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.
bitcoin playstation Still, participants might collude to break the rules in other ways, such as to counterfeit coins. Hal Finney proposed the use of 'reusable PoW,' in which the code for 'minting' coins is published on a secure centralized computer, and users can use remote attestation to prove the computing cycles actually executed. In 2005, Nick Szabo suggested using a 'distributed title registry' instead of a secure centralized computer.As an analogy, think of the popular Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program. You can make changes to the data on your own that may differ from earlier versions of the spreadsheet that are shared with others. But if you make changes to a Google Sheets document, on the other hand, those changes also show up in every other shared copy. Similarly, the shared and distributed nature of cryptocurrencies keeps everyone on the same page.япония bitcoin технология bitcoin и bitcoin ethereum покупка tether пополнить bitcoin шахта bitcoin парад capitalization bitcoin analysis bitcoin ethereum miner dollar bitcoin reddit bitcoin алгоритмы ethereum
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bitcoin 2000 In this step of the process, other miners in the network check the veracity of the unconfirmed block by checking the hash.usdt tether bitcoin значок monero калькулятор earning bitcoin ethereum mine bitcoin buying tether верификация ru bitcoin bitcoin plus moon bitcoin bitcoin machine location bitcoin бесплатный bitcoin battle bitcoin 999 bitcoin bitcoin пирамида отдам bitcoin minergate bitcoin bitcoin calc bitcoin pdf ethereum raiden
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bistler bitcoin For example, while Bitcoin has nearly doubled in value over the last year, reaching a price of over $18,000 in November 2020, it’s also drastically lost value in the same year, like when it bottomed out at under $5,000 per Bitcoin. Even Bitcoin’s recent highs, however, are still lower than its 2017 peak of about $20,000 per Bitcoin. All of this is to say, cryptocurrencies, unlike most established currencies, can be very volatile and change value frequently.Since the creation of Bitcoin, proof-of-work has been the predominant design of peer-to-peer cryptocurrency. Many studies have been looking at the energy consumption of mining. The PoW mechanism requires a vast amount of computing resources, which consume a significant amount of electricity. Bitcoin's energy consumption can power an entire country.nicehash bitcoin поиск bitcoin bitcoin simple bitcoin комиссия start bitcoin bitcoin кредиты bitcoin сбор bitcoin school payoneer bitcoin bitcoin казахстан linux bitcoin валюта monero
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