Hope you are all fine and doing well. Today i am waiting homework post for professor @imagen which is about Bitcoin Trajectory.

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.

Bitcoin halving refers to halving of mining rewards that occurs every four years or roughly after mining of 210 000 blocks. Bitcoin is a digital currency run on blockchain that unleashed the magic of cryptocurrency to the world. Bitcoin uses Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm for verification and validation of transactions. Bitcoin transaction are recorded in the form of blocks on computers (nodes) by miners. Verification and validation of transactions is carried out by miners by solving complex mathematical puzzles with the help of computational power of computers to find out unique number (Nonce) linked to each transaction. The node that finds the correct number first acts as a validator and append the information to other nodes for independent verification and record. The miners are rewarded for the same and that is known as mining reward.

Mining therefore serve as a process of release of new Bitcoins into the circulation from the finite supply of 21 million. Since the release of Bitcoin in 2009 by mysterious satoshi nakamoto mining rewards have been halved thrice with each halving occuring every 4 years. To begin with mining reward was 50 BTC for each block in 2009 , it was reduced to 25 BTCs per block in 2012 (28/11) and 12. 5 BTCs in 2016 (09/07) and than 6.25 BTCs in 2020(11/05) . So the current rewards per block is 6.25 BTCs. The next halving of BTC is expected in spring of year 2024.

Although mining rewards keep on decreasing but the good thing is that price of BTC keeps on increasing. As Bitcoin involves nodes with very high computuational power that consume huge amount of electricity and the cost of hardware itself amounts huge sum for the miners. Therefore to keep the sanctity of the Bitcoin network alive, miners must get adequte mining rewards. If halving of rewards is not followed by increase in price , it would lead to decrease in the interest of the miners and lesser participation of miners in the transaction verification and that would be fatal for the network. However price of BTC has increased so for with every halving.

As mentioned above , halving serves as a mechanism to release new coins into the circulation. Therefore halving lowers the release of Bitcoins into the circulation. So this mechanism inturn keeps increasing the price because of analogy drawn from basic supply demand law . As supply decreases demand increases and so does the price . So we can say that, it is a synthetic inflation mechanism in place to keep check on Bitcoin price and to maintain the integrity of the blockchain.

Litecoin follows same halving mechanism as that of BITCOIN. To begin with, Litecoin mining reward was 50 Litecoins and then it was reduced to 25 LTCs but at present it is 12.5 LTCs per block.

Dogecoin had its halving on 28 April 2014 from 500 to 250 Dogeoins per block. But dogecoin has paused halving thereafter.

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

The word consensus means agreement. it is applied on same terms in blockchain.
Consensus mechanism or algorithm is a system of well implemented codes on the blockchain that serve the purposes like verification of transactions before recording, storage of transactions in small interconnected units called blocks, and rewarding miners and therefore maintain integrity of the blockchain. So it is an agreement on the basis of preset code (regulations/guidelines) to verify, validate and store transaction and reward miners. Example, BTC follows PoW algorithm.

Difference between PoW and PoS.

Proof of work

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The term Proof of work is coined by Markus Jakobsson and Ari Juel but the concept was first put in use by Cynthia Dwork and Moni Naor.

Proof of work is a consensus mechanism adopted by cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum etc to verify and validate the transactions and record the validated transactions on blockchain, so as to prevent double spending, denial of service (DoS) attack and other malfunction in services.in Proof of Work mechanism, miners provide proof of work by solving Complex cryptographic mathematical problems with the help of computing power of nodes. It is note worthy that , Proof of work is not implemented by Bitcoin etc to give proof of transactions but it is in place to validate the real transactions and prevent spam attacks.

Proof of work is followed by coins like BTC, ETH, LTC, MOMERO etc. Let me take ecample of BTC to simplify the concept of PoW. When someone makes any transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain, it is not directly recorded on the blockchain rather it is added to unverified Pool of transaction. Then the miners validate the transactions by solving Complex cryptographic mathematical puzzles having a unique solution for each transaction. The Miner who solves the puzzle first is rewarded a part of Bitcoin for this tedious work. After solving, the transaction is distributed across the public ledger for validation by other nodes after checking. This system of consensus mechanism is known as proof of work.

This seemingly fascinating concept has certain limitations like consumption of huge electricity ( eco- unfriendly) , heavy cost of hardware devices and susceptibility to 51% atracks etc.

