Hello everyone, this is season 4 week 5 of the steemit crypto academy. This week’s lecture was delivered by professor @imagen and the topic was centered on Bitcoin’s trajectory. After going through the class carefully and understanding the lecture, I have decided to try my hands on the given task. Hope you will all enjoy it.

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1.) How many times has Bitcoin been "halved"? When is the next expected? What is the current amount that Bitcoin miners receive? Mention at least 2 cryptocurrencies that are or have halved.

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Bitcoin halving takes place almost every 4 years. Bitcoin halving refers to the process that the miners’ Bitcoin rewards are halved. Meaning they are divided into two parts. This Bitcoin halving has taken place on several occasions already. The first of such incident took place in 2012, when the Bitcoin became 25 BTC per block from the initial of 50 BTC per block. As indicated earlier this halving occurs every four years. So as expected, the block was again halved in 2016 from 25 BTC per block to 12.5 BTC per block. Then four years time which was in 2020, the Bitcoin block was again halved to 6.25 BTC per block. This halving is expected to continue periodically every four years. 2140 is the year that this halving is expected to come to an end.

As explained earlier, the Bitcoin block is expected to undergo halving every for years. So the next halving is expected to take place in 2024 after the last one happened in 2020. This is expected to happen in order to maintain the four year halving cycle and it is expected that the Bitcoin rewards will be 3.125 BTC per block.

The last time the halving occurred was in 2020. So the miners on Bitcoin receive rewards based on the 2020 halving which is 6.25 BTC per block.

Two other coins that have been halved previously are litecoin and Dogecoin.
The litecoin halving is similarly to that of Bitcoin. At the start litecoin rewards were 50 ltc per block then later halved to 25 ltc per block. As we speak now the rewards for litecoin is 12.5 ltc per block.

In 2014, Dogecoin was halved. The rewards moved from 500 Dogecoins per block to 250 Dogecoins per block. This is the only time Dogecoin was halved. And now the halving of Dogecoin is on hold and there is no halving taking place again.

2.) What are consensus mechanisms? How do Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Staking differ?

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Consensus Mechanism

Any new transaction data entered into the blockchain system has to be approved and validated. This validation is done by an algorithm called the consensus mechanism. Proof-of-work and proof-of-stake are among the numerous types of consensus mechanism. Transactions become more secure and reliable when they are validated by the various consensus mechanisms.

Proof of Work

Proof of work is among the first consensus mechanisms. This is used in the mining of the early coins. One of the coins that uses the proof of work is the Bitcoin. Bitcoin is among the oldest generation of coins and this proof of work consensus is used for validation in the mining of these old coins. The miners of these coins are rewarded with the various types of coins after they have been able to validate the transactions by solving complex mathematical problems and also complex puzzles. The native coins of the network is used to reward the miners that complete this verification successfully. Computer power is very relevant in mining because that’s what the miners use in exhibiting their power.

Proof-of-Stake

The proof of stake consensus is a more simple mechanism as compared to the proof of work consensus. In this case, the highest coin holders and oldest miners are usually rewarded with the native coins. This format is used in the validation process in the proof of stake. The highest coin holders and the oldest miners are referred to as the validators of the network. There is no need to solve complex mathematical problems or complex puzzle in this mechanisms in order to become a validator.

Differences between proof-of-work and proof-of-staking

There are a lot of differences between the proof of work and proof of stake consensus mechanisms. Some of these differences are highlighted in the table below

Proof of work	Proof of staking
It requires miners to solve complex mathematical problems or complex puzzles before validation	Requires miners with most coins or longest mining period in order to validate transactions
The proof of works requires more energy and computing power for its operation	proof of stake does not need electrical power or computing power to function. It is energy efficient.
The coins in proof of work is very difficult to gain because of the complex mathematical problems involved and also the complex puzzles needs to be solved	The coins are relatively easy to get because it doesn’t require any complex mathematical problems or complex puzzles before gaining the coins.

3.) Enter the Bitcoin explorer and indicate the hash corresponding to the last transaction. Show Screenshot.

