You might not often think about the system that underlies how you spend money. If you do think about it, in every transaction, there is a middleman you trust. You swipe a card, and the card processor handles the transaction, protecting both you and the merchant against fraud. You write […]
Imagine, for a moment, you have been hired to destroy a shed and haul off the debris. You could strike out on your own with a sledgehammer and a crowbar, drag all that wood into the back of a truck, and drive it to the dump. Wouldn’t it be more […]
In altcoin jargon, you may have heard or read about a “Dapp.” Short for “decentralized app,” it sounds more intimidating than it actually is. Decentralized apps are open-source, autonomous apps that live on blockchains. To understand decentralized apps, let’s start with the example of a “centralized” app. You’re using one, […]
A bitcoin node maintains the blockchain and helps ensure transactions are swift and coins are mined. To understand a bitcoin node, think of the difference between a car radio and a citizen’s band radio. With a car radio, you can only receive signals, hearing about accidents and traffic reports before […]
Multisignature addresses are basically permission slips to make digital currency transactions and they help protect against fraud. To understand multisignature addresses, the best analogy is the signatures needed for a business check. You know how, if a business plans to write a check for a large amount of money, the […]
Want to know the difference between digital coins and tokens? This article helps explain the key distinctions.
For nearly ten years, the media has been preoccupied with news about bitcoin. Having been declared dead 144 times to date and counting, bitcoin remains a mystery that even self-described experts have found difficult to unravel. This, however, has not stopped investors from engaging in what is emerging to be […]
In December 2017, bitcoin futures were introduced on two leading derivatives exchanges in the US, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE). The approval of bitcoin futures by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has given the digital currency bitcoin the final stamp of […]
Ethereum is a blockchain platform and Ether is the token that powers the network built on that platform. The novelist L.M. Montgomery once wrote, “It’s dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other.” In the altcoin world, these misunderstandings tend to occur when trying to make sense of […]
Have you heard of “ether gas?” What is it and why do you need to understand it? Simply put, ether gas is a denomination of ether designated toward paying the cost of running a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. It is what you must pay to run an Ethereum transaction […]
