Hello!!!
here I leave a glossary of terms about the environment of cryptocurrencies that e compiled from the network, and I have been organizing and debugging to understand a little the terms, which in my particular has helped me now that I am starting in this the cryptocurrencies.
✪ Cryptocurrency: A form of digital or virtual money that serves to exchange goods and services through a system of electronic transactions. It is based exclusively on cryptography and has a decentralized nature: it is beyond the control of banks and / or governments.
✪ Bitcoin: It is the first digital currency created in 2009 by a group of people under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. It is based on free software and the P2P.Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin with a capital B, is used to describe the concept of Bitcoin, or the entire network. For example: "Today I was learning about the Bitcoin protocol."
bitcoin - not capitalized, is used to describe a unit of it. For example: "Today I sent ten bitcoins."; it is often abbreviated as BTC or XBT.
✪ BTC: It is the common unit of Bitcoin currency. It can be used just like USD is used when we refer to the US dollar, instead of using B⃦ or $ to refer to them.
✪ P2P System (Person to Person): It is a network of decentralized computers where all the parties interact with each other and share information.
✪ Block: A block is a record in the block chain that contains confirmations of pending transactions. Approximately every 10 minutes, on average, a new block that includes new transactions is appended to the block chain through mining.
✪ Blockchain: It is an account book, a huge database in which all types of transactions are recorded. The data recorded there can not be deleted or modified, nor can it operate outside of the standards that the network itself has given.
✪ Block chain: The block chain is a public register of Bitcoin transactions in chronological order. The blockchain is shared among all Bitcoin users. It is used to verify the stability of Bitcoin transactions and to prevent double spending.
✪ Double expense: When a malicious user tries to spend their bitcoins on two recipients at the same time it is called double spending. Bitcoin mining and the chain of blocks allow to create a consensus in the network about which of the two transactions is considered valid.
✪ Confirmation: A confirmation means that a transaction has been processed by the network and is unlikely to be reversed. Transactions are confirmed when they are included in a block and for each subsequent block. Even a single confirmation can be considered safe for small transactions, although for transactions larger than 1000 USD, it makes sense to wait up to 6 confirmations or more. Each confirmation exponentially reduces the risk that the transaction will be reversed.
✪ Cryptography: It is the branch of mathematics that allows us to create mathematical tests that provide high levels of security. Online commerce and banks already use cryptography. In the case of Bitcoin, cryptography is used to make it impossible for someone to spend funds from another user's wallet or that the chain of blocks can be corrupted. It is also used to encrypt a wallet, so that it can not be used without a password. It is the set of mathematical techniques and methods that protect the information of the data recorded in the blockchain, providing them with security and guaranteeing their immutability.
✪ Address: A Bitcoin address is similar to a physical address or email. It is the only information you have to give someone to receive a payment in Bitcoin. However, there is an important difference, and that is that each address should only be used for one transaction.
✪ Signature: A cryptographic signature is a mathematical mechanism that allows someone to prove their property. In the case of Bitcoin, a Bitcoin wallet and its private key (s) is linked by some kind of mathematical magic. When your Bitcoin program signs a transaction with the corresponding private key, the entire network can see that the signature matches the bitcoins spent. However, there is no way for the world to discover the private key to steal your bitcoins.
✪ Private Key: A private key is a secret piece of data that proves your right to spend Bitcoins from a Bitcoin wallet through a cryptographic signature. Your private key (s) are stored on your computer if you use a desktop wallet; whereas if you use a web wallet they will be stored in remote servers of the provider. Private keys should never be shared because they allow you to spend bitcoins from your corresponding wallet.
✪ Hash: These are computer keys obtained through the resolution of very complex mathematical formulas that store a large amount of information. There are not two equal hashs and they can not be modified.
✪ Mining: It is the name given to the process of investing computing capacity to process transactions, guarantee the security of the network, and ensure that all participants are synchronized.
In the case of Bitcoins, the miners use the computational power to make millions of mathematical calculations per second through the use of specialized software and hardware. Bitcoin mining is the process of performing mathematical calculations using computers to confirm transactions in the Bitcoin network and increase security. As a reward for their services, Bitcoin miners can charge the transaction costs of the transactions they confirm along with new bitcoins that are created in each block.
✪ Mining pool: It is the grouping of two or more miners who put together their computing power to raise the possibilities of solving a block and obtain a reward. In the mining pools, the reward is divided internally according to the amount of hashes contributed by each one of its members.
✪ Altcoin: A term used to refer to cryptocurrencies or blockchain chips that are not Bitcoin.
✪ Other cryptocurrencies: Since the Bitcoin was born in 2009, more than 800 cryptocurrencies have appeared, among them, the most outstanding are Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Monero, Zcash, Ripple, the popular Dogecoin and of course the most important Steem.