Digital currency is any currency, money, or money-like asset that is primarily managed, stored or exchanged on digital computer systems, especially over the internet. Types of digital currencies include cryptocurrency, virtual currency and central bank digital currency. Digital currency may be recorded on a distributed database on the internet, a centralized electronic computer database owned by a company or bank, within digital files or even on a stored-value card.
HTC Corporation or High Tech Computer Corporation, is a Taiwanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Xindian District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. Founded in 1997, HTC began as an original design manufacturer and original equipment manufacturer, designing and manufacturing laptop computers.
A digital wallet, also known as an e-wallet, is an electronic device, online service, or software program that allows one party to make electronic transactions with another party bartering digital currency units for goods and services. This can include purchasing items either online or at the point of sale in a brick and mortar store, using either mobile payment or using a laptop or other personal computer. Money can be deposited in the digital wallet prior to any transactions or, in other cases, an individual's bank account can be linked to the digital wallet. Users might also have their driver's license, health card, loyalty card(s) and other ID documents stored within the wallet. The credentials can be passed to a merchant's terminal wirelessly via near field communication (NFC).
Bitcoin is a protocol which implements a highly available, public, permanent, and decentralized ledger. In order to add to the ledger, a user must prove they control an entry in the ledger. The protocol specifies that the entry indicates an amount of a token, bitcoin with a minuscule b. The user can update the ledger, assigning some of their bitcoin to another entry in the ledger. Because the token has characteristics of money, it can be thought of as a digital currency.
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It is a decentralized system for verifying that the parties to a transaction have the money they claim to have, eliminating the need for traditional intermediaries, such as banks, when funds are being transferred between two entities.
Blockchain.com is a cryptocurrency financial services company. The company began as the first Bitcoin blockchain explorer in 2011 and later created a cryptocurrency wallet that accounted for 28% of bitcoin transactions between 2012 and 2020. It also operates a cryptocurrency exchange and provides institutional markets lending business and data, charts, and analytics.
A blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of records (blocks) that are securely linked together via cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. The timestamp proves that the transaction data existed when the block was created. Since each block contains information about the previous block, they effectively form a chain, with each additional block linking to the ones before it. Consequently, blockchain transactions are irreversible in that, once they are recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without altering all subsequent blocks.
Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software, Inc. based on the Chromium web browser. Brave is a privacy-focused browser, which automatically blocks online advertisements and website trackers in its default settings. It also provides users the choice to turn on optional ads that pay users for their attention in the form of Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) cryptocurrency. Users can then send contributions to websites and content creators, which support BAT in the form of tips along with the ability to keep the cryptocurrency they earned.
Gridcoin is an open source cryptocurrency which securely rewards volunteer computing performed on the BOINC network. Originally developed to support SETI@home, it became the platform for many other applications in areas as diverse as medicine, molecular biology, mathematics, linguistics, climatology, environmental science, and astrophysics.
Cardano is a public blockchain platform. It is open-source and decentralized, with consensus achieved using proof of stake. It can facilitate peer-to-peer transactions with its internal cryptocurrency, ADA.
A cryptocurrency wallet is a device, physical medium, program or a service which stores the public and/or private keys for cryptocurrency transactions. In addition to this basic function of storing the keys, a cryptocurrency wallet more often also offers the functionality of encrypting and/or signing information. Signing can for example result in executing a smart contract, a cryptocurrency transaction, identification or legally signing a 'document'.
Cryptocurrency and crime describes notable examples of cybercrime related to theft of cryptocurrencies and some of the methods or security vulnerabilities commonly exploited. Cryptojacking is a form of cybercrime specific to cryptocurrencies that has been used on websites to hijack a victim's resources and use them for hashing and mining cryptocurrencies.
IOTA is an open-source distributed ledger and cryptocurrency designed for the Internet of things (IoT). It uses a directed acyclic graph to store transactions on its ledger, motivated by a potentially higher scalability over blockchain based distributed ledgers. IOTA does not use miners to validate transactions, instead, nodes that issue a new transaction on the network must approve two previous transactions. Transactions can therefore be issued without fees, facilitating microtransactions. The network currently achieves consensus through a coordinator node, operated by the IOTA Foundation. As the coordinator is a single point of failure, the network is currently centralized.
A blockchain is a shared database that records transactions between two parties in an immutable ledger. Blockchain documents and confirms pseudonymous ownership of all transactions in a verifiable and sustainable way. After a transaction is validated and cryptographically verified by other participants or nodes in the network, it is made into a "block" on the blockchain. A block contains information about the time the transaction occurred, previous transactions, and details about the transaction. Once recorded as a block, transactions are ordered chronologically and cannot be altered. This technology rose to popularity after the creation of Bitcoin, the first application of blockchain technology, which has since catalyzed other cryptocurrencies and applications.
Diem was a permissioned blockchain-based stablecoin payment system proposed by the American social media company Meta Platforms. The plan also includes a private currency implemented as a cryptocurrency.
Decentralized finance offers financial instruments without relying on intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks by using smart contracts on a blockchain. DeFi platforms allow people to lend or borrow funds from others, speculate on price movements on assets using derivatives, trade cryptocurrencies, insure against risks, and earn interest in savings-like accounts. DeFi uses a layered architecture and highly composable building blocks. Some applications promote high interest rates but are subject to high risk. Coding errors and hacks have been common in DeFi.
MetaMask is a software cryptocurrency wallet used to interact with the Ethereum blockchain. It allows users to access their Ethereum wallet through a browser extension or mobile app, which can then be used to interact with decentralized applications. MetaMask is developed by ConsenSys Software Inc., a blockchain software company focusing on Ethereum-based tools and infrastructure.
Solana is a blockchain platform that was founded in 2020. Solana's total market cap was US$55 billion in January 2022, however by the end of 2022 this market cap had fallen in value by 95 percent. The company has been subject to several outages and a class-action lawsuit regarding the sale of unregistered tokens.
Colored Coins is an open-source protocol built on the Bitcoin 2.0 that allows users to represent and manipulate immutable digital resources on top of Bitcoin transactions. They are a class of methods for representing and maintaining real-world assets on the Bitcoin blockchain, which may be used to establish asset ownership. Colored coins are bitcoins with a mark on them that specifies what they may be used for. Colored coins are also considered the initial step toward NFTs built on top of the Bitcoin network.
Nervos Network is an open-source blockchain platform. It consists of multiple blockchain layers that are designed for different functions. The foundational layer is known as the Common Knowledge Base, whilst the native cryptocurrency of this layer is called CKB. This foundational layer uses a proof-of-work consensus model. Other blockchains on the platform can use proof-of-stake consenus models. Smart contracts and decentralized applications can be deployed on any layer.
