Steemit Crypto Academy Season 4 Beginers' course- Homework post for task 3

Homework

3a) What is a Cryptocurrency?
b) What is Cryptography and how does it make cryptocurrencies secure?
c) Explore the Steem Genesis Block and Sign in as proof of completion.

Introduction

Cryptocurrency over the years have proven to be more preferable as compared to the fiat currency.And the security of assets can not be overemphasized, cryptography playing a better role in providing authenticity and security of transactions.

3a. What is cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is derived from the combination of two words that originates from cryptography: "crypto" meaning recondite and "graph" meaning chart.
Cryptocurrency is an arithmetic currency that uses cryptography decentralized system to verify and record transactions instead of a centralized authority.

3b. What is cryptography and how does it make cryptocurrencies secure?

Cryptography means confidential calligraphy.It is the potentiality to transfer message that can only be understood by the recipient. Cryptography assures secured transactions protecting individuals from spending twice and not under the control of a central government. Cryptography uses affianced analytical cipher to convey input equivalent in a protected configuration that assure data is received, read and understood by those whom it is meant for and assure the legitimacy of negotiation and partaker.

Cryptography make it possible to protect negotiation and authenticate conveying of treasure using public keys.

Source

The above image is an overview of how cryptography works.

How cryptography makes cryptocurrency secure.

• Analog designation.
  One of the most valuable tools of cryptography is designation.
  The designation implement the same authority your signature will do to a paper work.
  A good designation should:
• Provide authentication.
• It should not be forgeable.
• It should not stand the chance to be disapproved.

Source

• Proportionate cryptography.
  Proportionate cryptography also known as symmetric cryptography uses an uncomplicated approach in sending data.
  Breaking it down
• You have a message M for your friend
• You encode the message and get a nada text N
• Your friend receives your nada text N.
• He then decode the nada text and gets the original message M.

Source

The use of public keys

Public keys in cryptocurrency is specific to a particular wallet. I.e no two wallet have the same public keys. And that makes the security of the cryptocurrency stronger.

3c. Explore the steem genesis block and sign in as proof of completion.

To find the steem genesis block on https://steemworld.org/
Step 1: visit the site https://steemworld.org/
Step 2: click on block explorer.

Step 3: click on OK for Block 1

Step 4: you can now see the specifics of the genesis block.

Basic specifics i highlighted

• Timestamp: 2016-03-24 17:05:00 UTC + 1
• Block ID: 0000000109833ce528d5bbfb3f6225b39ee10086
• There is no block before the previous block ID so there is no previous block ID : 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
  Witness: initminer
  Step 5: I went ahead to log in using the sign in option at top right corner.

Conclusion

From the teaching i was able to learn about the protection provided to cryptocurrencies by cryptography using encoded keys. I also learnt about the steem genesis block and I was able to explore the site using
https://steemworld.org
Some details i was able to derive include:

• Timestamp: 2016-03-24 17:05:00 UTC + 1
• Block ID: 0000000109833ce528d5bbfb3f6225b39ee10086
• aThere is no block before the previous block ID so there is no previous block ID : 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
  Witness: initminer
  I successfully signed in as to make sure i understood every details of the genesis block.
  Thanks to @awesomenonso for this very educative teaching.