Hello dear intermediate students. I am glad to be participating at this level this week. I will be attending to lessons presented by Prof @imagen on Bitcoins's Trajectory.

Question 1

How many times has halving been performed on Bitcoin? When is the next one expected? What is the current amount that Bitcoin miners receive? Name at least 2 cryptocurrencies that perform or have performed halving.

Bitcoin Halving

We cannot just talk about Bitcoin Halving without briefly highlighting some of the important keynotes that brought about it. Bitcoin came into emergence in 2009 with a whitepaper clearly stating its rewards scheme to its miners and other modus operandi. It adopted the PoW consensus mechanism that allows that Miners compete to verify and validate a block with anticipated reward.

One of the objectives of halving is to bring about uniformity in coin frequency relative to the maximum supply of the given coin. Also is to reduce the supply of new coins into circulation which hitherto creates scarcity and upward value of the coin in trade.

So, this was no different in the Bitcoin protocol as this concept of Halving was incorporated to regulate and streamline its reward system as well the number of newly created Bitcoin that goes into circulation. Hence this was observed with a fifty percent (50%) reduction of the already existing reward scheme in place before the halving execution. And this was done in such a way that a number of blocks are needed to must have been created on the blockchain; which stood at 210,000blocks and hence should happen after every four (4) years.

Average block creation time = 10mins
Block creation per Hour = 6 blocks/hour
Block creation in a day (24hours) = 6blocks x 24hrs = 144blocks/day
Since 210,000 are required to initiate halving...
Therefore Expected Halving = (210,000 blocks / 144blocks )/365days
Halving = 1458.333/365 = 3.99 ........ 4years.

Therefore since Bitcoin was launched in 2009, it saw its first halving in 2012. Miners before this year are rewarded 50BTC for every block created in the blockchain, hence the First Halving was observed to reduce this reward to 25BTC.

Second Halving occurred four (4) years later which was in 2016 with the already existing 25BTC/Block reward halved to 12.5BTC as the new reward for every newly created block in the blockchain.

We also have the Third Halving coming after four years which was the year 2020 with the already existing 12.5BTC/block reward halved to 6.25BTC reward/Block.

Therefore the Bitcoin blockchain has witnessed THREE HALVING to date with first, second, and third, all occurred in 2012, 2016, and 2020 respectively.

When is the next one Expected?

The next Bitcoin Halving is expected four years after the third occurrence in 2020. That is to say, we should be expecting the next Bitcoin Halving in 2024 with the existing 6.25BTC reward /block further reduced to 3.125BTC/block.

What is the current amount that Bitcoin miners receive

This can be generated from the last halving that occurred last year (2020). Precisely the third halving with the current 6.25BTC reward/block.

Name at least 2 cryptocurrencies that perform or have performed halving.

a. Litcoin (LTC)

This Altcoin was launched in 2011 with resemblance with that of the Bitcoin except for its scalability differences. Block is mined and created every 2.5mins which is 1/4 times what is obtainable with the Bitcoin of 10mins. In its protocol, blocks are mined/created averagely every 2.5mins and 840,000 blocks are expected to must have been mined and added to the blockchain before the anticipated Halving.

This simply translates into the same 4 years also obtainable in Bitcoin. And from the Litcoin whitepaper, we have a Maximum Supply of 84,000,000 LTC to be released into the market. This represents a total of 33 Halvings required to mine the maximum Litcoin supply.

When it was launched in 2011, the block reward was set at 50LTC /Block, and after the first and second Halvings in 2015 and 2019, its block reward was reduced to 25LTC and 12.5LTC respectively. The next anticipated Third halving is to occur in 2023 with a block reward of 6.25LTC.

ZCASH (ZEC)

Its emergence from a Hard fork from Bitcoin which was launched in 2016 to provides its users with more privacy features. It has the same Halving periods as Bitcoin with 4 years of occurrence and a 21 million Max supply of the ZEC tokens. It started with a Block reward of 6.25 ZEC with the first halving in 2020 which reduced this value to 3.125 ZEC. The first halving which occurred in 2020 was observed to remove the founders' reward.

Question 2

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

Consensus Mechanisms are protocols adopted in blockchain-driven systems for the sole purpose of agreeing collectively on the authenticity and validity of data that passes through the blockchain relative to the available and connected nodes therein. Due to the uniqueness of the blockchain technology which mostly comes as decentralized with other variant features different from the centralized systems, nodes are required to smoothen the process via the adopted mechanism for the given blockchain.

For every adopted Consensus mechanism adopted by different blockchain systems, there are connected nodes that are drivers and verifiers of the process. These are some of the consensus mechanisms we have at present, Proof of Work, Proof of Stake, Delegated Proof of Stake, Proof of Capacity/Space, Poof of Brain, etc.

How do Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Staking differ

No	Proof of Work	Proof of Stake
1.	High energy requirement needed for mining and block creation	There are very little amount of energy needs in the Proof of Stake protocol
2.	Presence of Miners who mine blocks in its protocols	Presence of Validators who forge or Mint Blocks
3.	Miners compete to be the first in solving complex puzzles so as to earn rewards	System mechanism assigns minting of the block to validators randomly.
4.	Capital intensive in assembling or setting up a PoW mining rig	Requires relatively cheaper fees to be a validators
5.	Rewards are evening distributed in system	Validators with higher stakes are rewarded more than the others as they have the opportunity to been selected by the system more
6	Discourages hoarding of token	Encourages hoarding of the token as this is the requirement of being a validator

Question 3

Enter the Bitcoin browser and enter the hash corresponding to the last transaction. Show Screenshot.

