All you need to know about BITCOIN

Bitcoin is advanced money that works with liberty without any focal control or the oversight of banks or governments. Rather it depends on shared programming and cryptography. It is decentralized virtual cash that you can purchase, sell and trade without a mediator like a bank. Bitcoin’s maker, Satoshi Nakamoto, initially depicted the requirement for “an electronic installment framework dependent on cryptographic evidence rather than trust.”

Every single Bitcoin exchange that is located at any place around the globe has been created, to exist on a public record, open to everybody. Making exchanges, less vulnerable and hard to counterfeit. That is by configuration: Core to their decentralized nature, Bitcoins aren’t sponsored by the public authority or any responsible organization and there is nothing to ensure they are worthy other than the verification prepared in the coding of the framework.

“The motivation behind why it’s worth of cash is essential because we, as individuals, think that it has the same amount of value as gold,” says Anton Mozgovoy, CEO of Holyhead.

Exchanges are created with no third party – which means no banks! A Bitcoin can be utilized for buying, purchasing, or booking any item. A number of the Bitcoin owners are stuck with the exchange of Bitcoins. The cost of a Bitcoin soared back in 2017.

Bitcoins can be subdivided, by seven decimal places: the thousandth of a Bitcoin is known as a mil and the 100 millionth of a Bitcoin is known as a satoshi.

Since its public appearance back in 2009, Bitcoin has skyrocketed in its global value. Bitcoin once sold for less than $150 per coin, but as of March 1, 2021, one Bitcoin sells for a price of $50,000. Since its inventory, Bitcoin is restricted to 21 million coins. Many anticipate that its price should continue to ascend over the long haul. Particularly as giant financial backers started accepting its worth and take it as a kind of advanced gold to fence against market instability and swelling.

Mining is the creation of the new coins that keep up with the Bitcoin network and adds the new coins in the framework and brings them into reality.

The actual Bitcoins you see in photographs are an imagination. They would be useless without the private codes printed inside them.

In truth, there is nothing like a Bitcoin or a wallet. It is only an understanding among the organizations and the individuals. A private key is utilized to demonstrate ownership when making an exchange. An individual could essentially retain their private key and need nothing else to recover or go through their virtual money, an idea which is known as a “brain wallet”.

Bitcoin is frequently portrayed as digital money, virtual cash, or computerized money. It is an online form of money. One can utilize Bitcoins for purchasing different commodities. However, very few brands acknowledge Bitcoin yet, and a few nations have authorized the transactions in Bitcoins.

This makes the future of Bitcoins unpredictable as no one truly knows that in coming years, what will be the future of Bitcoins and whether they will survive as a digital currency or not. But whatever the situation is, Bitcoins have made their mark as the most successful digital currency globally.

also, read- ” will the regulation delay of cryptocurrency in India benefit the crypto industry? “

Will the regulation delay of cryptocurrency in India benefit the crypto industry?

The virtual currency measure was supposed to be introduced in parliament lately, but that did not happen. The government’s decision not to table the Cryptocurrency Bill in the Parliament’s Monsoon Session came as a disappointment to many who had hoped for speedy and efficient regulation of a booming asset class. But there may be more to it than meets the eye. Let us understand that why regulation may be delayed, how it can help, and what the crypto industry’s next steps are.

Since the administration is not in a hurry to pass legislation, and this bill will be debated with Shekharan and Ashwini Vaishnaw, who are both technologists and will provide a great deal of technical expertise to this law. It’s a wonderful thing that consideration is taking place. In India, outright prohibition never works. We’ve seen what happens when gambling and liquor are prohibited. It merely breeds more crooks and fuels the underground economy. It’s critical to have the correct conversations with the right people. Regulation is favorable rather than prohibition. The bill will be delivered. It may not happen during the monsoon session, but it will be a tough bill to outlaw cryptocurrency. If there had been any reconsideration, they would have sent it back to a parliamentary committee, which is probably not bound to happen soon.

India is not a country where regulations are created and then changed every few weeks. When new regulations are introduced in India, we must live with them for decades. Whatever is going on with the regulators right now is exactly what is hoped for, as they continue to take a wait-and-see approach. Creating regulations with loopholes will be disastrous in India.

