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Showing posts from December, 2020

How Does a Cryptocurrency Wallet Work?

  Cryptocurrency wallets work like safety deposit boxes.  These are software programs that store your private and public keys and interface with multiple blockchains. Thus, users can monitor their balance, send money, and conduct other operations. Initially, When a person sends you bitcoins or any other digital coin, they are basically signing off the ownership of those coins to your wallet’s address. Further, to spend those coins and unlock the funds, the public address of the currency must match the private key stored in your wallet. If both the keys match, the balance in your digital wallet will increase. In particular, there is no exchange of real coins. The transaction is signified purely by a transaction record on the blockchain and the change in the account in your cryptocurrency wallet.

Bitquest Mechanics

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  Players Can Claim Lands on Bitquest Users can buy each Bitquest’s plot for 2,000 bits. However, the Bitquest team uses these payments to service the Minecraft server. Monsters on the Bitquest The development team designed Bitquest to spawn monsters that users or gamers would kill to earn cryptocurrency . Bitquest’s monster entities could come in different forms like spiders, zombies, and blazes. In addition, they come in different levels and this depends on the distance between the player and the monster. Also, players can kill these monsters in the same way they are killed on the traditional Vanilla Minecraft platform. Successfully killing monsters will make players accumulate emeralds that are equivalent to bits. Other Ways to Earn Bits/Emeralds Apart from accumulating emeralds by killing monsters, players can also earn bits by contributing to the Bitquest community. In addition, partaking in the player-versus-player arena is also a way to earn emeralds as well as trading with oth

Cryptocurrency mining requirements

  There are some requirements for cryptocurrency mining which can be described in detail as follows: 1) Coin Wallet:  This is a free, private database or password-protected container. You will store the earnings you make in your coin wallet and use it to keep a ledger of all transactions for the network. 2) Software:  You will also need a free software package for mining, which will typically be made up of stratum and Cgminer. 3) Membership:  You must also be a member of an online mining pool. A mining pool is a community of cryptocurrency miners who combine computing power to increase income stability and profitability. 4) Internet:  You should be connected to the internet 24/7. You need to have good connectivity. 5) Hardware:  You should set up your hardware in a cool and air-conditioned space, such as your basement. The hardware should include a custom-built or desktop computer that works well with cryptocurrency mining. 6) Fan:  Get a regular house fan to cool your mining hardware

How does Cryptocurrency mining work?

  Step 1:   The first step of mining a block is to hash each transaction taken from the memory pool individually. Step 2:  The outputs are then sorted into pairs and hashed again and the process is repeated until “top of the tree” is reached. Step 3:  After every transaction is hashed, the hashes are then organized into something called a Merkle Tree or a hash tree, which is formed by organizing the various transaction hashes into pairs and then hashing them.  Step 4:  The mining method allows miners to keep hazing the block header over and over again, iterating through the nonce until one finally produces a correct block hash in the network miner.  Step 5:  Upon finding a correct hash, the founder node will transmit the block to the network.  Step 6: All other nodes can search for validity of the hash and if so, add the block to their blockchain copy and move on to mining the next block.

Hot Wallets vs Cold Wallets

  you might come across frequently with the terms “hot wallets” and “cold wallets”. All crypto wallets fall under these two types. In general, whatever is connected to the internet is less secure than something that is not. This is the difference, where “hot” wallets are connected to the internet and “ cold” wallets ” are not. Online, desktop and mobile wallets are hot wallets, while hardware and paper wallets are cold wallets. 1). Software Wallet: There are three forms of software wallets : Desktop wallets:  These are installed on a laptop or a PC, and can be accessed from a single computer. Although they provide high security, if the computer is attacked by the virus, there is a chance of losing your wallet. Online wallets:  These wallets run on the cloud and can be accessed from any device. Here, your keys are stored online. Mobile wallets:  These wallets that run on an application in a smartphone; they are simpler than the desktop wallets and can be used anywhere. 2) Full Node Wall

How do Crypto Exchanges work?