This can be quickly explored by going through the Blockchain.com/explorer site. From the landing page, you will have the lask block and lask transaction sub headings in view.

When you click on the last Transaction Hash, these are the details we found below which have all the activities that happened therein.

Last transaction Hash - 75963313255b2906ddfbf60cef667a15af2fb5de07f5304b7cd75b4602a44123
Other details generated from the Last Transaction Hash include;
Total Input - 0.00293075 BTC
Total Output - 0.00291499 BTC
Fees - 0.00001576 BTC
Value when transacted - $157.98

Question 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. Reason your answer.

AltCoin Season

This is a period that sees the better performance of all other coins other than the Bitcoin in the cryptocurrency space. All of these coins increase in value and hence depicting the Dominance value of the Bitcoin in the market. Therefore in the Altcoin season, Bitcoin loses some percentage value during this period which is seen to compensate for the already low dominance value of Altcoins in the market, hence there is an incremental upward Dominance Altcoin value.

Most importantly, experts believed that a quick way to detect an Altcoin season is simply when the top 50 altcoins perform well than the Bitcoin over a given period of 30/60/90 days or one year. And this performance can be traced when altcoins performance is seen above the bands 75% level.

Are we currently in Altcoin Season

From market performance, we can clearly see that it is Bitcoin season. The price value of Bitcoin has since been on the bull side. The performance of bitcoin is notably doing better than the altcoins as observed from the screenshot below as we can see the performance set at bands 51% for the month and at bands 61% for the year. Therefore we may likely not experience another Altcoin season for the year.

When was the last Altcoin Season

A typical representation of this, is what we can deduce from the screenshot which shows that the last Altcoin season was observed when this reading was projected to be above the band 75%. Therefore the last Altcoin was captured between 26th March 2021 to 20th June 2021.

Altcoin Growth

From the Blockchain.com/explorer website, we can deduce the Top 50 performing Altcoins. From the ranking, I will briefly discuss the Top 2 as shown in Fig.

From the Fig above we have the following Top 2;
AXS Token
For the period under review, the price of AXS grew over 617.3% making it the second most favored in the Altcoin season. This simply means the adoption and acceptance it has received over the season by reaching an all-time high. s at the time of this Post, AXS is valued at $134 with a market Dominance of 0.36%, Market Cap of $8,255,360,495.07, and Market Rank of #24 based on Traded Volume in CoinMarketCap.

FTM Token
The FTM token is the most celebrated for the Altcoin season with an incremental growth of 956.4%. The FTM price value at the time of this post is $2.26 with a Market Dominance of 0.25%, Market Cap of $5,864,102.06, and Market Rank of #34.

Question 5

Make a purchase from your verified account of the exchange of your choice of at least 15 USD in any currency that is not in the top 25 of Cornmarket (SBD, Tron, or steam are not allowed). Why did you choose this currency? What is the goal or purpose behind this project? Who are its founders/developers? Indicate ATH of the coin and its current price. Reason your answers. Show screenshots.

INVESTING IN TELLOR (TRB)

a. Launch your Binance App
b. I will be using the TRB, therefore I will click on the TRB icon
c. From the interface, I will select the pair with USDT/TRB and click on it
d. This would take me to the trades option. I will select the BUY option since I'm exchanging my USDT to TRB
e. I will select the Market option, click on the 100%/Max option.
f. Then click on the BUY TRB button
g. That was successful, which can be confirmed from the Spot Wallet.

Overview of Tellor

The Tellor (TRB) is an Oracle token designed for the decentralized DeFi dApp protocols. It was launched sometime in 2019 specifically to tackle and resolve oracle-related problems bothering on integrating the outside realities with the Cryptocurrency space.

It was driven by a team of US co-founded by Brenda Loyal and Michael Zemrose. Brendan Loya is the VP and lead developer at Daxia who are a specialist in the field of Blockchain, scalability, and data science whereas Michael Zemrose also worked in the same Daxia as chief strategy and masters in SMEs all in the US.

The Tellor is observed to allow DeFis to receive high-value data for smart contracts which incorporate miners to align through the PoW consensus mechanism. Most importantly, it was built on the Ethereum Blockchain with TRB as its native token in rewarding miners.

This Already mined data by miners can also be needed by third parties who still further reward miners. For every 10mins in the protocol, a challenge is given and the Oracle selects the best-attended query for possible rewards. Selection is made after submissions have been all done and thereafter validation executed.

We have to also know that, holders of TRB can as well make disputes on the validity of mined value by a miner. This can be done by paying a dispute fee and at a 24 hours interval.

As of the time of post, the value of Tellor (TRB) is $49.76 with a Circulating Supply of $1,982,485,03 TRB and a Market Cap of 98,645,059

Conclusion

Bitcoin Halving as well other Altcoins halving is a control measure put in place to regularize the frequency of rolling out new tokens into trade relative to the Max Supply of tokens. This is periodically done to reduce the rewards given to miners or validates of blocks.

On the other hand, the Consensus mechanism is protocol concepts put in place for the purpose of validating and verifying transactions before they are added to the blocks and Blockchain thereafter.

Thank you respected Prof @imagen for the homework task