Cryptocurrency

*What is cryptocurrency?*

Cryptocurrency is the same way to pay for any goods or services in real life, but which exists on the Internet - it's cool! It has no paper expression, and its value does not depend on the government, it mainly depends on people who believe in cryptocurrency, in its independence. But by the way, relatively recently they started issuing cards with which you can pay for purchases at the cash register and so on. This is quite a promising solution, as some countries have started to legalize cryptocurrency.

The very first country to legalize crypto is Belarus, now it is possible to pay taxes with crypto.

Speaking of the specifics of cryptocurrency:

Imagine person N who wants to transfer a large amount of money to his friend. To do this, he needs an intermediary - a bank, which keeps records of all transactions and, if necessary, can ask to tell where you got that much money, and with cryptocurrency everything is different: the bank is not involved in the exchange, so person N can not worry about anonymity.

*But how?*

Cryptocurrency is built on a blockchain system - a chain of information blocks.In more detail, blockchain is a way of storing information on the chain. Records of all transactions, or transactions by participants in the network, are encoded, distributed to other participants, and form linked blocks. If someone tries to make unfair changes to currency or information, such as rewriting an existing transaction or creating a new one without the consent of the other participants, the system will compare that information with other databases and block the transaction.

You could say that every computer is a small branch of the bank.

*Who maintains this system and how?*

For transactions to happen, you have to keep the network up and running - that's what miners do. They provide the system with the computing power (video cards, processors, hard drives) to produce new blocks and coins and get a percentage of the transactions. The blockchain creator determines how many resources a miner has to provide in order to be paid. All participants in the cryptocurrency issue have equal rights and opportunities.

*How and when did the first cryptocurrency appear?*

A man known under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto and his team organized this cryptocurrency and founded the technology to generate and manage it.

 In 2008, Nakamoto set the maximum number of bitcoins generated by a distributed network of computers at 21 million. This bitcoin supply limitation ensures the demand for a unit of currency, which consequently increases in value. At the same time, he and his group of developers published a paper entitled "Bitcoin:A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.

The document described a decentralized digital currency without a single administrator, but with a public ledger of transactions that each participant maintains on his or her computer.

Just the Blockchain technology we talked about earlier.

On January 3, 2009, the first block and the first 50 bitcoins were generated. ⠀

The first bitcoin transaction took place on January 12, 2009 when Satoshi Nakamoto sent 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney (a famous cryptographer, coder and bitcoin pioneer). The first bitcoin transaction took place on January 12, 2009.

Initially, bitcoin was not widespread and therefore worth very little: for example, in 2010, American Laszlo Hanehza bought two delivery pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins, funny.

Thus, the cryptocurrency culture and market began to emerge, and other tokens that were based on the blockchain began to appear, but for different purposes. For example, Ethereum was originally created as a base for third-party projects, on Blockchain technology. The cryptocurrency has managed to establish itself in many places and has now begun to compete directly with central banks. How? I'll tell you.

The fact is that we have been using fiat money for a long time, i.e. cash, cabbage, cash, whatever you want to call what you have in your wallet or bank account, but progress continues and now cryptocurrency is competing with fiat money. 

*But why?*

Fiat money is controlled by the government and the Central Bank, so there is no anonymity. 

Also, fiat money is subject to inflation and maybe even hyperinflation. 

Fiat money is created by countries' central banks, and if something goes wrong, they can print entire truckloads of bills. 

 A great example: in Zimbabwe in 2008, inflation was 200 billion percent a year. It happens, too. 

The more some thing is sold in the market, the less it is worth. That is inflation. 

And cryptocurrencies work without inflation. There is bitcoin. It is mined by miners, and there are 21 million bitcoins in nature. The last bitcoin will be mined in 2140. There cannot, by definition, be inflation. Because there is no Central Bank, which can print a whole bunch of "greenbacks".

One way or another, cryptocurrencies will continue to exist.The complexity of "Internet money" still reduces their appeal, but this will undoubtedly change with the arrival of a generation of tech-savvy users. Cryptocurrencies have many advantages over today's fiat currencies, although there is still a long way to go before truly mass adoption. As technology continues to evolve, digital currencies may eventually become the future of money.