After the Bitcoin network came to life on January 3, 2009, new cryptocurrencies with different names and different functions were created as an alternative to Bitcoin. These new crypto coins created were called Altcoin (Alternative Coin). New cryptocurrencies have been issued in order to provide a less competitive environment than Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency and is anonymous, the competition is quite high compared to altcoins.

SHA-256 algorithm or Scrypt algorithm, which is also found in Bitcoin, is also included in altcoins. Unlike these, there are altcoins with different algorithms such as NIST5, X11, X13, X15.

Many of the altcoins in the market have emerged as defined in the ERC-20 network, which is the Ethereum blockchain system, in order to ensure that new technologies with different functions take place in the market. The transfer systems of newly released and financially innovative altcoins are made through the ERC-20 network.

The first altcoin released to the market is Namecoin (NMC).

The reason for the emergence of altcoins is to grow the cryptocurrency world and this sector. It is also aimed to make faster transfer transactions than Bitcoin. Mining operations are easier with altcoins than Bitcoin. Thanks to the extracted altcoins, the market has become more active and has been created in cryptocurrencies that are transferred faster.

The altcoin process, which started with Namecoin, has now increased considerably as a result of the launch of many crypto currencies. The most popular altcoins in the crypto money market; Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Tether, Chainlink, Basic Attention Token, Binance Coin, 0x, Matic Network, Kyber Network, Enjin Coin, LTO Network, Compound, Synthetix Network Token, Bankor Network Token and Aave.

High liquidity Has greater levels of user and transaction privacy Affordable mining services provided Coins with higher transaction speeds Technical improvements are made to accelerate mining Provides more investment opportunities Can benefit from strong fluctuations, significantly increasing earnings Taking more concrete steps with the crypto money suitable for the purpose Allows almost all transactions made in central financial systems in the field of DeFi Disadvantages of Altcoins Altcoins have advantages as well as disadvantages. There are many different altcoins, and each has different features.

They can experience strong fluctuations, leading to a significant increase in loss. It is difficult to trust an altcoin whose name has not yet been announced. A small mistake can cause investors to panic and even the most promising altcoin to lose value.

FreeSpeechMe Makes Namecoin a Game Changer Posted by Davi Feb 062014 While regulators scramble to deal with bitcoin as a currency, the altcoins march on. They dont realize that the advent of bitcoin was not the launch of one digital currency, or even ten. It was the launch of a completely new technology. The blockchain was born, which is far more revolutionary than bitcoin itself. When regulators finally comprehend that the cat is out of the bag, they will quickly discover there is a whole litter of kittens to herd. One of those kittens is namecoin. The blockchain application that I am most excited to see is something I like to call bitlots, although I dont know of anyone actually using that name. Fundamentally, a blockchain is a decentralized ledger of all transactions in a network. If a blockchain were launched in which each unit was associated with a parcel of land it could be used to transfer property titles. It could potentially replace a centralized register of deeds with a decentralized one. People could transfer titles to physical property without a notary, a county records office, and fundamentally without a government, peer-to-peer, using the blockchain to confirm ownership. I dont know anyone using a blockchain this way, but there is a proof of concept in the works. Namecoin is an altcoin which also serves as an alternative decentralized domain name system (DNS). A DNS is like a register of deeds for Internet real estate. Its what points the domain name you type in your address bar with the IP address where the website is. Its your computers road map to the Internet, and the one were using now is essentially a government monopoly. Domain names are registered and controlled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Thats why governments can seize websites by redirecting the traffic to their own take down screen. Namecoin changes all that by allowing users to register .bit domain names in the namecoin blockchain, connecting them to IP addressses through a decentralized network similar to the bitcoin ledger. Its even faster than the government DNS. It only takes .bit domains minutes to propagate worldwide, while .com, .net, .org and others can take 24-72 hours. Poof! ICANN is obsolete almost. Theres just one problem. We need a bypass around the government road blocks and onto the namecoin superhighway. Enter FreeSpeechMe, the anti-censorship, anti-hijacking, open-source .bit plug-in for your Firefox browser. The free plug-in lets you easily view domains registered in the namecoin blockchain, and gives you the ability to point .bit domains to anonymously hosted websites using Tor or I2P without revealing their locations. There is already a working beta of FreeSpeechMe for Windows and Linux, complete with easy tutorials for getting some namecoin, and launching a .bit website. If these ideas excite you they need your help to keep ball rolling. You can contribute to their IndieGoGo campaign, or donate bitcoin and namecoin directly. Bitcoin:1JfNztz7GfcxPFXQTnxjco6HA53fg491FV Namecoin:N4hnrzpQAiwwYXjvMVfqeoenUsvjZNRifV Funds raised will be used to employ programmer Jeremy Rand full time to improve the plug-in, and marketing guy Michael W. Dean to promote .bit adoption. The more they raise the more attention they can devote to building a more-free and more-secure Internet. Share Bitcoin!TweetPocketEmailMoreShare on TumblrPrint Related Davi - Writer, artist, merchant, and speaker but more importantly an advocate of peace, independence and liberation from the State. A street activist in both the Tea Party and Occupy Movement, Davi has rejected the W2 9-to-5 world in favor of full time Agorism. He is also the editor of DailyAnarchist.com, the proprietor of ShinyBadges.com, a marketing agent for SilverCircleMovie.com and the assistant director of Muslims4Liberty.org. Tagged with: FreeSpeechMe, namecoin, nmc No Responses to FreeSpeechMe Makes Namecoin a Game Changer

