- What is Cryptocurrency?
A cryptocurrency is a medium of exchange like normal currencies such as USD, but made for the purpose of exchanging digital details through a process made possible by certain principles of cryptography. Cryptography can be used to protect the transactions and to control the creation of brand-new coins.
- What is Cryptography?
Cryptography is a scientific and mathematical process of preventing third parties or the public from reading private messages. It affects various things such as information security, data confidentiality, and data integrity, and can be used in digital communications, online commerce, and password security.
- What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a new currency that was created in 2009 by an unidentified person using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto.
Transactions are made without middle men - meaning, no banks! There are no purchase costs and no need
to provide your real name.
- What is Blockchain?
A blockchain is a continuously growing list of records called blocks, which
are linked and secured using cryptography.
Blockchain is the decentralized public ledger that makes Bitcoin work. Every transaction and account
is kept track of here. Not to be confused with Blockchain.info the website or its parent company,
Blockchain. Also used to refer to any upcoming technology that uses a public ledger to keep track of
digital value; i.e., “They are developing their own blockchain technology.”
- What is Block?
Blocks are files where data pertaining to the Bitcoin network is permanently recorded. A block records some or all of the latest Bitcoin transactions that have not yet entered any prior blocks. Thus a block is like a page of a ledger or record book. Each time a block is ‘completed’, it gives way to the next block in the blockchain. A block is thus a permanent store of records which, once written, cannot be altered or removed. Transactions on the blockchain are grouped into blocks, confirmed by miners roughly every 10 minutes.
- What is Genesis Block?
The genesis block of any blockchain is the first block in the chain. The
genesis block is usually hardcoded into the software of the applications that
use its blockchain and the data contained there in is permanent and
irreversible. All future transactions and data transfers are verifiably linked
to the genesis block.
- What is Wallet?
wallet is a general term for the software that communicates with the Bitcoin network to sign transactions using your Bitcoin address.
- What is Cold Wallet?
Cold Wallet is a wallet on a computer or storage disk that is not connected to the Internet and must be
momentarily connected to the Internet and turned into a hot wallet in order to sign transactions. Can
then be turned back into a cold wallet.
- What is Hot Wallet?
Hot Wallet is a wallet connected to the Internet. Bitcoins are at risk of being stolen if the computer or
password for the wallet is insecure. Suitable for spending money and short-term storage. All web
wallets are hot wallets
- What is Paper Wallet?
Paper Wallet is your private or public key, printed out or written on a piece of paper.
- What is Web Wallet?
Web Wallet is a wallet controlled and held on a website hosted by another company. It is only as
secure and trustworthy as the company hosting it. Generally suitable for spending money only, but
some services pride themselves on extra security and have multisig technology with off-line key
generation that is suitable for short- to medium-term storage.
- What is Faucet?
faucet is a service on the web that will give users a small amount of Bitcoin(tiny fractions of bitcoins) for free for completing small tasks such as viewing ads or solving captchas.
- What is Hash?
Hash is a unit of measurement for how much computational power is being put toward a network
- What is Hashrate?
Hashrate is the total number of hashes being put toward a network. The total number of hashes equals the number of computational equations taking place on the Bitcoin (or other cryptocurrency) network. 1/THs hashrate means the network is capable of one trillion calculations per second.
- What is Mining?
Mining is the process of adding records of transactions (in the form of blocks) records to the public ledger of past transactions. The blockchain confirms transactions to the rest of the network as having actually taken place.For doing this, miners are rewarded with a small amount of Bitcoin, which is how new bitcoins are made. Miners also receive the small fees attached to each transaction, which is what they will have to subsist off of when all 21 million bitcoins are mined, estimated to occur around the year 2140. Miners are inconstant competition with each other.
- What is Decentralization?
Decentralization is the process of redistributing or dispersing functions, powers, people or things away from a central location or authority.
- What is Fork?
Fork is copying an open-source code and making modifications to it. In the context of cryptocurrencies it can also mean when miners either accidentally or maliciously start mining a false blockchain.
- What is Hard Fork?
Hard Fork is the changes to a cryptocurrency’s code that requires participants to upgrade their software in order to be able to continue functioning with the upgraded clients. If the majority of users do not upgrade, the older software will continue mining on its own blockchain; since that blockchain will be longer with a higher hashrate, the coin’s network will split in two and potentially be disastrous. However, successful hard forks are often the only way to make significant changes to a cryptocurrency’s code.
- What is Soft Fork?
Soft Fork is a significant change to a cryptocurrency’s code that, while perhaps “requiring” an upgrade
to wallet software for security or another reason, older software will be able to send, receive, and
validate transactions and won’t accidentally start validating an alternative blockchain.
- What is PoB?
Proof of Burn: Using the blockchain to prove that Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency has been sent to an unspendable address, effectively removing it from the system.
- What is PoS?
Proof of Stake: he type of cryptographic proof that secures a coin’s blockchain that weighs votes based on coin holdings rather than computational power.
- What is PoW?
Proof of Work: The type of cryptographic proof that secures the blockchain that measures votes based on computational power.
- What is Scrypt?
Scrypt is the computer algorithm used by Litecoin and many other alternative cryptocurrencies to secure their networks. It was designed to be more resistant to ASICs.
- What is ASIC?
Application specific integrated circuit: A piece of hardware designed to do one thing and one thing only. In the cryptocurrency world, it mines for a specific algorithm (SHA256, Scrypt, etc.).
- What is SHA256?
SHA256 is the computer algorithm that Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies use to secure their networks.