Despite the Supreme Court’s order in March, the RBI remains in favor of the ban; the government is more liberal because it does not see a ban. They recognize that this will grow into a significant asset class with a large number of investors. As a result, it is preferable to regulate it rather than prohibit it. As a result, while a ban is unlikely, it will be strictly enforced.

Challenges of the bear market

The bull market has ended, and the long-term bear market has begun.

There may be highs and lows. We are seeing push-based marketing through commercials that are reaching first-timers who have never heard of crypto, as opposed to 2017 when crypto was at its pinnacle.

People who arrive from marketing efforts aren’t here for the long haul; they’ll either make or lose money before leaving.

These difficulties must be addressed first, and crypto still has a long way to go.

During a bear market, 70% of them are under the age of 30, they take risks, and they want to make rapid money. Young people get into crypto by following a celebrity tweet, and when they buy a small-cap stock at an all-time high, the corrections reach 60-70 percent, and they flee the market. Some people come into this market with a lot of knowledge and a well-thought-out investing strategy; these are the folks who tend to stay, so the weaker hands leave. The sector is thriving and will continue to do so. Education will play a significant role in the future. This industry is only ten years old, yet it already has close to 150 million users worldwide. The volatility, on the other hand, is diminishing with each passing year. As the market develops, more people will participate, resulting in an increase in market capitalization and a decrease in volatility.

The government does not desire a dynamic market, hence market volatility is a worry. Whenever a law is enacted, it will be significantly weighted in favor of regulating exchanges and crypto companies.

read more about cryptocurrency –Cryptocurrency, The Future Of Money

Blockchain mining with a carbon-free footprint

Is it a hoax? Is it a pressing issue? Certainly, yes. Who should know? We should. This blog will incorporate a deeper look into this topic. Carbon footprint is the entire quantity of greenhouse gas emissions produced by a product or service during its manufacture, use, and disposal. It comprises carbon dioxide, the most prevalent gas released by humans, as well as other gases such as methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases, all of which trap heat in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. Transportation, housing, and food account for the majority of an individual’s carbon footprint.

Some people do require this cosmic energy, which is expensive due to the cutthroat premise of proof-of-work blockchains. Cryptographic money exchanges are documented by a conveyed group of excavators, who are aided by block rewards rather than being saved in a central data store. These specialized computers are competing in a computational challenge to create new squares by solving cryptographic puzzles.

Cryptographic money proponents agree that this framework has a number of advantages over other monetary systems since it does not rely on a trusted intermediary or weak link. Regardless, the mining puzzles necessitate multiple energy-intensive calculations.

Because of the calculations required for mining, digital currencies consume a lot of energy. According to the most recent estimates, the network consumes as much energy in a year as in Argentina. China, which generates the majority of its energy from coal, is home to 65 percent of crypto diggers.

Supporters have downplayed the energy consumption of cryptocurrencies, claiming that mining operations tend to concentrate around areas with surplus renewable energy like solar energy.

Sun-based energy, which is a common fuel source, could only supply 40% of framework electricity before utilities were forced to cover key concerns with higher power bills. Regardless of whether mining is included in a close planetary system, energy suppliers – whether utilities or autonomous elements – can influence the exchange between power and mining expenses.

Solar is now the world’s cheapest energy source; however, it is experiencing deployment obstacles due to its intermittent power supply and system congestion. It’s a flexible load alternative that might help solve a lot of the grid’s intermittency and congestion issues by allowing networks to deploy a lot more renewable energy.

The more solar deployment will likely lower these generation technologies’ cost curves even further, bringing them closer to zero marginal cost energy production and zero carbon footprint.

The Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) for solar power has decreased by 71 percent over the previous decade, making sustainable power the most cost-effective and environmentally benign option. The current unsubsidized costs of solar power are 3-4 cents per kWh.

As a result, sun-oriented energy is currently less valuable than coal and gaseous gasoline. Sunlight-based crypto mining has reached cost parity with both geothermal and hydroelectric power, which are both relatively inexpensive at roughly 3-5 cents per kWh. Market experts have argued that success necessitates development but that this comes at the cost of environmental degradation, which is regrettable but inescapable. Our current situation is frequently viewed as an extra cost or a corporate externality. The production of air pollution as a result of ingesting petroleum derivatives is a negative externality.