Should you invest in Namecoin? What does Aaron Ag's Technical Analysis show? Watch the video and keep learning!Learn step by step as if you were watching directly over my shoulder and get ready to enter a fun and exciting world of Technical Analysis that puts you right into the drivers seat or right beside me to watch first hand how to trade the market and learn its patterns and movements.Thank you, Aaron AgDonations Appreciated! =)Bitcoin: 1NWo35CzrPt5DPc5PngYu7aLMGXReMS3v3Dash: XbJyV3gr9ojEyDzoDyuESrudkLYrBqdGb7Digibyte: DKuX9UisV4wteX8RKk7PNTBGmaQNttDrUMEthereum: 0x88399fc70c1b2680c6c15d23641780c4b5f0dfc3Litecoin: LNMRQTfmYpDPugZUQehvHyiMJDPXjhLEeuPeercoin: PSnfe7Ej7BXc3UgyJ8KH6ymfwWocipfE7Shttps://www.genesis-mining.com ( Crypto Cloud Mining. Get 3% off with coupon code: vyQnLS )https://wesellcrypto.com ( Buy Crypto Currencies with Paypal )https://www.coinbase.com/join/546819c... ( Link your checking acount or credit card to purchase Crypto Currencies )https://coingecko.com ( Crypto Currency coin ranks, Charts and info )https://exodus.io ( Desktop wallet that holds Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Dash and Dogecoin )https://cointelegraph.com ( News website for Crypto Currencies )Music Intro by Brad Sucks, Song: Making me Nervoushttp://www.bradsucks.net/DISCLAIMER:This video is for educational and teaching purposes only and contains my personal opinion and investing choices. Investing in Cryptocurrencies and the Forex Market is highly speculative and should be done by a qualified professional. I am not a professional. Investing carries a great risk and any investing you do that is based on anything in this video is done so at your own risk.

Crypto, usually known as cryptocurrency, is genuinely a type of money that may be traded online for items and various kinds of business and investments. Several companies have already provided their currencies, usually named mementos, and also, these may be traded mostly for the good or even solution that the provider delivers. Consider all of them as you will arcade gifts or even online casino potato chips. You’ll need to swap real currency for the cryptocurrency to get the services or purchase goods.

Cryptocurrencies operate utilizing a modern technology that is called the blockchain. Blockchain is actually a decentralized modern technology escalate throughout a lot of pcs that take care of as well as tape purchases. The portion of the allure of this particular modern technology is its own safety.

In 1998, Wei Dai posted a crypto revolution review of “b-money,” identified as an anonymous, circulated electronic money body. Quickly afterward, Nick Szabo illustrated little gold. Like bitcoin as well as various other cryptocurrencies that will observe it, bit gold (indeed not to become perplexed along with the later gold-based swap, BitGold) was actually referred to as a digital currency body that demanded individuals to accomplish a verification of job functionality along with remedies being cryptographically crafted and also released.

