How it started?
The concept of what is money has evolved through the ages of humanity. We started with a simple barter based system. Goods were exchanged for , weapons, or other resources but there was no standard measure of value.
As humanity developed into flourishing civilizations, commodity money based on precious metals such as gold, silver, copper, etc. became the norm. A great benefit to commodity based money was that standard measures could be implemented with accepted amounts, values, to be used for trade. Prices in terms of a certain weight of precious metals could be used to buy goods and services. Eventually, people transitioned to paper based money because it was so much more convenient. Furthermore, this led to the development of credit based money implement via paper cheques.
Due to the inconvenience of bringing large amounts of cash in your , two additional options were invented. One option was that part of their cash could be deposited with banks so that they can withdraw it later through cheques, credit money, or other types of bank money. The other option, was that they can use electronic money (e-money, electronic cash, electronic currency, digital money, digital cash) that is accessible via the Internet through digital stored value systems. As an example, PayPay is one of the most popular e-monies that we have now.
Human nature always strives to find more efficient and convenient ways to do things — money is no exception. In this new collaborative peer-to-peer (P2P) digital age, is seen by many as a possible new world currency.
is a digital form of money. Unlike normal fiat currencies such as the United States Dollar (USD), is not regulated by any centralized authority nor does it require a trusted third party since each digital currency is supported by a decentralized P2P network utilizing a . technology also prevents fraud and cheating on the system.
Both public keys and private keys are used for security reasons. The public key serves as the public address which anyone can see and use to send Bitcoins, similar to a bank account number. On the other hand, the private key is exclusive and only used to authorize transmissions.
Top 4
have skyrocketed in value, interest, and number recently. These are the top 4 most popular as of 2018:
- bitcoin (BTC)
was founded by Satoshi Nakamoto, whose true identity is still unknown. The first and most popular today. More than 16.8 million are currently disseminating, against a present capped limit of 21 million.
2. (ETH)
is known as the “decentralized app” provider. There are differences between and . offers a peer to peer electronic cash system where you can easily make payments online. The tracks ownership of digital currency or what we called “Bitcoins”. While the is capable of running programed code via “smart contracts” for decentralized applications.
3. (LTC)
is also known as “’s little brother”. LTC has faster transaction speeds and a higher limit of 84 million. The main difference between and is that can process transactions much faster than . Transactions can be done every 2.5 minutes while takes about 10 minutes. uses scrypt on their algorithm that’s it’s more memory intensive.
4. (XRP)
was released in 2012. The difference between and is that uses a HashTree to summarize data into a single value compared across its validating servers to provide consensus. can handle 1,500 transactions per second.
The Future of
can profoundly impact today’s business. Bit by bit, people are starting to accept this new type of digital currency because of the benefits offered such as peer-to-peer payments, complete monetary control, and the low fees to transfer money. However, as with all things, there are risks associated with this new type of digital currency. Nevertheless, are here to stay! It’s your decision if you want to be one of the early adopters to reap the potentially high rewards with using this exciting new money paradigm.
Published at Fri, 26 Apr 2019 05:26:31 +0000
