Cryptocurrencies Simply Explained - by TenX Co-Founder Dr. Julian Hosp · Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain, ICOs, Decentralization, Mining & Co by Hosp, Julian -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

FOREWORD WHAT TO EXPECT WHY LISTEN TO ME CHAPTER 1 | FROM GOLD TO CRYPTO

What is money? What is a currency? Gold as money What is trust? What are IOUs? What is fiat money? What are the roles in a monetary system? What is centralization? What is decentralization? What is the main challenge with digital money? Money as a method of control

CHAPTER 2 | BLOCKCHAIN AND CRYPTOCURRENCY BASICS

What is the double-spend-problem? What is a blockchain? How is a blockchain used for a digital currency? What is a cryptocurrency? Blockchain and Cryptocurrency nomenclature What was the first decentralized currency?

CHAPTER 3 | PRIVATE KEYS AND PUBLIC ADDRESSES

How does decentralized account management work? What is a private key and a public address? What does open source mean? Why do we need private keys and public addresses?

CHAPTER 4 | MINING

What is mining? What are users, nodes and minders? What is consensus? What is a consensus algorithm? 1. Proof of Importance 2. Proof of Stake 3. Proof of Work How does a transaction get confirmed? How do you find blocks? How are blocks connected to a blockchain? What are orphan blocks? What is Mining Difficulty? What is a hashrate? What are the different types of miners? Is mining profitable? Are there economic mining solutions? What is a SPV (Simple Payment Verification)? What is the scaling debate? What is SegWit? What are potential scaling solutions? How to explain a blockchain transaction to a 10-year-old? What does a blockchain look like in reality?

CHAPTER 5 | HOW ARE CRYPTOCURRENCIES CREATED?

What is a deflationary currency? Do all cryptocurrencies have a capped supply? Is a deflationary currency problematic?

CHAPTER 6 | WALLETS

What is a wallet? What is in a wallet? What are different wallet types? What is a paper-wallet? How to create a paper-wallet What is a mind-wallet? What are offline-wallets? What are online-wallets? What are soft-wallets? What are hard-wallets? What is cold-storage? What is hot-storage? What if you lose your wallet? What if you do NOT control the private key: What are deterministic wallets? Why does your address keep changing? What is a seed? Can you hack a blockchain?

CHAPTER 7 | BLOCKCHAIN FORKS AND ATTACKS

What is a fork? What is a soft-fork? What is a hard-fork? What happens to your coins during a fork? Why doesn‘t every fork give people new coins? Why can‘t everyone just fork a blockchain? What are replay attacks? What should you be doing during a fork? What are blockchain attacks? Why would miners withhold blocks? What is a 51% attack? What is a sybil attack?

CHAPTER 8 | DESTROYING A BLOCKCHAIN

1. Quantum computing 2. Regulation / prohibition 3. Shut down of the internet Blockchain Size Centralization

CHAPTER 9 | PRIVACY, ANONYMITY, AND TRANSPARENCY

What is privacy? What is anonymity? What is KYC, KYB, AML, and CTF? What is transparency? What does pseudo-anonymous mean? Are cryptocurrencies handy for illegal activities? What is intimacy and secrecy?

CHAPTER 10 | ALTCOINS AND BITCOIN

What are Altcoins? How to recognize scams What are legitimate resources for information? Bitcoin (Core)/BTC Who is Satoshi Nakamoto, and how many bitcoins does he own? Any Bitcoin price prediction What are forks of Bitcoin (Namecoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, …)? Ethereum—ETH What are smart contracts? Any price prediction on Ethereum? How did Ethereum Classic get created? What are ERC20 tokens? What is an ICO? ERC20 token overview (PAY, REP, ICN, MLN, DGD, etc.) Other “decentralized platforms” (NEM, Lisk, Waves, Stratis, etc.…) Other application- or backed-by-something-tokens What is tokenization? Private coins (Monero, Dash, ZCash, etc.) What are tainted coins? Ring signatures (Monero XMR) Mixers (DASH…) Zero-knowledge proofs (ZCash, Ethereum, …) Is this privacy good or bad? Banking coins (Ripple, Stellar Lumen, R3, etc…) Non-blockchain solutions IOTA Tangle & Hashgraph Blockchain connectors (COMIT, Lightning, Raiden, Interledger, …) COMIT

CHAPTER 11 | CRYPTO-INVESTING

Should you invest into cryptocurrencies? Are cryptocurrencies in a bubble? What is the risk-reward-ratio of investing into cryptocurrencies? How much should you invest into crypto? When is the best time to invest? What is the best crypto investing strategy? What is “HODL?” How to measure profits properly Which cryptocurrencies to pick Winter is coming! How to get your first cryptocurrencies What happened with MtGox? Where to keep your cryptocurrencies When should you sell a cryptocurrency? How are cryptocurrencies taxed? How to spend cryptocurrencies

CHAPTER 12 | THE FUTURE OF CRYPTOCURRENCIES

What will payments look like in 5-7 years? What is price discovery? What will payments look like in 10 years? What will payments look like in 15-20 years?

BONUS CHAPTER | INITIAL COIN OFFERINGs (ICOs)

What is an ICO? How is an ICO different than an IPO? What is a token sale / token generating event? Why do companies do ICOs? What makes a successful ICO? Should you invest in ICOs? Where can you find more info on ICOs?

WHAT’S NEXT? ABOUT THE AUTHOR