Crypto Academy Season 4 Beginners' course - Task 5: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies, Public chains: By @acbaby

QUESTION 1
What Is Cryptocurrency and How You Would Like To See Cryptocurrency In The Future?

INTRODUCTION
Hi guys, hope we are all doing well. It is a privilege to once again write on a crypto related topic. It is always a pleasure to do research based on the crypto space. Today I will be answering one out of 03 questions issued by professor @stream4u and that is question one as stated above in bold. I will be discussing cryptocurrency, what cryptocurrency is all about, and the future of cryptocurrency in my point of view. Hold tight while we kick start the journey. I have broken down this question into two parts which I will provide vivid details on.

Question 1a:

What is Cryptocurrency?

The term cryptocurrency comes from two different terms; cryptography and currency. I will start by explaining what cryptography is and end with a description of currency.
Cryptography is a means of messaging whereby messages from end members are encrypted and not allowed to be seen and understood by any third party. That is, it can be detected that messaging has taken place between two end members but the content is not exposed. This is practiced by mobile applications such as Whatsapp.
Currency on the other hand is an entity of value used for exchanges (trades) and payment after service rendered. This can be in the form of printed paper bills, coins, and expensive commodities such as gold.
Now that we understand what currency is and what the crypto in cryptocurrency is coming from, we can already have an idea of what cryptocurrency is all about.
Cryptocurrency in simple terms is an encrypted currency found in computers as codes. They are built on a type of technology called blockchain. The blockchain technology operates in a decentralized system whereby transactions are recorded by a ledger but end members are kept anonymous. Cryptocurrency known as digital currency is that which is replacing the virtual currency in these modern days. This currency is highly secured and it makes transactions very fast and reliable. Imagine having access to your funds anytime anywhere and transactions are just a click away from you. Being able to secure your funds and also being able to be the only one that knows the worth of your portfolio. What a nice currency system right? Cryptocurrency is now and it’s the future. Allow me to give a brief history of cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency has been in the thoughts of many even before the first cryptocurrency was created. You probably have heard of the famous name Satoshi Nakamoto and the term Bitcoin (BTC).
Satoshi Nakamoto is an anonymous fellow that is known to have created the first cryptocurrency known as BTC in the year 2009. The aim of this individual(s) was to create a decentralized system of exchange whereby transactions are done in the open but end members are key anonymous to the public. Bitcoin genesis block forms the foundation of cryptocurrency and therefore every other cryptocurrency must be attracted to this block on the blockchain. As at the time of writing this post, 1 BTC is worth over 60,000USD and the second to BTC known as Etherium with 1ETH worth above 3,000USD. There are so many cryptocurrencies today and a lot of improvements on the cryptocurrency technology. We now have cryptocurrencies such as STEEM which has a platform called Steemit that is built on the Steem blockchain.

Common features of Cryptocurrency

1. Decentralized system
The decentralized system of blockchain makes cryptocurrencies very decentralized as transactions are not controlled by any central authority. Every user has the ability to make decisions equally with others and an individual is responsible for his/her funds in their portfolio.

2. Security
Users are provided with keys that are the only access to their accounts. Every user has a unique key to activities in his/her wallet as well as an address key which is public. This reduces or almost totally wipes away hacking of the accounts and stealing of one’s funds by another user since to access an account requires that you have the keys to that account.

3. Accessibility and availability
Cryptocurrency is readily available everywhere and users can readily exchange different coins with the help of Decentralized Exchanges (DEx) without having to pass through an authority.

4. Privacy
Every user of a cryptocurrency is anonymous to the public and this helps in hiding people responsible for high level transactions which can lead to armed robbery. An individual is responsible for his/her portfolio and readily is his/her own CEO.

Since cryptocurrency transactions are made public, so are the different cryptocurrency values. This has brought the possibility of ranking the different cryptocurrencies based on their respective volumes and market capitalization. This data is made available on coinmarketcap and this site can be accessed at coinmarketcap.com. Here the current activities of every coin is made public. That is, from coin name, value to USD, trading value, rank and a lot more which I will show you below. I will take an example of STEEM and show it’s public information on coinmarketcap.
Source

Below you can see the different information about STEEM after I had searched it on coinmarketcap
Source

Advantages and disadvantages of cryptocurrency in a tabular form

Advantages	Disadvantages
Low cost for transactions	Funds sent cannot be returned or freezed
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The user is in full control	Mistakes May lead to lost of funds
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Fast and permanent transfer	Lost of keys means lost of wallet and funds
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Enhance privacy	Details of receiver in case of scams cannot be identified
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Owners have sole control of their funds	Cryptocurrencies are very volatile
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Built on a decentralized system	To build the system is very expensive

Those are just a few pros and cons of cryptocurrency and I bet you by now you have a whole lot of information on this topic.

QUESTION 1b:

How would you like to see cryptocurrency in the future?

About a decade ago cryptocurrency was seen to be a system of exchange that will go nowhere but today it is a completely different thing. Looking at countries such as El Salvador adopting cryptocurrency as a legal tender, organizations and some businesses using cryptocurrency as a means of exchange, it is very right for one to say there’s a lot of possibilities on the complete adoption of cryptocurrency replacing the commonly used virtual currency. Just a few weeks after the adoption of cryptocurrency by El Salvador, most of its users in that country made about 40% profits just from hodling BTC. With the eyes of other nations on cryptocurrency and it’s positive impacts on El Salvador one can say that the possibility of other countries taking this step as El Salvador is quite close.
When China tried to infect the crypto space by banning cryptocurrency all over its country, it greatly affected the crypto space but with time things went up even higher showing that there’s no monopoly in blockchain technology. For the past weeks America has now surpassed China and is the first on the list of highest cryptocurrency mining countries. With that said I think all these tests will only lead to cryptocurrency gaining more grounds in the nearest future. From the positive moves made by companies such as Tesla, other companies are observing this crypto strategy only to adopt it soon.

In conclusion I can say cryptocurrency is the future and all the countries (such as China) fighting it will learn to accept and adopt it when all options will be finished on the table. This will clear a lot of losses that are found with fiat money such as money laundering, theft by authorities, and the loss of time. I think cryptocurrency will give room to democracy and equality between individuals since the will be no reason for a bank to take the side of the rich and allow the poor to suffer.

CONCLUSION
Cryptocurrency is the future currency and means of exchange. With such a decentralized monetary system, there would be no monopoly over users by any authority. The crypto journey is an unending one that will lead the world to a different zone of monetary activities. The adoption of cryptocurrency by countries shows a good move in the system and has been tested to prove efficiency and reliability.
If you are reading this and you are not yet into cryptocurrency, you have to sit up so you don’t have to miss the beginning of an evolution else you will regret it greatly. We are just in the second decade of cryptocurrency and it has already made massive moves, imagine such a system. Life will be made easier for you while you own your own bank on your computer.

Thanks to professor @stream4u for the lesson and the homework. This pushed me to study a lot more about cryptocurrencies.

It should be noted that all screenshots on this work were gotten from coinmarketcap and their source links are beneath them. The only exception being the download and edited title photo whose source and editor has been made known