What is Currency?
Public authorities in a particular jurisdiction issues currencies. It is a form of money and performs three main functions. It acts as a unit of account, a store of value, and a medium of exchange. As households and firms accept currencies in settlement of debts, it can act as above. Now we move to Cryptocurrency.
What is Cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrencies Definition: Cryptocurrency can be explained as a virtual or digital currency. It is designed to work as a medium of exchange. Creation of new units, securing and verifying transactions are controlled using cryptography.
There are several conditions to be fulfilled by transactions to be recorded in its ledger. This leger has a limited entry system where no one can change unless the above requirements are satisfied.
Some History
The discussions about having a digital currency is not a new thing. There were several attempts to give birth to digital currencies running back to the initial stage of the internet. There was a common problem many faced due to the double-spending problem. To prevent a digital asset from being copied or counterfeiting it should be only used once.
The first concept of digital assets was introduced by a computer engineer called Wei Dai in 1998. He discussed in a paper about “B-money”. In his publication, he discussed the idea of virtual currency which could be shared in a group of untraceable digital pseudonyms. Like this, there were some more attempts to come up with digital currencies. Though non of these currencies were officially launched, they paved the way towards the birth of Bitcoin.
The birth of first Cryptocurrency the “Bitcoin“
A White Paper was published on 31st Oct 2008 called Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, explaining how Blockchain-based cryptocurrency Bitcoin works. This white paper was published by Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity still a mystery to the whole world. He piloted the initial mining operation of the Bitcoin network mining the first block aka Genesis Block.
Types Cryptocurrency
Just like real currencies, cryptocurrencies can also act as real money or fiat currencies. These crypto currencies take a digital or virtual form and work on a decentralized network. There is no need for a central authority or a governing body to manage the process. We will list out the top ten cryptocurrencies here and discuss further each in our future posts. The list is made according to the market capitalization of each cryptocurrency.
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Ripple (XRP)
- Tether (USDT)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Chainlink (LINK)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Cardano (ADA)
- Polkadot (DOT)
- Binance Coin (BNB)