The 1st decentralized cryptocurrency, bitcoin, was actually generated in 2009 through probably pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. It utilized SHA-256, a cryptographic hash function, in its own proof-of-work program. In April 2011, Namecoin was produced to constitute a decentralized DNS, creating net blackout incredibly hard. Not long after, in October 2011, Litecoin was actually discharged. It made use of the manuscript as its own hash feature as opposed to SHA-256. An additional significant cryptocurrency, Peercoin, utilized a proof-of-work/proof-of-stake crossbreed.

More than 6,800 various cryptocurrencies are traded openly, depending on CoinMarketCap.com , a marketing research website, as well as for cryptocurrencies, remain to improve, borrowing using first piece offerings or even ICOs. The overall worth of all cryptocurrencies on Jan. 27, 2021, was actually much more than $897.3 billion, depending on CoinMarketCap. The amount of all bitcoins, the best well-liked electronic currency, was even fixed at $563.8 billion.

Cryptocurrencies might climb in worth, yet many clients view all of them as plain guessworks, unreal expenditures. The main reason? Similar to real currencies, cryptocurrencies produce no capital. Thus for you to benefit, a person must pay out even more for the cash than you carried out.

While some cryptocurrencies, consisting of Bitcoin, are readily available for acquisition along with U.S. bucks, others call for that you spend along with bitcoins or even yet another cryptocurrency.

To acquire cryptocurrencies, you’ll require a “wallet,” an online application that can quickly secure your currency. Usually, you generate a profile on a trade, and afterward, you can soon move genuine cash to acquire cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin or even Ethereum.

You may make both a wallet as well as deal Bitcoin and also various other cryptocurrencies. An expanding variety of on the internet brokers uses cryptocurrencies.

There is actually no doubt that they’re lawful in the United States, though China has even basically outlawed their usage, and also inevitably whether they’re lawful depends upon each nation. Be sure to look at exactly how to safeguard your own self from cheaters that find cryptocurrencies as an option to trick clients. As consistently, caveat emptor.

If you want to acquire a cryptocurrency in an ICO, checked out the particulars in the firm’s program for this details:

It can easily take a great deal of job to scour through a program; the even more particular it possesses, the much better your chances it is legit. Also, validity does not indicate the currency will prosper. That is an entirely different concern, which calls for a bunch of market know-how.

Past those worries, simply possessing cryptocurrency reveals you to the threat of fraud, as cyberpunks attempt to pass through the computer system systems that sustain your properties. One prominent substitution proclaimed personal bankruptcy in 2014 after cyberpunks took numerous bucks in bitcoins. Those may not be regular threats for buying sales as well as funds on primary U.S. substitutions.

Disclaimer: This is a paid article. KryptoMoney does not endorse and is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy, quality, advertising, products, or other materials on this page. Readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company. KryptoMoney is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods, or services mentioned in the article.

CloudFest VideoVideoWhat the Cryptocurrency Boom Missed: The NameCoin StoryBy CloudFest - March 13, 2019Facebook Twitter WhatsApp Linkedin Email Telegram   Namecoin is the second oldest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, but it is more than that. It builds a naming system that is decentralised, trustless, secure and has human-readable names. As such, it is the world’s first solution to “Zooko’s triangle”. Applications range from secure management of online identities and cryptographic keys and a decentralised alternative to the DNS and the certificate-authority infrastructure to fully decentralised multiplayer online games. Find out why cryptocurrency technology is so much more than merely an investment, and discover how it is being employed to put greater privacy and security tools into the hands of consumers.Register now with code “NAMECOIN” to register for free: save 399€!Here’s the link: cloudfest.com/ Duration: 1:26 Publisher: CloudFest You can watch this video also at the source.

While some other countries such as the USA, Canada, South Africa, European Union (EU), Nigeria, Australia, Japan, etc., are working towards achieving success in this lucrative-but-nascent digital payment sector by accepting or regulating their usage, cryptocurrencies remain prohibited in various parts of the world such as Macedonia, Ecuador, Vanuatu, China, Algeria, Bolivia, Afghanistan, Russia, Qatar, Egypt, Vietnam, Nepal, Columbia, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Pakistan, and others.

These states have banned cryptocurrency from being used as money, a currency or legal tender. Several regulators and governments impose heavy penalties and legal actions upon businesses and users of cryptocurrency. CoinIdol, a world blockchain news outlet, composed a list of top 5 countries with a non-friendly environment for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency business.

