what is cryptocurrency
What is cryptocurrency
Jess is a Senior Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include asking everyone in the office what they’re having for tea, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert Vector and bitmap images. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021.
When it all kicked off, Welch went of the grid and what she did during that time was pretty simple: “I would see my friends. I would go out and eat. That’s really about it. I don’t ever get out and do much when I’m home. I like being by myself.”
The coin, which was reportedly never registered with The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), nosedived within hours, with Bloomberg Law reporting the digital coin lost more than 90 percent of its value during that time.
What is cryptocurrency
According to blockchain data company Chainalysis, criminals laundered US$8,600,000,000 worth of cryptocurrency in 2021, up by 30% from the previous year. The data suggests that rather than managing numerous illicit havens, cybercriminals make use of a small group of purpose built centralized exchanges for sending and receiving illicit cryptocurrency. In 2021, those exchanges received 47% of funds sent by crime linked addresses. Almost $2.2bn worth of cryptocurrencies was embezzled from DeFi protocols in 2021, which represents 72% of all cryptocurrency theft in 2021.
Node owners are either volunteers, those hosted by the organization or body responsible for developing the cryptocurrency blockchain network technology, or those who are enticed to host a node to receive rewards from hosting the node network.
The validity of each cryptocurrency’s coins is provided by a blockchain. A blockchain is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a hash pointer as a link to a previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of the data. A blockchain is “an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way”. For use as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which requires collusion of the network majority.
The rewards paid to miners increase the supply of the cryptocurrency. By making sure that verifying transactions is a costly business, the integrity of the network can be preserved as long as benevolent nodes control a majority of computing power. The verification algorithm requires a lot of processing power, and thus electricity, in order to make verification costly enough to accurately validate the public blockchain. Not only do miners have to factor in the costs associated with expensive equipment necessary to stand a chance of solving a hash problem, they must further consider the significant amount of electrical power in search of the solution. Generally, the block rewards outweigh electricity and equipment costs, but this may not always be the case.
A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it.
Cryptocurrency shiba inu
It cannot be denied that SHIB has been a good investment for many in the past, including the wallet that bought $8000 of it in August 2020 and saw its value appreciate into the billions the following year. That said, almost every major cryptocurrency has experienced this phenomenon.
The BONE token is a governance token with a total supply of 250 million. BONE holders can propose and vote on changes to the Shiba protocol through the Doggy DAO, which stands for decentralized autonomous organization and refers to an organization managed by computer-based rules instead of a single controlling member. In addition, BONE is used to reward liquidity providers on ShibaSwap’s platform.
For example, if you had purchased 10 million SHIB at $0.00001143 on Feb. 27, 2024, you would have paid $114.30. At market close on Sep. 3, 2024, its price was $0.00001308—you’d have gained $16.50. But if you bought $10 billion SHIB ($114,300), your earnings would be much higher—$16,500. But imagine if SHIBs price dropped by $0.0001 after you purchased 10 billion SHIB for $144,300—you’d be left with $14,300 worth of SHIB.
In comparison, only a single Bitcoin address holds more than 1% of the BTC supply, and just three more have over half a percent. This makes Bitcoin very decentralized, and one of these wallets being emptied may not result in a catastrophe for the currency.
Working both for and against SHIB is its 1 quadrillion token supply. However, investors enjoy seeing that they own huge numbers of a token, as opposed to Bitcoin, where owning even one whole coin is impossible for many.
The burn address Vitalik Buterin used to destroy 40% of the SHIB supply is an outlier, but the next biggest wallet holds 6% of the supply (60 trillion SHIB), followed by two wallets with over 3% and another pair with over 2%. Thirteen wallets in total have more than 1% of the total supply.