HackingTheUniverse

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SUMMARY A Market example: (our friendly neighborhood farmers market) Barter – direct exchange of goods works well at a small scale, but has limits Limited to a specific time and place No means for deferred payments Dividing some items is difficult or impossible No means for storing value Market example: we decide to create our […]

MINING The purpose of mining Production of a cryptographic journal Time delay and proof of work that serves to prevent counterfeiting Currency expansion by creating new coin as mining rewards Process A request for a new block is issued There is a block calculation competition by miners After a competition has been won, the new […]

BLOCKCHAIN A digital ledger or journal of transactions (database) Cryptographic in nature (encrypted) A shared database with write permissions for everybody Validity of transactions is determined cryptographically instead of by a central authority Cryptographic nature Each transaction is combined with the hash value from the previous transaction and a new hash value is calculated Tamper […]

HASHING ALGORITHMS Hash = one way encryption Uses a mathematical formula (or algorithm) Maps data of variable size to a unique fixed length string Outputs a string called the “hash” or “digest” The same input always produces the same output It cannot be reversed (cryptographic) There are no collisions (no duplicates from different inputs) Hashing […]

CURRENCY BASICS Barter systems: Involve direct exchange of goods and services Have no intermediate token like money There are some difficulties: The barter process needs a coincidence of two exchange partners (same time, same place) Some trading goods cannot be easily divided into small parts Deferred payments are problematic Storing wealth is not practical Establishing […]

Cyber currency is a form of money that is based on a cybernetic journalling system. Most current forms of currency are no longer based on something like a rare and valuable metal (gold or silver), but the trust that the national economy underlying the currency is solid and reliable. We need to have the confidence […]

Bitcoin is a cyber currency that can be used to exchange credit in the same way we use money. In order to exchange credit, we need to establish a level of trust that the token of credit is actually worth something. Small objects that have their own value can be used, such as jewels or […]

In October of 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto (presumably a psuedonym) published a paper proposing the use of a peer to peer network doing “proof-of-work” calculations to establish a form of electronic cash. This became known as BITCOIN. All fiat currencies rely on some form of trust to maintain stability. This trust is often based on a […]

Bitcoin is a virtual currency that is both established and safeguarded by mathematical techniques. We understand that most common currencies in use today are no longer backed by something like the gold standard. This means they maintain their value through a level of trust in the national economy that they represent. Bitcoin attempts to establish […]

Economic systems are often a blend of social and political ideologies that form a framework of principles to guide economic production, distribution of goods and consumption. That framework is essentially a system of ethics that is being applied to a group in a specific subject area. In primitive economic systems, which are generally smaller, production […]