Hey guys and a very good morning to you from the city of Uyo, Nigeria.
So yeah, cryptocurrency, what I personally call "Internet Money" is something that has been making more waves than oceans tides.
Personally, I've always asked, "What's cryptocurrency?"
So really, what's cryptocurrency?
cryptocurrency
noun
a digital currency in which encryption
techniques are used to regulate the
generation of units of currency and verify the
transfer of funds, operating independently of
a central bank.
According to Wikipedia, cryptocurrency
work as a medium of exchange that uses
cryptography to secure its transactions, to control the
creation of additional units, and to verify the transfer
of assets.
Cryptocurrencies are a type of
digital currencies, alternative currencies and virtual
currencies.
In my own words, I'd say that cryptocurrency is a virtual means of transaction where the "right" to own a certain quantity of non-physical "money" is exchanged across platforms.
I personally do not understand half of the crypto-registers used by websites when I looked up What is Cryptocurrency? but I found one interesting site with well broken-down information on the subject.
According to Blockchain For Dummies,
Cryptocurrencies, sometimes called virtual
currencies, digital money/cash, or tokens, are not
really like U.S. dollars or British pounds. They live
online and are not backed by a government.
They’re backed by their respective networks.
Technically speaking, cryptocurrencies are
restricted entries in a database. Specific conditions
must be met to change these entries. Created with
cryptography, the entries are secured with math,
not people.
The site has very useful info on cryptocurrency as a whole and I'd personally recommend it for newbies (like myself) who'd want to know more about what cryptocurrency is.
I also learnt that the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, wasn't initially designed to be a cryptocurrency but as an off-shoot of something else.
Few people know, but cryptocurrencies emerged as a
side product of another invention. Satoshi Nakamoto,
the unknown inventor of Bitcoin , the first and still
most important cryptocurrency, never intended to
invent a currency.
In his announcement of Bitcoin in late 2008, Satoshi
said he developed “A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash
System.“
His goal was to invent something; many people failed
to create before digital cash.
Blockgeeks.com has it that
...but if you get it, you‘ll know more about
cryptocurrencies than most people do. So, let‘s try to
make it as easy as possible:
To realize digital cash you need a payment network
with accounts, balances, and transaction. That‘s easy
to understand. One major problem every payment
network has to solve is to prevent the so-called
double spending: to prevent that one entity spends
the same amount twice. Usually, this is done by a
central server who keeps record about the balances.
Truth is, there's a complicated simplicity in understanding the whole idea of cryptocurrency. Basically, it's
limited entries in a database no one can change
without fulfilling specific conditions.
Cryptocurrency is a whole lot on it's own. I'm still studying what it means. If you know an easier way to understand the concept, please feel free to comment below. If I have made any mistake or misunderstood something, I'm very open to corrections.
Thank you for reading these few words on cryptocurrency. I hope to do more research on cryptography, blockchain, mining, Bitcoin etc.
I look forward to your feedback.