Proof of Stake

Proof of stake is a consensus mechanism adopted by some altcoins to circumvent the shortcomings of proof-of-work. The mining rights in blockchains that follow proof of stake mechanism is proportionate to the share of tokens holded by miners. Theoretically we can understand it like this, if there are two miners, one of them holds 5% of the coins and other stakes 10%, they will therefore get chance to mine 5% and 10% of the blocks respectively. This consensus mechanism is known as proof of stake. PoS was first adopted by Peercoin. Later on other coins like DASH, NEO, TEZOS etc also adopted it. PoS is better than PoW for being energy efficient , more eco-friendly and offers higher scalability. Price dynamics of tokens is well controlled here and is also less susceptible to 51% attacks than PoW.

PoW mechanism is susceptible to 51% attacks because it is possible although difficult for financial institutions to pool their computational power together untill it reaches 51% of total computational 0ower in use for that network and than launch attacks like double spending and disrupt the sanctity of network. But in case of PoS networks, although it is possible to stake 51% of coins but that would disrupt the buyer/seller or supply demand dynamics and results in fall in price of token staked and is therefore disadvantagous for stakers.

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

For this task, I'll be using blockchair Bitcoin exploler.

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• Last block no : 703894

• Hash is Hash
  00000000000000000000f4d02c410a8cd8dc2eb5c7cd3594fd0a3b6561c328db

General info about block is

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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.

Altcoin season is defined as period of 90 days where 75% of the top 50 altcoins outperform Bitcoin. We can understand it as, during altcoin season cryptosphere is dominated by Altcoins. Bitcoin market cap is decreasing during altcoon season. Many reasons have been propounded for the same. It is believed that altcoin season results due to selling of Bitcoin by hodlers to book their profits and investment into altcoins. Rising popularity of NFTs and some altcoin projects are other possible speculations in this reregard.

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The current Altcoin season index is 45. We are not in Altcoon season now. Last altcoin season was between March to june 2021.

Source^{Performance of altcoins during last season}

Let me check performance of 2 coins during last Altcoin season. I have choosen AXS and LUNA.

^{AXS/USD chart}

As shown in chart of altcoin season above, AXS was the top performing coin and has grown 815.8% during the altcoin season. AXS has shown rapid growth since its launch . With its launch price of $0.15 , AXS has shown tremendous growth and its price today is $124 which equals about 826% growth.

^{LUNA/USDT chart}

During last Altcoin season, LUNA has shown growth of 536.9%. It was among top performing altcoins during last altcoon season. LUNA has made all time high of $50 just one day back and has coinmarketcap Rank of 11.

Make a purchase on 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.

For this task i have decided to Purchase WRX token. WRX is native utilitiy token of wazirx exchange. Its coinmarketcap rank is 149 and current price is $1.20.

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WRX has made all time high of $5.94 on 05 Apr 2021

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I'll be doing purchase from wazirx exchange as i use this exchange for routine trading.

^{verified exchange}

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^{Order worth $18.11 USDT completed}

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Why i choose WRX.

• Primary goal at this point is its use for paying trading fee. As i perform 2 to 3 trades each day. With use of WRX, my trading fee is halved. WRX is set to halve the discount to half every year.

• Wazirx exchange is India's leading exchange and WRX is its utility token.

• WRX is available for trading on other leading exchanges like Binance, Mandala Exchange, FTX, Gate.io, and HitBTC etc.

Founder

Nischal shetty is the founder of project.

Goal of project.

The founder of platform has himself put forth the mindset behind launch of project. Nischal shetty has been in crypto space since 2009. He has witnessed the hughs and lows of the cryptosphere. Nischal has realised the difficulty of indian users in using exchanges and has aimed at providing the best powerful and frictionless piece of cryptocurrency trading platform. I believe he has met his goal to a great extent.

Conclusions

Bitcoin marked the inaugural of cryptosphere which was soon followed by an ever increasing list of coins termed as altcoins. Although Bitcoin is the king of crypto world but altcoins too have been able to deepen their roots and have been widely adopted as they are able to deliver better in certain parameters like consensus algorithms and scalability, than Bitcoin. The interest of masses is sometimes reflected by dominance of altcoins over Bitcoin in the form of Altcoin seasons.

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Thanks