Carbon sequestration by trees, on the other hand, is a positive externality. In our current financial situation, these externalities are not fully expressed. Anyway, there has been solid protection from this commodification and value labelling of nature. These arrangements are top-down and planned in an approach to restricting harm. They are built to contrarily build up individuals to do less awful.

Also read- https://www.exhibit.tech/crypto/revolutionizing-agriculture-with-blockchain/

Revolutionizing Agriculture with Blockchain

Blockchain has emerged as a promising computerized innovation that seeks to provide confidential exchanges between various parties without the need for middlemen, such as financial institutions, at the same time.

This section focuses on a specific area where blockchain innovation has significant potential as a fundamental facilitator of progress, namely farming and the food store network.

There is a wide range of significant ongoing agricultural activities and drives. Blockchain has matured as an innovation to the point where it can be used in real-world applications in the agri-food industry.

Our findings point to the use of blockchain as a driver toward a simple food store network, but there are a number of impediments that could stymie its wider adoption.

Specialized, strategic, administrative, and instructive issues are among the remarkable boundaries. Traditional agriculture is a primitive farming style that involves the intensive use of indigenous knowledge, traditional tools, natural resources, organic fertilizer, and the farmers’ cultural beliefs. It is worth noting that it is still used by roughly half of the world’s population.

With innovations such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) contacting virtually all recorded business areas, One of the most logical applications to be developed on the Blockchain is one that addresses a growing problem in agriculture, but it should be viewed as an opportunity.

Consumers are becoming more aware of food and nutrition security, and Blockchain applications can play a critical role in addressing many of agriculture’s most pressing issues. Many issues can be resolved thanks to technological advancements and blockchain. The agriculture industry will run efficiently in the future if trust, security, and decentralization are established.

Blockchain provides efficient data protection as well as transparent and secure data exchange to all users. The blockchain stores all data in a decentralized manner and is unchangeable. Each of these features contributes to blockchain technology being the best tool for transferring encrypted data.

Blockchain advantages in agriculture

There are numerous opportunities in agriculture and food.

The primary advantages of modern agricultural technology in enriching this industry are as follows.

Blockchain is commonly conveyed in the agri-food industry for inventory network coordination and for improving the end result by allowing purchasers to know precisely what path their food has taken to reach from “ranch to fork.”

Agro-food companies such as Walmart, Nestlé, and Unilever have successfully deployed blockchains to improve traceability in their food supply chains. Carrefour, a French retailer, is using blockchain to monitor the quality of its chicken. Blockchain-based solutions have also been developed for soybean recognition.

Such blockchain applications can aid in the reduction of corruption as well as the promotion of fair trade and sustainable agricultural practices. However, concerns have been raised about data protection under the GDPR. Nonetheless, there is a growing interest in blockchain, both in academic and government circles, as well as in the farming industry.

An In-Depth Look at Smart Contract Audits

I have been thinking about the smart contract audit process and its cost, so I did some little research. Distributions of smart contract arrangements onto the Ethereum blockchain are increasing. Since late 2017, the figure of effective calls to smart contracts has remained steady at 1.2 million per day. It is convincing to ensure that these smart contracts, often holding significant assets, are not misused. At present, a contract audit before deployment is the most preferable option available to detect subtle vulnerabilities and assessing the security code and quality.

What is a smart contract audit?

I am therefore convinced that smart contract audit is a valuation of the secure growth process. In the cause of a smart contract audit, developers have a chance to learn from Ethereum specialists, denote underspecified areas of their system, and detect gaps in their coding process.

What is smart contract audit cost”

The record shows that over 2 billion USD worth of digital assets safeguarded since it was founded in 2017. Some factors contribute to the cost of a smart contract audit, mention as follows;

“How much does a it cost?”

The record shows that over 2 billion USD in digital assets have been safeguarded since the company’s inception in 2017.

The following factors contribute to the cost of a it:

Complexity

The cost of an audit is affected by the changing complexity of the audit.

A low-cost audit, for example, is a token that strictly adheres to the ERC20 standard.

The ERC20 token standard is one of the earliest patterns in Ethereum smart contract development and is defined by the number of hours spent on it.