Unlike other technologies that have been widely supported by the Chinese government, cryptocurrency has faced the roughness of the financial watchdogs in the country.

In September 2017, regulators came out to announce that initial coin offerings (ICOs) were banned in China. There was a regulatory compliance evasion. Following the crackdown on ICOs and the use of cryptocurrencies in the country, crypto-exchanges that were offering facilitation services were forced to close with immediate effect.

Since then, the Chinese government has never come out to license or allow cryptocurrencies businesses to resume normally. However, the government is in full support for distributed ledger technology (DLT).

China banned BTC and the rest of cryptocurrencies, so as to give a way to its state-owned central bank digital currency (CBDC). So far, the process of issuing CBDC (digital yuan) is going on well. The digital yuan has been tested in several banks located in various Provinces of China.

This effort has totally killed the hopes of Bitcoin businesses and the entire cryptocurrency community in the country, though it’s a blessing in disguise for the digital yuan.

Just as it is the case with most Muslim countries, Algeria also decided to handle cryptocurrency business with an iron hand.

The terrorists have been taking advantage of cryptocurrency, and it’s the mandate of any government to fight and stop all ways through which such threats can increase. One of the ways was to ban the funding sources or ways of transferring the funds used to facilitate terrorism groups or any enemy of the Algerian government.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency related businesses are at this time prohibited under the Algerian financial law. The 2018 Financial Law of Algeria banned the usage of any virtual currency. The law stipulates: the buying, selling, holding, using, and possessing of cryptocurrency are forbidden. There is no way how cryptocurrencies businesses can grow when they are operating undercover and under a massive fear.

Due to the increasing criminal practices done by the nationals, Bolivian government decided to put an end to the use of cryptocurrency including Quark, BTC, namecoin, Ethereum, feathercoin, peercoin, primecoin, etc., in the country.

Following the increased undercover pyramid schemes that claimed the funds of many crypto-investors, the Central Bank of Bolivia wrote a statement banning the citizens from using cryptocurrencies and any other currency that is not licensed or registered by the authorities or the economic zone.

Following the bank’s directive in 2014, most of the bank accounts that belonged to the people associated with BTC, such as that of Mario Blacutt, a blockchain engineer and that of Evo Morales, were shut down. The action affected the cryptocurrency businesses in the country.

Currently, there is no regulation on the use of cryptocurrencies in Bolivia. However, the people advocating for financial innovations are tying their best using lawful means to liberate the cryptocurrency industry in the country.

The situation on cryptocurrency in India is a bit challenging. On one side, it looks like the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) do not want to allow its citizens to participate in risky crypto-investments, while on the other side, some authorities such as the Supreme Court wants people to be given their financial freedom to trade in cryptoasset commodities.

Any action taken by the government is regarded by many as a serious one. So when the RBI bans cryptocurrency, it sends a big image to the investors who were interested in this industry to consider the country as unfriendly to cryptoasset. So most of them will be forced to try their talents elsewhere, hence hindering the growth of the cryptocurrency sector.

As it stands, the RBI, the body responsible for issuing and circulating the fiat money and regulating the banking system, is not yet friendly to all businesses related to cryptocurrency.

For a long time, Bitcoin has not been recognized as legal in Russia, citing the cryptocurrency-related activities as criminal. But starting January this year, cryptocurrencies have been slowly accepted in the country. Russia is slowly backing away from total cryptoasset ban.

However, the virtual coins are not being used in exchange for any goods and services. This kills one of the primary roles cryptocurrency was created for. Crypto was invented to act as a medium of exchange.

In Russia, cryptoasset including Bitcoin is still portrayed as “criminal” while DLT is considered in a neutral-to-positive light.

The mining, holding, and trading of cryptocurrency will remain limited in Russia, not until the government supports this industry by drafting a clear regulatory framework. The government is planning to release its CBDC known as digital ruble, and this move is more likely going to affect cryptocurrencies including BTC.