  Crypto swaps set currency prices, both coins, and tokens. The pricing of a cryptocurrency typically depends on the seller’s and buyers’ behavior, although there are other variables that can influence the price. Different crypto exchanges will have different choices and functions. Others are made for traders and others are designed for the prompt trading of crypto-fiat. Crypto exchanges, which are designed for daily traders, allow you to purchase crypto and sell it with fewer commissions than on crypto-fiat exchanges. Trading platforms also demand fees for cash withdrawal from the portfolio. Crypto exchanges basically operate similarly to standard stock exchanges. The difference is that traders buy and sell assets, shares or futures, at a stock exchange to benefit from their changing prices, whereas traders use cryptocurrency pairs to benefit from the extremely volatile currency rates on cryptocurrency exchanges.

A Complete Guide to Cryptocurrency Exchanges for Beginners

  So you have heard about   cryptocurrencies ,  especially after the unbelievable market growth it caused worldwide in the last few years and was in news all the time. Whatever the coin may be, the first thing everyone wants is to get knowledge about cryptocurrency and to own it. This trading is done on platform ‘cryptocurrency exchanges’. Now, choosing a  cryptocurrency exchange  to purchase can be a formidable and difficult process. Ultimately, there are more than  200 cryptocurrency exchanges today, with 24-hour trade volume in the billions. And probably the most important tip before you start. Don’t trade with money that you can’t afford to lose! Really. Beginners do a lot of stupid things, like an investment of the whole savings. And the stupidest one is borrowing the money from family and friends and invest that into the bitcoin, litecoin, ripple etc. So please, always think the option that you could lose everything if you don’t know what are you doing. If you are looking to trad

Different Types of Exchanges

  Fiat – Crypto Exchanges These exchanges allow you to buy a  cryptocurrency  directly using your fiat currency (a government-issued currency like US dollar or Pound). These are most popular with new users who are yet to explore the crypto market because it offers easy access to the cryptocurrency of their choice without much difficulty. The issue with these exchanges is that they have little support and they offer less number of choice of coins. It is used as just an entry point by beginners. Crypto – Crypto Exchanges These exchanges allow you to trade a cryptocurrency for another cryptocurrency. It means first you need to buy a cryptocurrency on a fiat–crypto exchange and then transfer it to the wallet of the crypto – crypto exchange and then trade for the coin which you want to buy in the first place. This is done by experienced traders who are actively trading between coins to profit quickly or want to buy smaller less known coins. Peer-to-Peer Exchanges In these exchanges, a buy

Why Are Altcoins Falling Faster Than Bitcoin?

 In the digital currency space, it's normal for several coins and tokens to maneuver in similar patterns. When Bitcoin (BTC), the most important cryptocurrency by market cap, goes up, other digital tokens tend to extend in value also. When BTC declines, it's likely that other players within the space will drop at an equivalent time. In recent weeks, as many cryptocurrencies have fallen even further in what has already been a troublesome year thus far, this pattern has held. However, as a report by Zycrypto.com indicates, something interesting has been happening: Ethereum and other altcoins are hit harder than bitcoin, overall.1 Why is it that altcoins are suffering more significant losses than the highest digital currency? Bitcoin ETF News The report indicates that bitcoin has commanded quite 50% of the entire cryptocurrency market cap in recent weeks.1 One important turning point for the crypto space was the announcement that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC

Early Examples of Altcoins

 The earliest notable altcoin, Namecoin, was supported by the Bitcoin code and used an equivalent proof-of-work algorithm. Like Bitcoin, Namecoin is restricted to 21 million coins. Introduced in April 2011, Namecoin primarily diverged from Bitcoin by making user domains less visible. Namecoin allowed users to register and mine using their own .bit domains, which was intended to extend anonymity and censorship resistance. Introduced in October 2011, Litecoin was branded because of the " silver to Bitcoin 's gold." While fundamentally similar in code and functionality to Bitcoin, Litecoin differs from Bitcoin in several essential ways. It allows mining transactions to be approved more frequently. It also provides for a complete of 84 million coins to be created—exactly fourfold Bitcoin's 21 million coin limit.

The Most Important Altcoin Terms and Definitions

  Blockchain  – the simplest possible definition of blockchain technology is that it’s a decentralized database that can’t be manipulated, making it un-hackable. Coin exchange  is a market where buyers and sellers trade Bitcoins and Altcoins. Dapp  stands for decentralized application – referring to apps written in the blockchain. Encryption  is information that can only be unlocked with a private key code. ICO (Initial Coin Offering)  is an opportunity to purchase digital coins for the first time from a new blockchain currency. Miner  is a computer validating blockchain transactions. A Public Key  is used to transfer coins publicly, in and out of a wallet. A Private key  is a key to open a wallet. Satoshi  is the smallest denomination of Bitcoin – one hundred millionth of a single Bitcoin. A Wallet  is a digital device used to store, send, and receive digital currency. Examples are Jaxx and Exodus.   Miners and Cryptocurrencies Miners are part of the blockchain network that aid in

How Bitcoin Works?

