People used to say learning English is fun. Likewise knowing Steemit is also fun. Joining Steemit is a long-term investment. Entering into Steemit's world is a journey of engaging network and channel with people from all walks of life.
Steemit is fun because everyday able to read various articles from different authors. Before this I knew about blog writing but haven't heard of steemit. Steemit is entirely new to me. Through knowing Steemit I came to discover about cryptocurrency , bitcoin, ethereum, ripple, litecoin, and monero.
Initially at the beginning stage all these words sound alien to me. But as I start to explore further through doing some study and research I begin to understand the meaning of all those words.
Let me share with you what I know about those words.
1. Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency is a digital money, created from code. Cryptocurrencies are digital gold. Sound money that is secure from political influence. Money that promises to preserve and increase its value over time. Cryptocurrencies are also a fast and comfortable means of payment with a worldwide scope, and they are private and anonymous enough to serve as a means of payment for black markets and any other outlawed economic activity. Cryptocurrencies gave birth to an incredibly dynamic, fast growing market for investors and speculators.
2. Bitcoin
The one and only, the first and most famous cryptocurrency. Bitcoin serves as a digital gold standard in the whole cryptocurrency-industry, is used as a global means of payment and is the de-facto currency of cyber-crime like dark net markets or ransomware.
3. Ethereum
Ethereum the perfect instrument for blockchain -application. But it comes at a cost. Ethereum itself is a host of several tokens like DigixDAO and Augur. This makes Ethereum more a family of cryptocurrencies than a single currency.
4. Ripple
Ripple is less popular or most hated project in the cryptocurrency community. Ripple has a native cryptocurrency XRP and it is more about a network to process IOUs than the cryptocurrency itself. XRP, the currency, doesn‘t serve as a medium to store and exchange value, but more as a token to protect the network against spam. Banks, however seem to like Ripple. At least they adopt the system with an increasing pace.
5. Litecoin
Litecoin was one of the first cryptocurrencies after Bitcoin and tagged as the silver to the digital gold bitcoin. Faster than bitcoin, with a larger amount of token and a new mining algorithm, Litecoin was a real innovation, perfectly tailored to be the smaller brother of bitcoin. It facilitated the emerge of several other cryptocurrencies which used its codebase but made it, even more, lighter. Examples are Dogecoin or Feathercoin. While Litecoin failed to find a real use case and lost its second place after bitcoin, it is still actively developed and traded and is hoarded as a backup if Bitcoin fails.
6. Monero
Monero is the most prominent example of the cryptonite algorithm. This algorithm was invented to add the privacy features Bitcoin is missing. If you use Bitcoin, every transaction is documented in the blockchain and the trail of transactions can be followed. With the introduction of a concept called ring-signatures, the cryptonite algorithm was able to cut through that trail.
Monero was the first non-premined clone of bytecoin and raised a lot of awareness. There are several other incarnations of cryptonote with their own little improvements, but none of it did ever achieve the same popularity as Monero. Monero's popularity peaked in summer 2016 when some darknetmarkets decided to accept it as a currency.
Wow.....!!!! Knowing Steemit is really fun. Don't you think so ? There are lots of alien words to study and discover.