CryptoCompare needs javascript enabled in order to work. Follow these instructions to activate and enable JavaScript in Chrome. Merged mining is the process of allowing two different crypto currencies based on the same algorithm to be mined simultaneously. This allows low hash powered crypto currencies to increase the hashing power behind their network by bootstrapping onto more popular crypto currencies. Two of the best examples of this are scrypt mining of both litecoin and dogecoin, as well as namecoin and bitcoin with sha-256. This is quite a complex process. All the transactions for both networks are ordered and their merkle trees hashed out. The two blockchains are classified as the parent and the auxiliary blockchain. The Auxilary blockchains merkle root is inserted into the extra nonce section of the parent blockchain – i.e. Bitcoin or Litecoin with Dogecoin and Namecoin as the auxiliary chain. As the information of one chain’s set of hashes has been incorporated into a superfluous part of the other blockchain then a proof of work can be considered to have been achieved if a solution with a specific difficulty has been performed. In the case of Bitcoin and Namecoin, the difficulty is lower for Namecoin as there is less network power on that chain – i.e. the number of zeroes in the hash is less. The problem with this is that if a relatively large pool in the Bitcoin network switched to merge mining it could take a very large portion of the namecoin hashing power. In case 1 nothing happens and the merged miner inserts a new nonce value and rehashes. In case two the miner has found a solution for the Namecoin network and propagates its solution throughout that network, if mining in conjunction with Bitcoin. In case three solutions have been found for both of the chains and so a all the required information for confirmations is propagated to dedicated miners of both networks and the merged miner has won both Bitcoin and Namecoin or Dogecoin and Litecoin.

According to Statista, the most famous cryptocurrency Bitcoin saw about 333,000 daily transactions in December 2020. In the same month, Ethereum was processed over 1.1 million times a day [1]. Bitcoin was the first decentralized cryptocurrency or digital currency and was created in 2009. Over time, different types of cryptocurrency have entered the market and have been unstoppable. Cryptocurrencies are digital, yet real, money. These currencies take digital monetary form and aren’t governed or managed by any governing body, middleman or central authority. If you want to understand different types of cryptocurrency and their value, what is altcoin and why governments around the world are not so happy about the concept of cryptocurrencies, you’ve come to the right place.

A cryptocurrency is a digital asset designed with the help of blockchain to work as a seamless medium of exchange in which coin ownership records are stored in computerized ledger. Blockchain is a groundbreaking technology that’s spread across several computers which manage and record transactions.

These different types of digital currency enable you to buy goods and services or even trade them for profit. To secure the transactions carried online, robust cryptography is used. Cryptography is the process of converting plain text into complex text, and vice-versa. It is a cutting-edge technology used for storing as well as transmitting critical data in a specific form, so only parties involved can read and process it.

So, why a powerful technology like cryptocurrency is being hated or even feared by governments and banks across the world? Let us try to understand. 

The term ‘fiat’ is used to describe the traditional and conventional modes of currencies which we use, like the notes and coins that are issued by the government. We believe in and value fiat currencies because the governments say that these currencies have value. However, an increasing number of people think that this currency means nothing and has no value, as fiat currencies are not supported by any tangible asset. Governments of different countries control their respective fiat currencies. Central banks in countries are used to issue and destroy money using what’s known as ‘monetary policy’ to enforce economic influence.

Governments also govern how fiat currencies are transferred from one person and account to another, which enables them to track the movement of currency, collect taxes on it, dictate who makes profit from the movement and trace unauthorized activity. All control is lost when non-government bodies that don’t trust fiat currencies, create and deploy their own currencies.  Crypto-enthusiasts think that banks are evil as banks earn from the high interest rates charged on loans and other overcharges on certain services like international transfers.

Banks are greatly centralized, meaning they need to work under a governing body created by a government. Banks are institutions that make decisions that affect immensely their customers without the users wanting or having to agree to it. According to the government, centralization allows banking institutions to make better decisions faster and the chain of command is clear and transparent. Decentralization of currencies is fairly a new concept. The brilliant idea of a decentralized network where an entire system won’t have to rely on any authority has become possible, all because of blockchain. 

Moreover, cryptocurrencies do not require any middlemen. In case of fiat currencies, the middlemen are banks. In cryptocurrencies, a computerized ledger has made an entry. For the longest time, banks have played the roles of intermediaries and now, a network of codes and/or  individual computers is responsible for powering through transactions all over the world. As no banks are involved, there is no way the government can regulate or control these digital currencies, and what can’t be controlled is feared.