I n layman’s terms : Bitcoin is a digital currency. That’s a concept that might be more complex than you realize: it isn’t simply an assigned value of money stored in a digital account, like your bank account or credit line. Bitcoin has no corresponding physical element, like coins or paper bills (despite the popular image of an actual coin, above, to illustrate it). The value and verification of individual Bitcoins are provided by a global peer-to-peer network. Bitcoins are blocks of ultra-secure data that are treated like money. Moving this data from one person or place to another and verifying the transaction, i.e. spending the money, requires computing power. Users called “miners” allow their computers to be used by the system to safely verify the individual transactions. Those users are rewarded with new Bitcoins for their contributions. Those users can then spend their new Bitcoins on goods and services, and the process repeats. The advanced explanation : Imagine it as  BitTorre

Bitcoin Mining Has Diminishing Returns

  A few years ago when the Bitcoin system was new, individual users “mined” for new Bitcoins at a rapid pace. Bitcoin mining software used local processors, and even extra processors like a computer’s graphics card, to calculate hashes for the next block in the blockchain. While the number of people using and “mining” Bitcoin was low, each user doing the mining would randomly confirm the next block at a higher pace, generating new Bitcoins for his or her account quickly. But this boom in generation couldn’t last. The Bitcoin system is designed to make each new block more difficult to find than the last one, reducing the number of randomized Bitcoins that are generated and distributed. That means that as time goes on, each individual mining for them has to work harder and harder (in a figurative sense—it’s the computer that’s working harder and using more electricity, and thus, costing more conventional money). As the number of individual Bitcoins grows, the amount of Bitcoins rewarde

Bitcoin Cash Fork and Other Cryptocurrencies

  On August 1st, 2017, long debates between bitcoin proponents and disagreements on how to solve its problems resulted in a currency split. The Bitcoin standard was broken in two, with the original system unaffected and   the new Bitcoin Cash standard   added. This was less like a stock market split and more like a software fork. Every person or organization who owned Bitcoin in any amount immediately owned an equal amount of Bitcoin Cash, with sales and transfers of both currencies occurring normally after the split. Like the original Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash is entirely digital and has no real-world physical component (despite the name). The split is a hard fork in software terms. The separate Bitcoin Cash peer-to-peer system allows for eight times more transactions per block, making it a better (but not necessarily equal) competitor to credit and debit cards for constant online and in-person sales. The operators of Bitcoin Cash hope that it will become a more widely-accepted currency

Limited Concurrent Transactions

  The Bitcoin block system requires connection and confirmation from the peer-to-peer network to be verified. Because each block contains a limited record of transactions and an upper limit to the number of new transactions that can be written, there’s a limit to how many people can buy and sell with the system at any given time. As more and more vendors and individuals use Bitcoin to do business, the number of transactions per second increases, and the peer-to-peer network is becoming congested, with some operations without transaction fees taking hours to clear. Whereas conventional payment systems like credit cards can simply expand their connections and processing power to speed up processing, the isolated peer-to-peer nature of bitcoin doesn’t allow it to scale with the global financial system. Black Market Appeal A central principle to the design of the Bitcoin system is that there is no single transactional processing authority. As a result, no single user can be locked out o

Security Risk of Bitcoins

  Most individuals who own and use Bitcoin have not acquired their tokens through mining operations. Rather, they buy and sell Bitcoin and other digital currencies on any of a number of popular online markets known as Bitcoin exchanges. Bitcoin exchanges are entirely digital and, as with any virtual system, are at risk from hackers, malware, and operational glitches. If a thief gains access to a Bitcoin owner's computer hard drive and steals his private encryption key, he could transfer the stolen Bitcoins to another account. (Users can prevent this only if bitcoins are stored on a computer which is not connected to the internet, or else by choosing to use a   paper wallet   – printing out the Bitcoin private keys and addresses, and not keeping them on a computer at all.) Hackers can also target Bitcoin exchanges, gaining access to thousands of accounts and   digital wallets   where bitcoins are stored. One especially notorious hacking incident took place in 2014, when Mt. Gox, a