When the complexity of an audit increases, it necessitates more engineering hours, resulting in a high audit cohesion.

Clear documentation can also help to reduce the complexity of an inspection.

The cost will rise if there is a lot of time spent.

Timeline

The issue of time arises when clients require smart contracts audits to be completed in a short period. These clients will be asked to pay a premium.

The amount of time spent auditing a project varies according to its complexity.

As a result, the best option is to contact Quantstamp as soon as possible so that you can factor audit time into your development cycle

However, just as smart contract audits cannot replace internal quality assurance, poorer architectures, or overcome complexity or vulnerability, everything in this world has limitations.

Founders Club | Shashank Kumar, Co Founder – Razorpay | Leadership Series

Dogefather Elon Musk’s SpaceX Accepts Dogecoin, Names DOGE-1 As Upcoming Satellite

When CEO and founder of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, appeared and hosted an episode of a television show Saturday Night Live last weekend, he joked about various things, from his son’s name to his strange tweets, but the one thing that affected the most to the world was his anticipation of the cryptocurrency, as he joked about Dogecoin being a hustle. Due to one short segment, the cryptocurrency crashed overnight and everybody owning a crypto investment got worried, but within 24 hours, Musk tweeted SpaceX launching a Dogecoin-funded satellite to the Moon, and now, everybody is in awe.

Elon Musk, who holds a history of strange tweets, has been tweeting about the SpaceX mission and Dogecoin, but most people considered and treated it as a meme, and now for the first time, he mentioned the commercial rocket company accepting the meme-inspired cryptocurrency dogecoin as payment.

SpaceX launching satellite Doge-1 to the moon next year

– Mission paid for in Doge
– 1st crypto in space
– 1st meme in space

To the mooooonnn!!https://t.co/xXfjGZVeUW

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 9, 2021

The mastermind behind the design of SpaceX said the satellite DOGE-1 would be the first crypto and the first meme in space. The DOGE-1 is a CubeSat intended to acquire ‘Lunar-spatial intelligence’ using onboard cameras and sensors. It’s being sent and paid for by a Geometric Energy Corporation company, and it’ll fly beyond the earth on a Falcon 9 rocket in the first quarter of 2022.

Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that started off as a goofy meme, is invented by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who determined to create a payment system that is fun and free from traditional banking fees.

Elon Musk-led Electric carmaker Tesla Inc bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin in February and would soon accept it as a form of payment for its electric cars. After vouching for Bitcoin, Elon Musk now supports Dogecoin cryptocurrency, and he’s been tweeting about Dogecoin memes and referring to himself as the Dogefather.

Earlier, right after Musk describes Dogecoin as a hustle in Saturday Night Live show, the value of Dogecoin crashed severely, but when he tweeted late on Sunday about SpaceX is now accepting the cryptocurrency Dogecoin to launch an upcoming satellite named DOGE-1 to the Moon, caused the price of Dogecoin to grow by more than 30 percent immediately. Previously this year, Elon Musk tweeted ‘a literal dogecoin on the literal moon’, which also created a buzz and the price shoot up briefly.

Other details on the DOGE-1 mission, including exactly what it will do in lunar orbit, have not yet been released. However, about the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, what started as a joke is now anything but nearly 113 billion mined coins.

Cryptocurrency, The Future Of Money

Some say it’s the future, some say it’s just a scam, others call it ‘Magic Internet Money’. But what is it exactly? What is cryptocurrency and why it is taking the world by storm? Well, to begin with, Cryptocurrency is defined as the mediums of exchange, they are a means of carrying transactions, digitally. It uses cryptography to secure and verify transactions as well as to control the creation of new units of a particular cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is incomplete without three terms – Blockchain, Bitcoin, and Ethereum. But before that, let’s dive into the history of crypto.

HISTORY

With systems like Flooz, Beenz and DigiCash, the beginning of crypto can be traced back in the 90s, but did not work at that time. Fraud, financial problems and even frictions between companies’ employees and their bosses can be touted as the reasons for this inevitable failure. Hence the Trusted Third Party approach had to roll in the system to run behind the companies to get them verified and also to facilitate the transactions. But as the companies failed miserably, it was said that the digital cash system had no future and we have to wait to ace the crypto game.

