Greetings beloved steemians, I believe we all are doing great. Today I will be presenting task 3 of the introductory crypto classes and I will be answering the third question of the task.
A. WHAT IS CRYPTOCURRENCY?
B. WHAT IS CRYPTOGRAPHY AND HOW DOES IT MAKE CRYPTOCURRENCIES SECURE?
C. EXPLORE THE STEEM GENESIS BLOCK AND SIGNIN AS A PROOF OF COMPLETION.
a. What is a Cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency is the virtual currency that has no central authority, functions as a makeup of codes representing an online store in the form of coins on a distributed ledger, it is secured, can’t be subjected to manipulation and comes from the word “Cryptography” which is subdivided into crypto and graph. Cryptocurrency is like an online monetary value just as we have our bank notes and coins used for daily transactions but unlike our physical currency, the cryptocurrency is based on Blockchain technology and its security is ensured by cryptography.
In 2008 the first cryptocurrency was created and published by Satoshi Nakamoto in the name of bitcoin and mined the first block of the bitcoin Blockchain called Genesis Block in 2009 beginning thee era of crypto currencies. This cryptocurrency is now the most valuable (compared to others) and its value may increase with time. Today crypto currency is becoming popular as many people are slowly joining the digital market or world. Cryptocurrency is a win-win once you have a better understanding on how to use it for trade or whatever purposes, transactions are a lot faster, it is very much secured, it can be swapped with other currencies at a low cost rate and although it cannot be touched physically it can always be exchanged with any local currency for physical use.
b. What is cryptography and how does it make crypto currencies secure?
As we mentioned above, cryptography is a combination of the words crypto meaning secret and graph which means to write. Cryptography is a technical and advanced type of encryption (to conceal information by means of a code) used to secure and facilitate cryptocurrency transactions without the need of a 3rd party.
What makes crypto currencies very secure through cryptography is the fact that it uses a set of public keyes (address of a wallet) and private keys (used to sign transactions) together. That is the public keys encrypt messages or coins sent to an address which are only decrypted by the private keys preventing any theft of coins on the Blockchain.
Source
c. Explore the steem genesis block and sign in as a proof of completion.
Steem genesis block is found in one is the steem tools precisely the one studied in Achievement 5 task 1(Steemworld.org created by @steemchiller). This block is the very first block that was mined on the Blockchain and like its name Genesis none existed before it. So let’s follow the steps below while we explore this feature:
Step 1; Enter steemworld.org on your search bar and when you are at the main page, click on “Block explorer”
Step 2; After clicking on block explorer a page will open with a sub-page titled block number. Enter 1 and click ok
Step 3; After clicking OK the details of the block will appear including the timestamp, Block ID, Previous ID, signing key and witness.
Step 4; Click on the sign in option at the top right end, then enter your username without @ and private posting key then click OK to sign in.
Step 5; You will notice that your username and profile picture have now appeared at the top right hand side of the page. You can sign-out anytime.
I am very grateful for the lecture from prof. @awesononso which helped alot in this post
Cc.
@awesononso