The world is experiencing a new kind of currency! Today, more and more individual users and businesses have started accepting an innovative kind of money, called cryptocurrency.
But, those who are new to this term might be thinking about. What is Cryptocurrency? To let them easily understand the concept of Cryptocurrency! Here is a short overview.
What is Cryptocurrency?
A crypto-currency is a new kind of digital asset, specially designed to work as a medium of exchange, using advanced cryptography techniques, to secure the transactions, and to control the creation of additional units of the currency.
Crypto-currencies are digital currencies, or we can say virtual currencies for the modern societies.
The story of cryptocurrency started with Bitcoin, that became the first decentralized cryptocurrency in 2009. The first decentralized cryptocurrency, bitcoin, was created in 2009, by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto.
Since then, numerous cryptocurrencies have been created. And, frequently called altcoins, as a blend of bitcoin alternative.
Bitcoin and its derivatives use decentralized control system, as opposed to centralized electronic money, and centralized banking systems.
These Decentralized cryptocurrency are produced by the entire cryptocurrency system collectively, at a rate which is defined when the system is created and which is publicly known.
As of now, more than hundreds of cryptocurrency specifications already exist; most are similar to and derived from the first fully implemented decentralized cryptocurrency, bitcoin.
Within cryptocurrency systems the safety, integrity and balance of ledgers is maintained by a community of mutually distrustful parties.
They are referred to as miners: members of the general public using their computers, to help validate, and time-stamp transactions, adding them to the ledger, in accordance with a particular time-stamping scheme.
The security of crypto-currency ledgers is based on, the assumption that the majority of miners are honestly trying to maintain the ledger, having financial incentive to do so.
Why to Own Cryptocurrency?
Reasons why people own cryptocurrency, a new kind of digital money for the future! are due to:
Transparency:
In cryptocurrency system, due to the public ledger, transactions are transparent with instant proof of payment.
Worldwide Payment:
Send and receive money everywhere in the world instantly
Fraud Protection:
It’s safe to sell goods and services because transactions cannot be reversed
High Privacy:
Payments can be made without personal information connected to the transactions
Low Fees:
There are either no or very low fees for sending funds internationally
Security Ensured:
The protocol cannot be manipulated by any person, organization, or government
These powerful reasons are making individual users and businesses own Cryptocurrencies across the world for border-less transactions.
How does Cryptocurrency work?
How does cryptocurrency have value and how does cryptocurrency technology work? Cryptocurrencies technology work by providing a viable method of issuing tracking ownership of unique digital representations of value, which we call money.
Cryptocurrencies are fully self-contained systems that both control and track each unit of cryptocurrency. Each individual unit acts like piece data moving around a network.
Units of a crypto-currency can be as small as $0.01 USD or as big as $1 Billion USD.
Some cryptocurrencies are controlled by a single entity (i.e. centralized) and others are controlled by the public (i.e. decentralized).
Cryptocurrencies use various time-stamping schemes to avoid the need for a trusted third-party to verify the transactions added to the “blockchain” ledger.
Bitcoin, the most popular crypto currency, uses a proof-of-work scheme, which is also known as Mining.
Other major crypto-currencies achieve the same result with alternative approaches that are often labeled Consensus Protocols or Consensus Platforms.
What are the Best Cryptocurrencies?
The Best Cryptocurrencies till today to choose the best cryptocurrency! If you have heard about crypto-currencies, then you have likely heard of bitcoin.
Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency to successfully prove the viability of a cryptographic-backed public money supply that is open to anyone.
From a market capitalization point of view and public adoption point of view, bitcoin is currently the most popular cryptocurrency.
However, there are close to 1,000 different types of cryptocurrencies currently available on coin market cap, the most popular place to discover and track cryptocurrency prices.
Among the many choices available, different cryptocurrencies provide different benefits over others. Some crypto currencies such as Litecoin provide faster confirmation times than bitcoin.
Newer cryptocurrencies such as ether, refer to themselves as crypto assets and use their native token ether to power a decentralized virtual machine that can execute peer-to-peer smart contracts.
Just like when shopping for a new smart phone, the best cryptocurrency is the one that fits your specific need that you intend to use it for.
Types of Cryptocurrencies:
Here are the top most popular types of cryptocurrencies getting widely traded online from all over the world.
Bitcoin:
Bitcoin is a worldwide cryptocurrency and digital payment system, called the first decentralized digital currency. It was invented by an unknown programmer, or a group of programmers, under the name Satoshi Nakamoto. And, released as open-source software in 2009. Bitcoin system is peer-to-peer, and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary.
Ethereum:
Ethereum is another open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract functionality. Ethereum provides a cryptocurrency token called “ether”, which can be transferred between accounts, and used to compensate participant nodes for computations performed. Ethereum was proposed by Vitalik Buterin, a cryptocurrency researcher and programmer in late 2013.
Litecoin:
Litecoin is another peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open source software, which is inspired by, and in most regards technically nearly identical to Bitcoin (BTC). Litecoin has some technical improvements over Bitcoin, and most other major cryptocurrencies, such as the adoption of Segregated Witness, and the Lightning Network. Litecoin has almost zero payment cost and facilitates payments approximately four times faster than Bitcoin.
