Everything You Need to Know About the Cryptocurrencies

bitcoinIf you feel that you missed the opportunity to get fully into the world of Bitcoin, there are other digital currencies to choose from. Altcoin Sidekick is a place where you will get all kind of latest news and updates on the blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

What is a cryptocurrency?

In general, a cryptocurrency is digital money that uses a type of encryption to protect transactions. You can mine a cryptocurrency, which involves using a computer to solve increasingly difficult equations. These equations are necessary to verify the transactions and, in exchange, the miner obtains digital money. The records of the transactions created in this way are called blocks, which brings us to the second key detail: the chain of blocks, better known simply as “blockchain”.

A chain of blocks is, essentially, a book of transactions created from blocks. It is public and decentralized, so any change is visible to everyone. The blockchain technology was originally built for Bitcoin, but in theory, it could be used for anything from administering medical records to voting.
After knowing all this, these are some of the most important cryptocurrencies that you could have heard about, and how they differ from Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Bitcoin Cash was created from a Bitcoin fork that occurred in August 2017, which established two different currencies. The objective was to accelerate transactions by increasing the size of the Bitcoin Cash blocks, which also facilitates their growth.
Bitcoin Cash has not replaced Bitcoin, but it has achieved considerable value. The popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase added support to Bitcoin Cash at the end of December, although the measure brought with it different claims that forced the company to temporarily suspend the new feature

Litecoin (LTC)

Litecoin was created in 2011 by Charlie Lee, an MIT graduate, former Google employee and former engineering director at Coinbase. It works in a similar way to Bitcoin, but it has a maximum number of coins that can be mined. It is also possible to create Litecoin blocks faster: one every 2.5 minutes, instead of one every 10 minutes in the case of Bitcoin.
The purpose of Litecoin is to be a more expendable version of Bitcoin. However, it has become in a short time another attractive investment for cryptocurrency speculators. Currently, the Litecoin is valued at just under 250 dollars.

Ether (ETH)

The Ethereum platform and its currency, Ether, were originally proposed in 2013 and launched in 2015. It works in a similar way to Bitcoin but is also focused on smart contracts (agreements that are imposed by code and not by laws). Ether can be used to manage contracts between people, create multiple signature accounts in which the majority needs to sign before being able to access the funds, and other purposes.
Bitcoin currently has support for some smart contracts, including those needed to transfer money between people, but it is still very limited. Ethereum, on the other hand, allows people to write their own contracts.

Where can I use a bitcoin?

Nowadays you can buy almost everything you want using bitcoin. You can pay for tickets on Expedia, buy computers on Dell.com or newegg.com, furniture, and household items on Overstock.com and even buy directly on amazon.com with a discount of up to 20%.

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