Greetings steemians
Welcome to week 5 of this season's homework which was taught by prof @imagen on the topic Bitcoin trajectory. And here will be providing answers to the questions which were given as will be seen below.

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Question 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.

Bitcoin Halving

The Bitcoin network is a decentralized finance blockchain that was created in 2009 whereby its transactions are carried out in a peer-2-peer form and its transactions are verified in a process known as mining with several network nodes or users called miners which process and validate transactions using very large computers so as to solve the mathematical computing irregular values of the various blocks in a system known as proof of work(PoW). These Bitcoin miners get their rewards from new Bitcoin for validating and verifying transactions in a process known as Bitcoin Halving.

Bitcoin halving is a process whereby the reward of Bitcoin transactions are divided in half thereby reducing the total new available Bitcoin in circulation. Bitcoin halving occurs after every 210,000 blocks once they have been created on the Bitcoin network which occurs after 4 years when the supply is exhausted. The Bitcoin has undergone halving three (3) times since its creation in 2009 in the following year's 2012, 2016 and May 11^th 2020.

• Bitcoin’s first Halving

Bitcoin’s first halving occurred in 2012 where its miners' reward was reduced from 50BTC to 25BTC per its block mined.

• Bitcoin’s Second Halving

After 4 years of its first halving, in 2016 Bitcoin had it's second halved with the miners reward reduced again from 25BTC to 12.5BTC per block mined.

• Bitcoin’s Third Halving

After the halved of 2016, the next halved of Bitcoin occurred on the 11^th Of May 2020 with the miner's reward reduced from 12.5BTC to 6.25BTC per block mined.

Current Bitcoin Mined

The current Bitcoin reward receives by its miners after the 11^th Of May 2020 halving is at 6.25 BTC.

The Next Bitcoin Halve

With all the information above we can notice the next Bitcoin halving will occur in 2024 which will be 4years after exhausting 21,000,000 BTC which is the total supply. And these next halves will see the miner’s reward being reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block mined.

Two Halved Cryptocurrencies

• Ethereum Halving

Similar to Bitcoin, the Ethereum network has undergone halving and with the last halving occurring on 5^th August 2021 which is called the The London Hard Fork and it new code affecting the EIp-1559 which is a change of code that will remove some Eth and it's new close targeting a deflation reduction unnecessarily reducing Eth search by removing it from the circulation thereby making miners reward to be low and difficult to mine.

• Litecoin Halving

Litecoin was created by Charlie Lee in the year 2011 and in August of 2015 it underwent its first-ever halve and then 2019 which reduce its reward from 50 LTC to 25 LTC and then from 25 LTC to 12.5 LTC. The Litecoin miners receive their mining rewards after 840,000 blocks have been created which occurs after every 4 years thereby seeing it next halve to occur in the year 2023 seeing it drop from 12.5 LTC to 6.125 LTC.

Question 2

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

Consensus Mechanism

Consensus Mechanism refers to an accepted set of protocols or standards which agrees to the success of a transaction (data) or a blockchain state (network state) by connecting the computers that are connected to the blockchain. This mechanism comes as a result of the decentralization nature of blockchains where the blockchain’s reliability, security, integrity, and transparency depends on many independent computers which run on the distributed ledger software.

This consensus mechanism works for various blockchain activities which include mining, governance, staking and regulations to name a few. With different types of algorithms consensus, including the proof of work (PoW), proof of stake(PoS), proof of history (PoH), proof of brain (PoB) and so on.

Proof of Work (PoW)

This is a type of algorithm that requires a work effort to be done on a blockchain by its users in order to gain more rights. The work required includes involving the verification and confirmation of on-chain transactions by miners who use very heavy computers to solve difficult mathematical computations of irregular transaction blocks. This consensus mechanism is very effective due to its high usage of electricity resulting from the usage of very big computers for mining so at to meet up with the blockchain activities with thousands of transactions to process and verify.

This process takes about 10minutes order to process a transaction thereby making it slow as compared to the number of transactions that takes place in the Blockchain network causing congestion and traffic invalidating a transaction.

Examples of blockchains that uses the PoW consensus algorithm includes Litecoin, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Dash and so on.

Proof of Stake (PoS)

This is a type of consensus algorithm whereby the responsibilities of the blockchain are distributed depending on the number of assets that a user or delegator holds thereby allowing more rights and power to selected users. It was created as a response to the issue relating to the PoW algorithm which is the high cost of the operation and its high usage of energy.

Here, users vote a percentage of their assets to a selected delegator or user and this user makes use of the staked assets in order to make use of some responsibilities that works better in developing and functionality like processing transactions, governance, implanting new protocol and creating guidelines.

Examples of blockchains that uses the PoS consensus algorithm includes Polkadot, Cardano, EOSIO.

Question 3

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

Bitcoin Explorer

For this question, I will be using Bitcoin explorer.

By visiting the explorers official site in order to access the latest Bitcoin transactions.

Screenshot from Blockchain.com

Exploring the hash of the latest transaction, we see the details on the screenshot below

Screenshot from Blockchain.com

Hash: f22dc4132403ca5f41dace54fcf9080bb156a7391b766076bccfa398f32fd094.

Block: Mempool.