The web based money again came back and was a hit considering the previous failures in the space. It was the season of startups and they created payment solutions and virtual money systems using the same digital payment system. The clear winner for this would be PayPal as it was the first company that thought about what the customer wanted. PayPal offered a seamless peer-to-peer transfer mechanism and a neat way of accepting payments for the merchants. And today, nobody can compete to the level of Paypal.

Then, in early 2009, an anonymous programmer or a group of programmers under an alias ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ introduced Bitcoin. Satoshi described it as a ‘peer-topeer electronic cash system.’ It is completely decentralized which means there are no servers involved and no central controlling authority. The concept closely resembles peerto-peer networks for file sharing.

CRYPTO & INDIA

India with a population that is over 1 billion strong has been on something of an economic renaissance in the last few years. More than 40 percent of the country’s population has access to telecoms and internet services. A country steeped in mystery, history, and culture, it is also not one to fall behind when it comes to technological advancement. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been operating within the country for a number of years now.

In 2012, small scale Bitcoin transactions were already taking place within the country. By 2013, Bitcoin was beginning to gain a level of popularity that was spreading across many countries. In a short space of time, cryptocurrency exchanges began to spring up within the country. Pioneers like BtcxIndia, Unocoin, and Coinsecure began offering cryptocurrency exchange and trading services in India. Over time, others like Zebpay, Koinex, and Bitcoin-India were added to the list. Apart from these online exchanges, there are also a number of over-thecounter (OTC) crypto shops in the country and you have the makings of a crypto economic hub.

Then the Demonetization happened in 2016. It became common practice for some to buy large orders of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies and then sell them at a later date. Many Indians, especially those in the 40 percent bracket with access to the Internet began to take up Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investments. Despite its vast population, India only contributes 2 percent of the total global cryptocurrency market capitalization. The small role being played by such a large economy can be attributed to the following reasons.

Later in 2018. the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) warned the citizens about the risk associated with cryptocurrencies. The Finance Ministry in the country has labeled cryptocurrencies as not being legal tender. The government has also been in talks to develop modalities for some form of a crypto crackdown. Earlier in the month, it was reported that the major banks in the country also froze some accounts of a few cryptocurrency trading platforms.

Given that despite sanctions like this, blockchain technology and decentralized finance look like they will be an inevitable part of the future of the global economy, whether the RBI’s move will succeed in achieving a permanent embargo or entail only a short term inconvenience for India’s crypto ecosystem, remains to be seen. Somehow, Cryptocurrency will be the future of money.

In Crypto We Say…!

1. HODL:

The term which went viral, is popularly abbreviated for ‘Hold On For Dear Life’. It refers to the common sentiment among Bitcoin enthusiasts to hold on to their investments in the face of market volatility.

2. ALTCOINS:

Coins that are not Bitcoin are usually known as Alt(ernative) coins. In reality, this coin serves no true unique purpose and should, in a fair market, fall back to their original low value.

3. FUD:

FUD is the short form for ‘Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt’. Just like rumours, FUD is baseless negativity spread intentionally by someone who wants the price of certain coins to drop. This may sound funny but they are usually used as “xxx spreading FUD again” and someone who is spreading FUD is known as a ‘FUDster’.

4. TO THE MOON:

For all the romantics out there, this one’s for you! To the moon is a phrase used to refer to a price going up to astronomical levels. There are many cryptocurrencies that Bitcoin have ‘mooned’ in the past years for instance Bitcoin that went up in price almost 15–18 times.

5. PUMP AND DUMP:

This term means a recurring cycle of an altcoin from getting a ton of attention that leads to a fast price increase and then, of course, followed by a huge crash. Traders who pump, buying huge volumes, may invoke greed from the uninformed investors and then dump i.e.sell their coins at a higher price.

6. BULLISH AND BEARISH:

Bullish:It is like an expected rise in price of the bitcoins. It is expected that the price of bitcoin rises to about $300,000- $400,000 by some optimistic analysts.

7. BEARISH:

An expectation that price is going to decrease. Many altcoins (or the shitcoins) would have a generally bearish sentiment if people do not see value in them.