Bitcoin Forks

  In the years since Bitcoin launched , there have been numerous instances in which disagreements between factions of miners and developers prompted large-scale splits of the cryptocurrency community. In some of these cases, groups of Bitcoin users and miners have changed the protocol of the Bitcoin network itself. This process is known as "forking" and usually results in the creation of a new type of Bitcoin with a new name. This split can be a "hard fork," in which a new coin shares transaction history with Bitcoin up until a decisive split point, at which point a new token is created. Examples of cryptocurrencies that have been created as a result of hard forks include Bitcoin Cash (created in August 2017), Bitcoin Gold (created in October 2017), and Bitcoin SV (created in November 2017). A "soft fork" is a change to the protocol that is still compatible with the previous system rules. Bitcoin soft forks have increased the total size of blocks , as an

Understanding Bitcoin

  Bitcoin is a collection of computers, or nodes, that all run Bitcoin's code and store its   blockchain . A blockchain can be thought of as a collection of blocks. In each block is a collection of transactions. Because all these computers running the blockchain have the same list of blocks and transactions and can transparently see these new blocks being filled with new Bitcoin transactions, no one can cheat the system. Anyone, whether they run a Bitcoin "node" or not, can see these transactions occurring live. In order to achieve a nefarious act, a bad actor would need to operate 51% of the computing power that makes up Bitcoin. Bitcoin has around 47,000 nodes as of May 2020 and this number is growing, making such an attack quite unlikely. 4  In the event that an attack was to happen, the Bitcoin nodes, or the people who take part in the Bitcoin network with their computer, would likely fork to a new blockchain making the effort the bad actor put forth to achieve the a

Benefits of Proof of Work

  Proof of Work systems has many significant advantages. they are a perfect way of deterring spammers. If a reasonable amount of work is required for e.g. sending an email for each process, then most spammers will not have enough computing power to send a large number of unsolicited emails. Moreover, Proof of Work frameworks can be used to provide protection for a network as a whole. This is the primary advantage of blockchains using a consensus system for the proof of work. If enough nodes compete to find a particular solution, then for any single bad actor or even a single group of bad actors, the computational power required to overwhelm and control a network becomes unachievable. Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake The Proof of Stake systems have the same purpose but the process is slightly different than in Proof of Work systems. There is no mathematical puzzle with the Proof of Stake. The creator of a new block, however, is chosen in a deterministic manner, based on their stake.  T

If I Use My Credit Card Through PayPal, Can I Still Earn Bonus Points?

 I t’s easy to link your favorite rewards credit card to   your PayPal account   and shop online. The benefits are you don’t have to share card details with every retailer you buy from, and you don’t have to repeatedly type in your card’s information. But by paying that way, are you leaving valuable credit card rewards or bonus points on the table? Probably not. In most cases, you still earn rewards when you pay with your linked credit card through PayPal. But we’ll explain how it works so you can be sure to get every reward you earn. What Allows You to Earn Points On Purchases? Businesses that accept electronic payments —both credit cards and PayPal—have a four-digit merchant category code, or MCC, that identifies the type of business. Shoe stores have a merchant category code of 5661, for example.  This MCC, determined by card brands like Visa and Mastercard, is associated with each credit card transaction and allows credit card issuers to determine which purchases, like dining or

BlockFi Unveils First Credit Card to Offer Bitcoin Rewards

  Cryptocurrency platform BlockFi unveiled the first credit card to offer Bitcoin rewards Tuesday, giving consumers a way to earn the cryptocurrency instead of points or airline miles on every purchase.  The BlockFi Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card, available next year, will function much like a traditional cash-back rewards card. Once approved, cardholders will have a credit limit they can spend against to earn 1.5% cashback on every purchase, all in U.S. dollars. Then, unlike typical credit cards, BlockFi will convert that cash back into Bitcoin and place it in the cardholders’ BlockFi Interest Accounts each month. Those accounts are like high-interest savings accounts for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies .  BlockFi, aiming to make Bitcoin more popular, joins companies such as PayPal in nudging cryptocurrency further into the mainstream. In November PayPal announced that all PayPal account holders can buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrency with PayPal. Bitcoin in particular is having a r