Chapter 1
Cryptocurrency Explained
IN THIS CHAPTER
Discovering digital currency
Working with blockchain
Hashing blocks
Understanding public-key encryption
Signing messages with the private key
You may be eager to get your mining operation started, but before you can create cryptocurrency, we want to make sure you understand what cryptocurrency actually is.
The cryptocurrency thing is so new — or at least, most of the interest in cryptocurrency has occurred recently, even though cryptocurrencies of various forms have been around since the 1980s — that most people involved have a rather shaky understanding of what cryptocurrency is and how it works. The average cryptocurrency owner, for example, may not know what they own.
In this chapter, we review the history of cryptocurrency and how the different components function together. You’ll have a better foundation to understand how to mine cryptocurrencies if you understand what it is.
A Short History of Digital Dollars
Cryptocurrency ...
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