Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Basics Explained

 

Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that is decentralized, meaning that it is not controlled by a government or individual, but rather a network of individuals who are involved in a network of transactions. Popular cryptocurrencies include Bitcoin, Litecoin, Etherium, etc. Cryptocurrency is popular because anyone can create their own cryptocurrency, and it allows for anonymous, untraceable transactions. Rather than a record of transactions being kept in a single ledger, the computers of many people around the world work together to record and verify the transactions that occur using cryptocurrency. The technology used for these transactions is called blockchain.

When a new transaction using cryptocurrency occurs, each transaction (with all related information stored in a “block”) is linked to a “chain” of all previous transactions/blocks in the chain via a complex cryptographic process. This process is meant to provide security and accountability for cryptocurrency transactions. Blockchains require a lot of dedicated computational power and resources in order to function. When someone devotes their computer’s resources to helping perform these complex calculations, they are rewarded for their contribution with a certain amount of cryptocurrency. This process of generating cryptocurrency is referred to as mining.

If someone wanted to commit fraud by altering the amount of cryptocurrency they have or changing the ledger of previous transactions somehow, their new version of the blockchain would contradict the records of all other computers involved with the network. It would take an extraordinarily fast and powerful computer to be able to perform the complex calculations necessary to update the blockchain, and do it so quickly that they would finish before any other computers had the chance to react. Currently, many believe blockchain encryption to be unbreakable.

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