Monero
The Monero is annother leading cryptocurrency created in April 2014. It focuses on privacy, decentralization and scalability. Unlike many cryptocurrencies that are derivatives of Bitcoin, Monero is based on the CryptoNote protocol and possesses significant algorithmic differences relating to blockchain obfuscation. Monero was launched originally under the name BitMonero on 18 April 2014.
Ripple
Ripple XRP The Digital Asset for Payments. It’s the fastest and most scalable digital asset, enabling real-time global payments anywhere in the world.
Neo (Neo)
NEO, formerly Antshares, is China’s first ever open source blockchain protocol, founded in 2014. NEO has been created to shift the traditional economy into a new era of the Smart Economy. It’s decentralized and distributed ledger protocol digitalizing real-world assets into digital ones. Enabling registration, depository, transfer, trading, clearing and settlement via a peer-to-peer network.
Dashcoin
Dash is another leading peer-to-peer cryptocurrency, offering all the same features as Bitcoin. But also has advanced capabilities, including instant transactions, private transactions, and decentralized governance. Dash uses a two-tier architecture to power its network, consistsing of miners and masternodes.
Lisk
Lisk is Javascript platform for decentralized applications & sidechains. Lisk is founded from the team behind Crypti. It started out because the founders disagreed with the direction that Crypti is taking. They forked Crypti used a decentralised startup model instead of a foundation model in progressing this cryptocurrency.
Ethereum Classic
Ethereum Classic was launched as a result of the hardfork of the original Ethereum blockchain as the alternative blockchain. The main goal of the project is to ensure survival of the original Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum Classic appeared as a result of disagreement with the Ethereum Foundation regarding The DAO Hard Fork.
Zcash
Zcash cryptocurrency grew out of the Zerocoin project, aimed at improving anonymity for Bitcoin users. The Zerocoin protocol was initially improved and transformed into Zerocash, which thus yielded the Zcash cryptocurrency in 2016. The founder and CEO of Zcash is Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn and the team includes cryptographer Matthew D. Green from Johns Hopkins University.
How to Invest In Cryptocurrency?
This is just a Beginners Guide to Investing in Cryptocurrency! When bitcoin was first introduced to the world in 2009, each bitcoin was valued at less than $1 USD for quite some time. In late 2014, one bitcoin was valued over $1,000 USD.
In 2015, price of one bitcoin was about half of that, with varying degrees of volatility. In late 2016, one bitcoin was valued between $ 800 – 1,150 USD. And, In the second quarter of 2017, it prices more than tripled from $1200 to over $4000 USD.
Rich strikes in short timelines and significant returns has caught the attention of speculators worldwide, causing great desire to learn how to invest in cryptocurrencies and yield returns that beat the stock market.
The cryptocurrency market is only less than a decade old and still remains very small in comparison to the global financial markets of the world.
These attributes should remind investors to revisit a fundamental rule of investing: the higher the return, the greater the risk; the lower the return, the lesser the risk.
The Cryptocurrency Investing Principle:
Seeking to achieve the same returns seen with bitcoin during the 2009 to 2014 time period requires significant risk.
Higher Risk = Higher Return
An example of a high risk and high return cryptocurrency investment opportunity is to invest in a new crypto currency, with the anticipation that it achieve the same success as bitcoin.
Lower Risk = Lower Return
An example may include investing in a more mature cryptocurrency such as bitcoin that may not provide the same upward spike in value again, but may likely experience more natural and gradual growth over time.
The alternative to investing in cryptocurrencies, is investing in the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies, better known as blockchain technology.
Where to Buy, Sell, and Swap Cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrencies can be bought at many online providers, however, before anyone purchase cryptocurrency, make sure that you have a plan on how to store it in a cryptocurrency wallet.
Buying cryptocurrency through several of the exchanges online below can be done using a credit card or debit card.
Buy Cryptocurrency at Coinbase
Buy Cryptocurrency at Kraken
Buy Cryptocurrency at Shapeshift
Buy Cryptocurrency at Local Bitcoins
Buy Cryptocurrency at Poloniex
Buy Cryptocurrency at CEX.IO
These are few of the best and most popular cryptocurrency, the digital assets exchanges, making buying, selling, and swapping of cryptocurrencies possible in easy, fast, and secure way.
Where to Trade Cryptocurrency?
There are many cryptocurrency trading sites already live. Trading cryptocurrency is different from buying crypto currency. Although, many of these places to buy cryptocurrency online, also provide trading services, the two acts are fundamentally different in nature.
The cryptocurrency trading industry is also beginning to mature and exchanges are providing some of the powerful tools that closely resemble the same market trading tools commonly found in the capital markets.
Below, are the featured most prominent trading exchanges to trade crypto-currencies worldwide:
Global Digital Asset Exchange
OKCoin Digital Asset Trading
Bitfinex Cryptocurrency Trading
Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Trading
Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Exchange
Gemini Digital Asset Exchange
Those are some of the best and most popular sites over there on Internet offering innovative trading platform for the major cryptocurrencies.
What do you think about the rise of cryptocurrencies and the way is getting started using, buying, selling and trading with cryptocurrecies?