What is Cryptocurrency and its terms?

What is Cryptocurrency and its terms? A cryptocurrency is a digital money that operates on the blockchain technology. Because it runs on a blockchain, which doesn’t need a third party to maintain it (i.e. decentralized), cryptocurrency can usually be transferred from one user to another without going through an intermediary like a bank in the case of the traditional money. One of the first steps to understanding and becoming an expert in any industry is to come up to speed with the terms related to that industry. So if you want to understand the cryptocurrency space, understanding the terms used in the space is a good place to start. We’ve compiled a list of the essential cryptocurrency terms for you here — in alphabetical order. Address: Think of it as your email address, but with the example@someone.com format replaced with a bunch numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters. Just as your email address helps determine the destination of an email, a cryptocurrency address helps determine the destination of a cryptocurrency payment. The address is unique to the user to whom it was originally assigned. Altcoin: An abbreviation for the phrase “Alternative coins,” Altcoins refer to the numerous cryptocurrencies that launched after the success of bitcoin. Typically, altcoins are similar to bitcoin in setup, making just a few tweaks to bitcoin’s codebase and, in the end, offer a new cryptocurrency that claims to solve the problems of bitcoin. Bitcoin: Created in 2009, bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency that ran on a blockchain network. A person who used the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto created it. Block: A block is simply a group of cryptocurrency transactions that have been verified. A simple way to understand this is to think about the process of packaging biscuits. There’s a set number of biscuits that can go into a box. In the case of a block, each biscuit in the box represents a cryptocurrency transaction and the entire box of biscuit represents a block. In essence, a block couldn’t be completed or created without a certain volume of cryptocurrency transaction just as a box couldn’t be sealed until the set number of biscuits had been packed into it. In addition, the next block couldn’t be created unless the current block was filled just as one box of biscuit had to be filled before packing another one. Blockchain: As you can probably tell, blockchain is made of two words: block and chain. So blockchain simply means a chain of blocks linked and secured with cryptography. Cryptography is a practice that allows information to be encrypted. And since we’ve said that a block is a group of cryptocurrency transactions bundled together in a sequence once they have been verified, we can put everything together and say that blockchain simply shows a factual history of all the cryptocurrency transactions that have occurred. And since it uses cryptography for encryption, it cannot be edited and it protects user information.