Bitcoin's Trajectory - Crypto Academy S4W5 - Homework Post for @imagen

It was a beautiful lecture and I am glad to be part of it, I will be going straight to the homework post for the week, I hope you enjoy my write-up

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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.

The exposition of this lesson, is based on crypto currency majorly bitcoin and other altcoins, their dominance in the market capitalization and including bitcoin's history and working mechanism.

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The onset of bitcoin in 2009 , had every block on the chain containing an amount of 50 bitcoins and this format was meant to equally divided into two approximately every four years (50%) and after then, there have been just three halving events, currently leaving each block with 6.25 bitcoins

• The next halving of Bitcoin is assumed to take place in the year 2024 and just like I stated previously the block gain, reduced to 3.125

• The current reward for Bitcoin miners is 6.25 bitcoins till the next halving takes place

• Here, I'll be stating two crypto currencies, that are or have halved and they include :

Ethereum :

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The Hard fork /update of the Ethereum system to the proof of stake consensual system brings about the most important Ethereum improvement proposal ie the EIP 1559 and these would bring about a triple halving in the beginning of 2022

Zcash :

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The fork of the bitcoin's block chain,brought about the Zcash halfing which entailed the division of the block reward of Zcash into two and the reward halfed from 6.25 ZEC leaving it at 3.125 ZEC to the miners.

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

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Consensus Mechanism could be seen as error - liberal mechanisms utilized in block chain systems and other softwares to ascertain cogent agreement on a particular data value or nature of a network among systems involving several networks,chains etc.

Simply put, the consensus mechanism states any series or pattern channeled towards ascertaining unity, security and integrity over a decentralized network.

This mechanism tends to solve the issue of centralized systems which limits the performance of activities on a system to one authority but grants a pattern that ensures that all the participants agree to whatever decisions that are made on the network.

Bitcoin, for example makes use of the Proof of Work mechanism which requires use of calculational power to solve complex algorithms and in this vein, keeps all the nodes in the network in integrity

In the world of crypto currencies and block chains, the Proof of Stake and Proof of Work are the two major consensus mechanisms and I'll be explaining them below :

The Proof of Work explains a consensus system that needs an impactful and felt amount of strength to identify negative and malicious use of computing strength eg spam messages.
This mechanism has been adopted by block chains like Bitcoin and Litecoin
It was originally implemented to the ascertaining of crypto currencies in 2004 by Hal Finney by the idea of "the re-usable proof of work"

Here, every member of the network, is expected to put in power in computing complex mathematical algorithms to avoid anyone from performing malicious activities on the system

Advantages of the Proof of Work :

• It's complex mathematical problems helps in security since malicious intenders can't infiltrate the system

• The system, encourages trust and and independent members of the network achieve consensus

Disadvantages :

They require a lot of computing power hereby burning excess energy on the blockchain in the process

The Proof of Stake on the other hand, could be seen as a consensus mechanism, used by blockchains to ascertain spread consensus. This concept explains the allocation of mining power to users, based on the expanse of currency they hold ie the more the coins held, the bigger the mining power allocated.

The Proof of Stake, was initiated as a remedy to certain limitations of the PoW which created more confirmation strength and helped in addition of more blocks to the chain.

The Proof of Stake on its own works by the asking of each node on the network to bring solution to a problem and the faster the node, the liberty, it's given to add more blocks to a network and granted coins as reward or reward for mining and once transaction blocks are confirmed, they are edited into the blockchain

Advantages of Proof of Stake :

• The Proof of stake is more efficient in the sense that less energy is involved in the process and you get to create more blocks and strength on the blockchain

Disadvantages of Proof of Stake

• The reward from staking is not much as the reward from mining
• It's secure status isnt yet as proven as that from mining

There are dinstinctions as to the two mechanisms and they are :

• The Pow needs large amount of energy for computation while the POs allocates mining strength based on the amount of coins held by the user
• The PoS is faster and performs efficiency more than the PoW which is slower and less efficient.

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

I've entered into the bitcoin explorer and I'll show I indicated the hash related to the last transaction.

• Firstly I entered into the bitcoin explorer page and platform
• I clicked on the menu bar at the top right of the screen and there are options brought out while I click on the explorer option

• I scrolled down to the latest transactions and note they are updated almost every second and I click on the latest hash
• The hash shows its details and as we see it's a hash with a receipt of 2.4992192 BTC including its date time and the transaction fee

screenshots from blockchain.com

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.

An Altcoin season could be seen as a financial period mostly 3months or more, when the top altcoins outperform bitcoin. The Altcoins represent other sub crypto currencies that aren't bitcoin and in a season, where they tend to yield more profit than bitcoin, it's altcoin season.

For example in a situation where Ripple outperforms Bitcoin and holders of ripple yield more profit than bitcoin holders over a period of time, it's said to be an altcoin season.
We could deduce, from this that the bitcoin dominance ratio is the determinant for recognizing an altcoin season

• As per the coin desk, we could see the bitcoin dominance ratio at about 44% and this entails that a drop from over 60% from last year to this now shows that this is altcoin season.

• The last altcoin season begun 5 months ago around April as we saw its dominance drop below 50% for the first time for over 3 years now

• I'll be talking about two coins and their growth in most recent season, they include :

Chain link :

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Chain link could be seen as one altcoin that has been a great watch to earn asset bringing external data to smart contracts and then the contracts on the other hand act on other asset worths, world happenings etc.

screenshot from link

The chain link, like we see in this three month backdated chat have been great in performance, hitting Bullish lines and every investor of chain link tokens would be heavy on profits now
Chainlink Price could be seen at $26.73
Trading Volume 24h :$881,589,999.84
Volume / Market Cap 0.07181
Market Dominance 0.53%

Uniswap :

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The Uniswap protocol could be seen as another market great performing coin and has a live Uniswap price today of $25.06 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $361,677,219 USD. The current CoinMarketCap ranking is #12, with a live market cap of $15,325,612,077 USD.

screenshot from link

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.

• First of all I will be showing a screenshot of my binance verified account

screenshot from binance

• I will be making a purchase of the chillz coin, go to market and search chz to usdt pair then click and click on buy

screenshot from binance

• I will be purchasing CHZ worth of $20

screenshot from binance

I chose the chiliz because it's nature of purchasing fan tokens in entertainment and sports industry.

Moreso I'm an ardent football fan and the association of this token with several football teams like PSG, AC Milan etc is a good one since I can purchase fan tokens of these teams with them

• The purpose behind the is creating of fan tokens effective markets for entertainment and sports industries and in the same way allowing for its users to trade fan tokens

• Chiliz was founded by Dreyfus Alexandre who is the Ceo of Socios and Chiliz

• Chiliz all time high is $0.87863 and current price is around $0.3296

Below are the screenshots of some details about the chiliz

screenshots from link

CONCLUSION

Finally the work done is an expression of our understanding of the lesson and shows bitcoin's dominance, including other cryoto currencies and their effect on the general market cap and prices.
Consensus mechanisms have also been discussed and I explained the types and their differences. I hope to express my understanding through this

Best regards
@imagen