The Genesis Block - Steemit Crypto Academy Season 5 - Homework Post for Task 3

Hey guys,
I will like to welcome you all to yet another introduction course task 03 presentation. Without further ado, let get straight to the presentation.

3a) What is a Cryptocurrency?
b) What is Cryptography and how does it make cryptocurrencies secure?
c) Explore the Steem Genesis Block and Sign in as proof of completion.

Question 1. What is cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency may seem to be a new word nowadays, but it actually an old word which was derive from the word Cryptography. The word Cryptography is made up of crypto which means a secret supporter of follower and the word graph which means to write (data chart). And currency which means any valuable item such as money which facilitate transaction.

From the above meanings we can define cryptocurrency as a virtual or digital money which is protected by cryptography coding, on a decentralized blockchain network which makes it impossible to alter or false a transaction.

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Cryptocurrency been on decentralized structure means they is no central power or authority, every users is seen as equal. And also it really hard for government to interfere in its affairs.

Some advantages of Cryptocurrency are:

With the success of bitcoin in 2009, that brings the world’s attention to cryptocurrency and below are some of its advantages:

• Cryptocurrency introduce us to a new way of trading where they is no need for third party as seen in the centralized system we are use to. This means due to the absent of the third party, transaction are faster and cheaper.

• Cryptocurrency has eliminate the fear we all always have about our banks which may crash any time, because it been control by a single authority. Using blockchain ecosystem, cryptocurrency is immune to a single point of failure because all its activities is been spread over several computers.

• Investing in cryptocurrency can be very profitable. The market can rapidly increase (price pump) over a short period of time.

Like the old saying anything that has advantage will also have disadvantage while, cryptocurrency adhere to this saying.

Disadvantages of cryptocurrency are:

• Some expert has investigate and notice, even though cryptocurrency claim to be secure form tacking, it leaves a digital footprint of its transaction which can be tracked by a well define authority such as Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This bring us to the question that is it total secure from the government.

• Been decentralized and runs on blockchine network means it almost impossible to hack which makes it a secure and best way for criminal to hide their illegal funds. This reason has deteriorate the major aim of cryptocurrency.

• Still on investment. We talked about investing in cryptocurrency as a good idea but it can also be a bad one. Cryptocurrency market face price volatility so it advisable to know what you engaging yourself into before investing in cryptocurrency.

Question 2. What is cryptography and how does it makes cryptocurrencies secure?

Cryptocurrencies is now a trillion dollars market so it take a serious security to keep it safe. This is where cryptography comes in. cryptography can be define as a secure way of protecting communication and information though the process of encrypting and decrypting codes, in a way that it only the sender or receiver will be able to access to that information.

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Cryptography works through a process called cryptographic algorithms or can also be called ciphers. These ciphers are uses to encrypt and also decrypt messages form the sender to the receiver irrespective of the devices. The ciphers works with the help of a ciphers suite which uses algorithm to encrypt and another ciphers suite on the other end for decryption after been authenticated.

Question 3. Explore the steem Genesis Block and sign in as proof of completion.

I will demonstrate how to navigate the steem genesis block step by step below:

Step 1: You need to visit the steemworld site https://steemworld.org

Step 2: Click on Block Explorer.

Step 3: Click on block 1.

Step 4: Here we can see the following details about the genesis block.

Below are few important details:

• The Date and Time Stamp: 2016-03-24 17:05:00

• The Block ID: 0000000109833ce528d5bbfb3f6225b39ee10086

• The Previous ID: 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000

• The Signing Key:
  STM8GC13uCZbP44HzMLV6zPZGwVQ8Nt4Kji8PapsPiNq1BK153XTX

• The Witness: @initmin

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Signing In As A Proof Of Completion

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Step 5: I was asked to sign in as proof of completion. Inputted my user name and posting key then scroll a bit down and click on Sign In

Succesfully signed in with my user name and posting key

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Conclusion

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Cryptocurrencies is here to replace the old centralized banking system that has been around for thousands of years. And I am very sure it will success in doing that. I have answered all question base on how I understand the lecture by professor @awesononso.

_{NOTE: All unsourced images are screenshot by me on my steemworld account.}