8. BAG HOLDER:

A bag holder is someone still holding an altcoin even after a crash in the market. A bag holder can also just refer to someone holding a coin that is sinking in value with few future prospects or people who believe in their dumped coins..

9. ATH:

Yes, just like we refer it, ATH is the short form for “All-Time High” and in crypto it means the highest historical price of a specific coin. For example, in 2017 Bitcoin reached an ATH at $19,000.

10. WHALES:

A wealthy trader who owns absurdly huge amounts of cryptocurrency can be called whale. Whales are often the market movers for small altcoins too, thanks to their huge capital.

11. Shilling:

The act of endorsing the coin in public is called shilling. Traders who bought a coin have an interest in ‘shilling’ the coin, in hopes of igniting the public’s interest in that particular coin and leading to an eventual pump in price.

12. CRYPTOGRAPHY:

The study of making information unreadable so that it can be kept secret is called as Cryptography. Hiding words in images, using micro dots and computer programs are the few uses of cryptography. The information can be unlocked and made readable using a code also known as a key. The key is made up of a string of letters and numbers.

13. MINING:

The process of creating new blocks i.e. new pages where the new digital blockchain can be stored, recording and verifying information is all a part of mining.

14. DISTRIBUTED & CENTRAL LEDGER:

An agreement of shared, replicable and synchronized data, in this case spread across multiple networks, across many CPUs is known as Distributed Ledger. A central ledger is the opposite in that all of the data, while being synchronized and replicable is controlled by a singular network or individual.

15. BOTS:

A bot is a type of software that can execute trades on exchanges. It may seem like cheating but bots do play an important in many ways too. They can help implement strategies like trailing stop losses for you as well. Like people, bots aren’t good or bad, they are neutral and depend on the ethics of the user.

16. HALVING:

The reduction of minable reward every so many blocks is called Halving. For Bitcoin the reward is halved after the first 210,000 blocks are mined and then every 210,000 thereafter.

17. NODE:

A node is essentially a computer connected to the Bitcoin network. A node supports the network through validation and relaying of transactions while receiving a copy of the full blockchain itself.

18. P2P:

P2P stands for peer-to-peer which has become a very large focus of blockchain as one of the biggest selling points is decentralization. Nearly every interaction on the blockchain can be fulfilled through P2P, or without a centralized variable like a store, bank or notary.

19. FUNGIBLE:

The positive quality where two or more of the same thing have identical value is known as fungible. So basically, it’s one of a group of things that can be used as a substitute for another without changing the value.

20. BEARWHALE:

A bearwhale is a person with large quantities of cryptocurrency that uses his massive account to drive the price down and profit from it.

21. BEAR MARKET:

A bear market is a decreasing set of prices for various types of assets and a bearish investor wants to profit from that.

22. FLIPPENING:

The flippening is the shift of other cryptocurrencies growing bigger, more important and more valuable than bitcoin. If the value of the coin cross that of bitcoins then we say that it’s called flippening.

23. MERKLE TREES:

The data structure that is used in computer science applications to organise cryptocurrencies. Merkle trees serve to encode blockchain data more efficiently and securely.

24. SHITCOIN:

Shitcoin is nothing but the Altcoin with no potential value or use. Shitcoin value may disappear because interest failed to materialize, because the altcoin itself was not created in good faith, or because the price was based on speculation.

The Crypto We Know

BITCOIN

The first ever cryptocurrency 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.

RIPPLE

Is a technology that acts as both a cryptocurrency and a digital payment network for financial transactions and it is an iterative consensus process which makes it faster than Bitcoin but also makes it vulnerable to hacker attacks.

NEM

A peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and blockchain platform which is used in a commercial blockchain called Mijin, which is being tested by financial institutions and private companies in Japan and internationally. It encourages users to spend their funds and tracks the transactions to determine how important a particular user is to the overall NEM network.

IOTA

IOTA is a distributed ledger designed to record and execute transactions between machines in the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. IOTA has a cryptocurrency called mIOTA and a breakthrough ledger technology is called ‘Tangle’.

DASH

Dash is the first digital currency with a decentralized blockchain governance system. It’s a two-tier network that was forked out of Bitcoin to offer faster and more private transactions to users. The former is significantly faster than Bitcoin, whereas the latter is completely anonymous.