SEE ALSO:  FinTech Trends 2021: 6 technologies to watch out for

This cryptocurrency was created as an open-source software using blockchain technology which enables users to perform secure and transparent transactions. All Bitcoin users can see these transactions, however, these transactions are secured using the algorithm within blockchain. While all users can see a transaction, users can decrypt only those Bitcoins that they own, with a private key which is given to each owner. Bitcoin operates on an algorithm called ‘SHA-256’.

The total and maximum number of Bitcoins that can ever exist is 21 million. At the time of writing this blog, 2,357,475 Bitcoins were remaining to be mined. The pseudonymous inventor Nakamoto has about 900,000 Bitcoins.

Value (As on 2nd March 2021): USD 49019.80  

Bitcoin is one of the most popular and widely talked about cryptocurrency in the world. Any cryptocurrency that isn’t Bitcoin is Altcoin. Altcoin actually means ‘alternative to Bitcoin’. Namecoin is the first altcoin and was created in 2011. Bitcoin is also one of the most trending when it comes to finance technology news. Other different types of cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin, or altcoins, include Litecoin, Peercoin, Dogecoin and Auroracoin.

Value of 1 Ether (As on 2nd March 2021): USD 1563.44

Initially released in 2012, the idea of Ripple was conceived by Mr Jed McCaleb and built by David Schwartz and Arthur Britto. It is a different type of digital currency as it is not based on blockchain technology. It hasn’t been created for individual users and is used by larger corporations and companies that need to move large amounts of money. Rather than its XRP crypto, Ripple is better known for its digital payment protocol.This is because its system allows money transfer in any form, be it Euros, Dollars or even Bitcoin and other altcoins. Ripple claims that it is well-equipped to handle about 1500 transactions/second. Euthereum can handle 15 transactions per second and Bitcoin can handle 3-6 transactions per second (Excluding scaling layers).

Value of 1 Ripple (As on 2nd March 2021): USD $0.455

Amongst different types of cryptocurrency, Stellar is the one that focuses on money transfer. It is designed to make money transfers and cross-border payments faster and much more efficient. Stellar was founded in 2014 by Jed McCaleb, Ripple Co-founder. It is operated by Stellar.org, a Non Profit Organization. The goal of this cryptocurrency is to help developing economies which don’t have access to proper traditional banking and financial institutions and investment opportunities. Moreover, Stellar does not charge institutions or users for using its network and covers its operating costs by accepting (tax-deductible) public donations.

Value of 1 Stellar (As on 2nd March 2021): USD 0.4260

Ethereum is one of the different types of cryptocurrency we want to talk about in this blog. It is a Bitcoin alternative that enables Decentralized Applications (or DApps) and Smart Contracts to be built and deployed without any downtime, control, fraud or third-party interference. 

The mission behind Ethereum is to develop a decentralized suite of fintech products that absolutely anyone can have access to (for free), regardless of their ethnicity, nationality and faith. You can think of Ethereum as an app store, like Google Play Store. The token in the world of Ethereum is known as Ether and is used as currency by app developers and users.

Developed by Sergey Nazarov and Steve Ellis, Chainlink bridges the gap between smart contracts and data outside of it. A brilliant and one of the many different types of cryptocurrency available out there, Chainlink aims to essentially incentivize an international network of computers to offer real-world and reliable data to smart contracts that are running on top of blockchain. Till date, smart contracts in the crypto-world have been used for anything and everything, from creating great crypto-financial products to developing and deploying new crypto assets.

Value of 1 Chainlink (As on 2nd March 2021): USD 28.413

One of the first cryptocurrencies to follow in the footsteps of Bitcoin, Litecoin was created in the year 2011 by an MIT graduate and former Google employee, Charlie Lee. Litecoin was designed with the aim of improving on Bitcoin technology that processed transactions in shorter time and lower fees. It was released under the MIT/X11 license.

The concept of Litecoin is based on an open-source international payment network and uses ‘scrypt’ as a proof of work. Scrypt can be decoded with help of a CPU of consumer grade. The coin limit for Litecoin is 84 million. 

Value 1 Litecoin (As on 2nd March 2021): USD 182

It is tough to understand and predict the future of Bitcoin and altcoins. The governments and banks around the world are trying to come up with ways of how to regulate cryptocurrencies and different types of cryptocurrency trading. When it comes to its legality, Bitcoin was made legal in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. However, China has banned its use. At the end, whether cryptocurrencies are legal or not depends on each individual country and its government. 