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I can access the Bitcoin hash using the Blockchair Bitcoin Explorer Website

The transaction hash of Bitcoin is clearly seen in the above screenshot. The hash is as follows:
dd16f6c88ddaffcec7058f29e709194b39b89af4b45b416949972e5f40cec6b1

4.) What is meant by Altcoin Season? Are we currently in Altcoin Season? When was the last Altcoin Season? Mention and show 2 charts of Altcoins followed by their growth in the most recent Season. Give reasons for your answer.

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The name altcoin contains its meaning. The altcoin season is a period where top coins such as Bitcoin and Ethereum face competition from alternative coins because these alternative coins display great development and increase in their performance during this period. A 90 day period is used to identify the altcoin season. When there is a period within 90 days when 75% of the alternative coins within the top 50 coins perform better than Bitcoin, this period is referred to as the altcoin season.

I was able to check the altcoin data by visiting the https://www.blockchaincenter.net/altcoin-season-index/ site.

Based on the data displayed in the site which is clearly indicated in the screenshot above, only 51% of the alternative coins in the top 50 performed better than Bitcoin in the last 90 days. With this statistics, we can all agree that we are not in the altcoin season since we need more than 75% of the top 50 alternatives coins to perform better than Bitcoin.

Now let’s look at when the last altcoin season occurred.

We can again access the https://www.blockchaincenter.net/altcoin-season-index/ site to access the graph and data of the last altcoin season.

From the chart above, the last altcoin season ended on 20/06/2021. As seen in the chart, during the 90 day period, 80% of the top 50 alternative coins outperformed Bitcoin. The start of the altcoin season was on 23/03/2021 when 76% of the top 50 alternative coins performed better than Bitcoin within the 90 day period.

Now let’s look at the performance of two coins during the altcoin period.
First of all let’s look at AXS.

Screenshot from coinmarketcap

Looking at the chart above, AXS was performing very well and was at the highest point during the altcoin season. From the launch price of about $0.17, the price rise to as high as about $145 during the altcoin season which shows a significant growth.

The next coin we’ll be looking at during it’s altcoin season is LUNA.

Screenshot from Coinmarketcap

Looking at the screenshot above, the rate at which Luna has developed is over 500%. During the altcoin season, Luna was one of the best performing coins and it was able to rise up to $50. It is ranked number 11 on coinmarketcap.

5.) Make a purchase from your verified account of the exchange of your choice of at least 15 USD in a currency that is not in the top 25 of Coinmarket (SBD, tron ​​or steem are not allowed). Why did you choose this coin? What is the goal or purpose behind this project? Who are its founders / developers? Indicate the currency's ATH and its current price. Reason for your answers. Show Screenshots.

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Here I decided to buy the LSK token. LSK is the native token of the Lisk blockchain. The rank of the coin on coinmarketcap is #143. At the time of writing this article the price of LSK was $3.45.

Coinmarketcap

LSK has made all time high of $39.31 on the 7th of January 2018 and also made an all time low of $0.09565 on the 2nd of March 2017.

coinmarketcap

I will buy this coin from my verified account on Huobi pro exchange.

LSK worth $16.27 bought

Why did I choose LSK?

• LSK is very good for long term investment. It is expected that the revenue of lsk will rise to about +266.5% in about five years. This means that any investment made will bring a profit of more 3 times the investment made within this five years.

• This LSK coin can also be traded on popular exchanges such as Binance and Huobi pro exchanges so it makes it easier to trade.

• lisk have a very good project that’s why I decided to buy the LSK coin

Founder
Oliver Beddows and Max Kordek forked lisk in 2016.

Goal of project
The main goal of lisk is that it wants a be a platform for Decentralized applications (DApps). This lisk what to make sure that it creates a platform where everybody can have access to a decentralized platform. Developers can also build applications on this platform.

Conclusion

Though Bitcoin is the first ever cryptocurrency and also the most powerful, there is a period where other alternative coins are able to compete it and dominate it. This is the time we call the altcoin season. This has made the cryptocurrency market very interesting and attention is not only on Bitcoin especially in the altcoin seasons.

Thank you once again professor @imagen for this detailed lecture.