MONERO

Monero is a digital currency that offers a high level of anonymity for users and their transactions. Like Bitcoin, it is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, but unlike Bitcoin, it is characterized as a private digital cash.

ETHEREUM

Ethereum is an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract (scripting) functionality.

BITCOIN CASH

A fork of Bitcoin that is supported by the biggest Bitcoin mining company and a manufacturer of ASICs Bitcoin mining chips. It has only existed for a couple of months but has already soared to the top five cryptocurrencies in terms of market cap.

LITECOIN

Litecoin is an alternative cryptocurrency and is based on an open source global payment network that is not controlled by any central authority. It is also a fork of Bitcoin, but unlike its predecessor, it can generate blocks four times faster and have four times the maximum number of coins at 84 mln.

NEO

It’s a smart contract network that allows all kinds of financial contracts and thirdparty distributed apps to be developed on top of it. It has many of the same goals as Ethereum, but it’s developed in China, which can potentially give it some advantages due to improved relationship with Chinese regulators and local businesses.

QTUM

It’s a merger of Bitcoin’s and Ethereum’s technologies targeting business applications. The network boasts Bitcoin’s reliability, while allowing the use of smart contracts and distributed applications, much how it works within the Ethereum network.

ETHEREUM CLASSIC

An original version of Ethereum. The split happened after a decentralized autonomous organization built on top of the original Ethereum was hacked.

Cryptocurrency: Is It Worth It?

Talking of investments, a lot of us have varied opinions. While some might be in favour of mutual funds, there are others who rely more on ‘Fixed’ and ‘Recurring’ deposits. But, a major part of our financial plans are comprised by cryptocurrencies or discussions encircling around them. Over the days, people have expressed a lot of interest in the same. But do we actually know what cryptocurrency is?

WHAT EXACTLY IS CRYPTOCURRENCY?

As per the web and Wikipedia, cryptocurrency is a ‘digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses strong cryptography to secure financial transactions, control the creation of additional units, and verify the transfer of assets.’ To simplify it further, cryptocurrencies are virtual or alternative currencies. We may further classify cryptocurrencies as; Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), Zcash (ZEC), Dash (DASH), Ripple (XRP), Monero (XMR), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), NEO (NEO), Cardeno (ADA), and EOS (EOS).

IS IT GOOD OR BAD?

Like every other time, people have placed their viewpoints. But how do you know which is real and which fake? We have selected some thoughts from industry leaders who might help you get an inkling.

PRO-FOLKS

“In the next few years, we are going to see national governments take large steps towards instituting a cashless society where people transact using centralised digital currencies. Simultaneously, the decentralised cryptocurrencies – that some even view as harder money – will see increased use from all sectors.” – Caleb Chen, London Trust Media. “While it’s still fairly new and unstable, relative to the gold standard, cryptocurrency is definitely gaining traction and will most certainly have more normalised uses in the next few years. Right now, in particular, it’s increasing in popularity with the post-election market uncertainty.” – Sarah Granger, Author and Speaker.

Some industry leaders feel that within two years, the world would come to a place where people can shove their money under virtual mattresses through cryptocurrency. Japan has widely accepted cryptocurrencies, it has removed the 8 percent sales tax while buying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Popular currencies in Japan are Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, XEM, and MonaCoin.

ANTI-FOLKS

Jason Bloomberg, Contributor to Forbes Magazine says, “Enjoy the world of permissionless, blockchain-based cryptocurrencies while you can, because its days are numbered. And don’t lose your shirt when it all comes crashing down.” American economist Nouriel Roubini tweeted, “Cryptocrazies are also criminal Cyber-Terrorists.” He also claimed that his consulting firm, Roubini Global Economics, was targeted in a 2015 denialof-service attack because he criticised bitcoin.” Bitcoin has lost half its value since mid-December 2017. Billionaire Warren Buffett said on 11th January 2018, that he would never invest in bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, and also predicted that the wildly popular assets were in for a fall. “I can say almost with certainty that cryptocurrencies will come to a bad end,” Buffett told CNBC in an interview.

OUR VIEW

We have tried to acquaint our readers with both sides of the coin, as the authenticity of this currency is questionable and debatable. Analysing both sides, we leave it to you, to decide whether to invest in it or not!