SEE ALSO:  6 Startup trends in the tech industry that will rule in 2021

For more updates and latest tech news, keep reading iTMunch

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Source

[1] Statista (2021) “Number of daily transactions in Bitcoin, Ethereum and nine other cryptocurrencies from January 2017 to February 21, 2021” [Online] Available from: ncy-transactions-by-type/ [Accessed March 2021]

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The idea of using a blockchain for online identity and reputation is a key area of interest for many developers working on decentralized applications, andOnename is a company at the forefront of turning this concept into a reality.The identity platform, which was founded and created by Ryan Shea and Muneeb Ali, originally used the Namecoin blockchain for storing user data, but the company recently moved to the Bitcoin blockchain (by way of Blockstore). Shea and Ali were recently interviewed for an episode of Epicenter Bitcoin, and Ali stated, We were one of the largest production systems built on top of Namecoin, and we started noticing certain limitations. Muneeb Ali went on to explain three specific limitations that the company found with Namecoin, which eventually led them to develop Blockstore and move over to Bitcoin. 1. Spam Registrations on the Namecoin Network The first issue pointed out by Ali during the interview had to do with the way new names are registered on the Namecoin blockchain. As Ali explained, the pricing algorithm was set when Namecoin was first launched, and it lacked the sort of sophistication that may be needed in a decentralized name registration system: Their pricing rules were baked in at launch, and it was very cheap to just buy a name. The pricing algorithm wasnt very sophisticated. As a result, there was a lot of spam registrations on Namecoin. There is a paper that came out by Arvind [Narayanan], the professor at Princeton, and they analyzed how much spam registrations there are -- and I think the results were really surprising. I think less than 1 percent of names on the .bit namespace currently map to anything meaningful. 2. Namecoins Small Development Community Although Ali was extremely thankful and supportive of all the work that had been put in by the Namecoin development community over the past few years, he admitted that the lack of infrastructure around the Namecoin blockchain made it impractical to continue using it as a base protocol: Because Namecoin was an old fork and it didnt keep up with all of the development that was happening with Bitcoin, the software was generally lacking stability, as compared to Bitcoin. The ecosystem of how many developers are working on Namecoin was much smaller than the number of developers working on Bitcoin. There are so many different companies, there are so many different block explorers or APIs, so just from an engineering perspective, it makes more sense to be part of an ecosystem that is well maintained and rapidly developed. 3. The Centralization of Mining in Namecoin The third problem pointed out by Ali during the Epicenter Bitcoin interview had to do with an issue that has plagued many altcoins: security. Namecoin uses the same hashing algorithm as Bitcoin (SHA-256), and it can be merge mined with Bitcoin. Ali explained Namecoins merged mining setup with Bitcoin during the interview: The third was actually a security issue where it turns out that Namecoin does merged mining with Bitcoin, so basically, some miners would mine both cryptocurrencies because it is the same hash that theyre calculating and they can get rewarded on two different chains. It turns out that merged mining is actually pretty hard because if the miner does not have that much incentive -- lets say the value of the currency isnt that much or the overhead required for them to actually run Namecoind nodes and integrate merged mining -- they feel like its not worth it to them given the reward that theyre getting. Although merged mining with Bitcoin should be helpful towards another blockchains security in theory, Ali noted that this has not been the case for Namecoin: So, practically what ended up happening is that one miner, F2Pool, has consistently -- they have more than 60 percent hashing power on Namecoin. And its a known fact. The Namecoin community knows about it, and theyre trying to address the problem. But, for us, it seems like if you are on the main Bitcoin blockchain, the amount of financial infrastructure and financial capital that is linked to the security of the blockchain is a lot more. So, a lot more people care if a single miner approaches 51 percent mining power, and theres a lot of people who will try to do something about it. Whereas, in the case of Namecoin, this has been going on for many months, and so far, the community has not been able to do anything about it. There are still plenty of alternative blockchain proponents out there in Bitcoin land, but this is one of the clearest examples of why many alternative use cases of the blockchain may eventually be rolled back into Bitcoin. This trend may accelerate with the proliferation of sidechains, although it will be interesting to see if the same sort of merged mining issues found with Namecoin take place in that setup. Many Bitcoin supporters feel that there is only a need for one cryptocurrency on the Internet, but whether or not that hypothesis will hold true still remains to be seen. Correction: A previous version of this article claimed Onename itself is a blockchain-based identity system. As /u/Justin_Guy pointed out on Reddit, Onename is a registrar for Blockchain IDs, which uses Blockstore.

