The financial world is expanding and excelling at drastic rates, leading more people to seek out other ways to monetize on currency.
Cryptocurrency has taken over the financial sector, showing far greater benefits to those utilizing the payment system, boasting all the technological advancements of Blockchain technology. The world is seeing a faster, more secure and transparent option of transferring assets. Due to these needs only now being understood, many projects have made the shift to tokenization and ensuring additional opportunities. The cryptocurrency space is buzzing with ways to make more. Trading, airdrops, faucets, and bounties are a few small reward options for earning cryptocurrency. One of the more stable income positions within cryptocurrency is mining crypto. Since the beginning of cryptocurrency, that being Bitcoin, miners have always played a crucial role in adoption. There would be no cryptocurrency without mining crypto. As cryptocurrency continues to grow, in value and quantity, the resources and rewards of mining have changed. Bitcoin requires high computing power to solve complex mathematical problems, resulting in a mining reward for solving, the issue occurs as the masses all attempt to solve the same problem. The more miners, the more power needed, yet a lesser reward. It became an economic struggle to mine Bitcoin, from power to payments, so the next few cryptocurrency projects adjusted to create a more inclusive mining environment. These are a few of the processes you need to know as a crypto mining beginner:
POW:
Proof of Work, the original way of mining crypto, commercially introduced by Bitcoin. POW works on a competitive system, as miners must use high computing power to solve each potential block’s mathematical problem. The person to solve it first will be rewarded. The more computing power and supply, the more complex problems. This translates to thousands of people worldwide pumping electricity to power these solutions, the more people the more power needed. As tokens become more valuable and scarce, the energy and computing power needed increases, it becomes less environmentally and economically rewarding.
POS:
Proof of Stake, a more energy conservative way of mining crypto, emphasized by the Ethereum network. POS does not necessarily mine crypto, but rather relies on ‘miners’ as validators who bet on a block. POS miners store a stake of cryptocurrency to place bets on which block they believe will next be added to the network. The correct betters will be rewarded in proportion to the price and their stake amount. Because there is no competitive nature within POS mining, it has proven to be far more economically and energy efficient although rewards are far and few
between.
DPOS:
Delegated Proof of Stake, a centralized authority within a decentralized system, EOS block producers explained it best. DPOS enables a hand full of projects, pioneers and/or people to take control of mining and distributing the coins. The DPOS miners are chosen by the community placing a stake in them, allowing users to vote with their currency. Votes and rankings can change from an individual decision. This method to mine crypto is one of the newer and more refined mining options, although its centralized nature creates the opportunity for corruption to grow.
These words or definitions may feel intimidating at first but the space is ripe with possibilities. As more cryptocurrency projects surface, more opportunities for profits follow. You can mine simply from your computer’s GPU, as seen by torrent giant Pirate Bay, which can simultaneously be
used as a gaming booster or piece of computer hardware. Keep in mind that the more GPUs, the better, but the more cooling systems needed. ASICs are a niche to mine crypto, although more expensive, offer specified benefits and power to mining crypto. ASICs may enable more power but they limit users to a singular Blockchain algorithm. All mining methods and equipment
offer a variety of individual pros and cons, it’s about finding and defining the best choice for you and the coin you want. We hope this crypto mining beginner guide was helpful in educating and inspiring you.
What you need to know about the top 3 cryptocurrency tokens – cryptostar
As the cryptocurrency markets continue to grow, we see more great projects popping up that offer innovation backed by Blockchain, but we need to understand where adoption is being driven from. Below we will cover a list of the top 3 cryptocurrency tokens by market cap, considering the number of tokens available vs the price it’s set at. This list in no way represents our feelings on the top 3 cryptocurrency tokens, but rather what the market is currently dictating. We hope this list helps you learn more about each cryptocurrency and advances your confidence in partaking in the cryptocurrency community. The top 3 cryptocurrency tokens, according to market cap, are currently:
- Bitcoin $149.7bn: BTC can be accredited as the first successful cryptocurrency as well as being the first introduction to Blockchain technology, the founding technology of the cryptocurrency revolution. The BTC whitepaper was released via a cryptography mailing list in 2008 and later finalized its network in 2009, the creator and author are still unknown to this day although the name Satoshi Nakamoto is attached to all the document releases. BTC was created to act as a global currency enabling fast, secure and transparent transactions without the need of a third party, eg. Banks, PayPal. The first BTC purchase was for 10 000 BTC in exchange for two Papa Johns pizza, thanks to programmer Laszlo Hanyecz and BitcoinTalk. BTC has now gone on to see highs of $20, 000 USD per token, being taken back a bit, but still hodling in high regards to most.
- Ethereum $19.8bn: Launched in 2015 by Blockchain enthusiast and programmer, Vitalik Burtin, and funded by the cryptocurrency community in the first ICO ever, Ethereum brought great Blockchain use cases forward in a scene where it was only revolutionizing finance. Through the Ethereum scripting and Blockchain, other users can create cryptocurrency tokens to be distributed by smart contracts. Ethereum was an incredible step forward in realizing the potential of Blockchain technology but the chain was too slow so Vitalik forked it, creating Ethereum and renaming the old chain as Ethereum Classic. Ethereum has created an innovative platform allowing anybody to utilize the benefits of cryptocurrency, even sparking the CryptoKitties collectible craze that’s traffic so drastically decreased transaction time but increased mainstream media interest.
- XRP $12.5bn: Recognized as a real-life money settlement system, XRP is supposed to lay quick close in use case to BTC but facilitates banks in the transfer of fiat too. Ripple has received a lot of reviews from the cryptocurrency community for its questionably decentralized nature but it has also driven a lot of mainstream attention in as it offers fiat users a taste of a faster system. Ripple was co-founded by Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb, released in 2012. The cryptocurrency has gone on to do great things for adoption, as well as seeing Ashton Kutcher give Ellen Degeneres a $4 Million USD donation in XRP on world-wide television, which surely drove interest into a good portion of her millions of viewers. XRP may not be your standard cryptocurrency but it’s been a great entry point for many people and should be appreciated for doing such. Ripple also has a very stable support line, meaning many traders have only seen profits on the volatility without fear of going below 0.2.
That may be the current top 3 cryptocurrency tokens but they don’t nearly cover the capabilities of Blockchain technology or cryptocurrency. From the first cryptocurrency, to a forked one to a fiat-based cryptocurrency, these are merely the top 3. We hope this helped you learn a little bit more about BTC, Ethereum, XRP, and cryptocurrency, be sure to stay updated on everything Blockchain, cryptocurrency, ICOs, and finances by following the lower link. Unlock a world of information