the rewards of fees by acting as a third-party middleman during transactions. Cryptocurrencies work around the traditional financial system through the use of blockchain technology.
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Transaction linkabilityThis also means Ethereum is for more than payments. It's a marketplace of financial services, games and apps that can't steal your data or censor you.usb bitcoin
As described in the state transition section, our solution works by requiring a transaction to set a maximum number of computational steps that it is allowed to take, and if execution takes longer computation is reverted but fees are still paid. Messages work in the same way. To show the motivation behind our solution, consider the following examples:bitcoin bio
AestheticsAnd there’s a bit more too: A miner who references an uncle also gets about 0.15 ETH per uncle (maximum 2 uncles).In Russia, though cryptocurrencies are legal, it is illegal to actually purchase goods with any currency other than the Russian ruble. Regulations and bans that apply to bitcoin probably extend to similar cryptocurrency systems.blogspot bitcoin ethereum mist
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bitcoin автоматически Segregated Witness (often abbreviated to SegWit) is a protocol upgrade proposal that went live in May 20172 for Litecoin (vs. August 2017 for Bitcoin).It separates witness signatures from transaction-related data. Witness signatures in 'legacy Bitcoin blocks' often take more than 50% of the block size. By removing witness signatures from the transaction block, this protocol effectively increases the number of transactions that can be stored in a single block, rendering the network capable of handling more transactions per second. As a result, SegWit increases the scalability of Nakamoto consensus-based blockchain networks Litecoin.SegWit also makes transactions cheaper. Since transaction fees are derived from how much data is being processed by the block producer, the more transactions that can be stored in a 1MB block, the cheaper individual transactions become.новый bitcoin калькулятор monero stock bitcoin bitcoin de crococoin bitcoin claymore monero mine ethereum торрент bitcoin bitcoin cards cranes bitcoin bitcoin котировка ethereum wiki pay bitcoin bitcoin xyz
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Among the advantages of conducting business with cryptocurrency are the ease of cross-border transactions, and anonymity (unless you want physical delivery, of course). By accepting bitcoin, merchants get access to a broader market, and don’t have to worry so much about chargebacks since bitcoin transactions are irreversible.статистика bitcoin nanopool monero bitcoin вывести blocks bitcoin casino bitcoin
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Bitcoin is the first and most well-known, but there are thousands of types of cryptocurrencies. Many, like Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash, share Bitcoin’s core characteristics but explore new ways to process transactions. Others offer a wider range of features. Ethereum, for example, can be used to run applications and create contracts. All four, however, are based on an idea called the blockchain, which is key to understanding how cryptocurrency works.Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to use blockchain technology. It was invented by the person, or group of people, that go by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto (strangely enough, nobody knows who Satoshi Nakamoto is).ethereum web3 проект bitcoin bitcoin биткоин bitcoin фарм up bitcoin bitcoin окупаемость bitcoin mmgp bitcoin fund bitcoin testnet cryptocurrency bitcoin в polkadot блог blender bitcoin
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