Total input: 0.00682456 BTC.

Total output: 0.00678904 BTC.

Value when transacted: $375.73.

Fee: 0.00003552 BTC.

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. Give reasons for your answer.

AltCoin Season

This is a period within the crypto ecosystem whereby the value of crypto assets in the market increase excluding Bitcoin. This increase comes as a result of the supremacy of Bitcoin in the whole crypto market. In the AltCoin season, Bitcoin loses some of its control in the market to better-performing coins. Analysts sometimes refer to this AltCoin season as an event that happens when about 75% of other crypto assets increase their value more than Bitcoin within a month or 90 days or an interval of 1 year.

Current Season

The release as per the Blockchain centre’s Office Site we are in the Bitcoin Season with the AltCoin season index standing at 57 implying that the Bitcoin season index is at 55 while the AltCoin year index will stand at 59 indeed implying the year can end as an AltCoin year.

Screenshot from Site

Last AltCoin Season

The last AltCoin season was between March 25^th and June 21^th 2021 wherein it saw the Altcoin index changed from 73 to 93% with the peak of the season staying on May 18^th 2021 and the AltCoin index registering a high record of 98%.

Screenshot FromSite

AltCoin Growth

From the data released by the Blockchain centre’s Site some top-performing AltCoins of the last season realized great growth with large percentages and the AXS provided the highest performance with a percentage of 717.9%.

Screenshot From Site

• BCHA TOKEN

This token was created on November 15th 2020. The BCHA is the native token for Bitcoin Cash ABC which is a crypto asset created or produce from the Hard Forking of Bitcoin. Before the AltCoin season, this token had a price of about $33 and at the time of the altcoin season, it hit an all-time high price of $400 thereby representing its 640.2% increase.

Screenshot From TradingView

Screenshot From CoinMarketCap

Rank : #203
Price : $196.19
Market Cap : $3,643,739,830
Diluted Market Cap : $4,119,897,804
Traded Volume : $74,858

• Luna

During the period of the last AltCoin, Luna experienced a percentage growth of 427.1% is among the most performing Altcoins during the last season. It has an all-time high of $50 and it is #11 ranked on the CoinMarketCap.

Screenshot From TradingView

Screenshot From CoinMarketCap

Rank : #11
Price : $41.54
Market Cap : $16,696,211,379
Diluted Market Cap : $40,503,332,998
Traded Volume : $1,465,439,979

Question 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.

TROY TOKEN

Will be using my verified Binance exchange to show this trade.

I proceed by logging into my Binance wallet app on my mobile phone

Screenshot From Binance

We move on by clicking on trade so as to access all listed assets on Binance

Screenshot From Binance

Then we search for the TROYUSDT then choose your desired pair after which we click on buy

Screenshot From Binance

We then select the appropriate details, and place the transaction type, in this case, is to Buy then select the trade execution type as Market then enter the amount of Troy to be purchased in USDT from the balance then click on buy

Screenshot From Binance

Screenshot From Binance

Afterwards, the transaction history will be recorded on the exchange account

Screenshot From Binance

Why Troy Token

I chose the TROY Token because it's a project that aims to make the smart hybrid asset management that operates on a firmed hold to achieve profits, security and also to urge serve. The token improves its liquidity by bringing together major centralized exchanges, liquidity pools thereby bringing them to one universal pool.

I selected this token because it's easy for its users to claim rewards and have easy access to moving them in and out freely. This token gives power for its users to be able to make decisions by revealing of data matrix such as the blockchain data.

This project will be launching a couple of trading strategies such as Arbitrage and trend tracking strategies for investors and also for its users to trade easily.

Purpose of the project

The developers aim to create this project is to achieve an efficient circulation of cryptocurrencies worldwide by offering brokerage to crypto-traders with exceptional trading strategies such as Trend tracking and Arbitrage strategies.

Founders and Developers

The TROY token was founded by Xu Yingkai in 2017.

All-Time High

The success of the Troy token has seen the token seen an all-time high value of $0.03874 with a percentage rise of 52.61% which occurred on September 20^th 2021 which is practically 17days ago.

CoinMarketCap

TROY Token Current Price

This token has a current value of $0.01723 with this price gotten from the CoinMarketCap and its rank number #312 on the website.

CoinMarketCap

Conclusion

Bitcoin halving is the sequential reduction of the amount of Bitcoin available in circulation at an interval of four years. And Bitcoin has seen this halving process occurred 3 times and is preparing to the 4th which will occur in 2024 which will see its miners rewards reduced from 50 BTC to 25 BTC to 12.5 BTC and now 6.25 BTC and in 2024 it will be reduced to 3.125 BTC on it's next halved.

A consensus mechanism is a method used in a blockchain so as to verify a transaction, authenticity and also improve the protocol of a blockchain with every algorithm created to improve the previous mechanism.

The developers of the TROY Token aimed at creating the project so as to achieve an efficient circulation of cryptocurrencies worldwide by offering brokerage to crypto-traders with exceptional trading strategies such as Trend tracking and Arbitrage strategies.

Thanks, professor @imagen for such a great topic for improving our knowledge and understanding of Bitcoin and the consensus mechanism.

Cc: @imagen