Journalists, artists, and the purveyors of other potentially controversial material have reason to be wary that their content may be taken down and censored, even more so as some of the top United States journalists warn that Donald Trump’s administration could have a chilling effect on journalistic freedom. Online domains that are registered with DNS (Domain Name System) are registered under centralized control and are ultimately able to be taken down, meaning that a website can be essentially censored at whim by a sufficiently controlling government. NameCoin set out to solve this vulnerability by creating a distributed domain name registration system, unable to be taken down through centralized control. However, due to various developmental flaws, NameCoin never reached more than a historical and novelty significance. BipCoin aims to successfully rectify this shortcoming. A CryptoNote-based cryptocurrency,  which recently released a graphical user interface (GUI) wallet before more popular CryptoNote coin Monero, BipCoin aims to add decentralized DNS functionality, solving the many issues that prevented NameCoin from catching on, including domain squatting. Its development team has released a plain-English whitepaper as well as a fundraiser to add distributed DNS functionality. Cointelegraph spoke to Michael Dean, BipCoin developer, about the future of censorship-proof domains. Cointelegraph: So first, why is decentralized “DNS” important? Michael W. Dean: Governments control DNS, and it is the easiest way for them to steal a website they don’t like, even if it is not breaking the law, and there is very little recourse when that happens to you. Cointelegraph: NameCoin attempted this, correct? Were they successful, and if not, why? Michael W. Dean: A number of reasons. Mainly they made it almost free to register a domain, so they all got squatted, and five years later they still don’t really have a way for the non-technical to resolve a NameCoin domain (Dot-Bit). There was FreeSpeechMe, a plugin that I named and promoted for the NameCoin team, and raised money for, it was a start, but came out three years after their launch. Then there was MeowBit, that I also named, which BipCoin Dev team member Derrick Slopey made and we worked really hard to promote that, but the underlying framework of NameCoin was broken in the ways I described above. This was two years ago. I’ve been thinking non-stop since about how to do it, and I really think I’ve solved all the issues. And enumerated the plan in the whitepaper. It may seem that the BipDev writing this whitepaper has it out to bash NameCoin and the NameCoin devs. However, there is no possible way to accurately explain what was wrong with NameCoin, and what to do right in moving distributed DNS beyond NameCoin, without mentioning the many many mistakes of the NameCoin devs. Distributed DNS is one of the things always mentioned in any introductory article about “the wonders of the Blockchain.” Sometimes they even mention NameCoin or some of the new corporate Blockchains. But these articles always act like it is already a done deal. It’s not. They never mention that while this is technically possible, no one is actually using this yet. As no one has solved the main problems or made it easy to use for everyone. Henry Ford did not invent the internal combustion engine, nor was he the first person to put one on a carriage to make it work without a horse. But he did put a car in every carriage house. And when he started most people had never even seen a car. He made cars practical and affordable. We plan to do this for distributed, difficult-to-censor DNS. NameCoin established some amazing concepts. BipCoin will take these ideas and make them easy to adopt for everyone. Cointelegraph: Cryptocurrency enthusiasts seem to be gravitating towards financial anonymity these days. Is censorship resistance a blind spot? Michael W. Dean: Yes. It’s a huge blind spot. It’s all fine and well to have dark sites, and they serve a purpose, though they’re none of my business, but they are not for everyone or everything. A lot of the internet that is legal many politicians would love to take down. Hell, on the campaign trail, the next president of the United States promised to punish journalists who piss him off. And it would be possible to use Dot-Bip to make human-rememberable addresses for TOR and other hidden activist sites. However, what we are looking to do with Dot-Bip is help a lot of the web have backups. You would still have your .com address, but the Dot-Bip would be an alternative in case you are ever seized. Lots of sites are seized where the owner is known but never arrested. It’s so easy to seize the sites, that government thugs consider that enough. Even if Dot-Bip became acceptable as a “just in case” thing that many sites have, if it were ever needed, it would be there, and people would have the means to access it. If they are there and people can access them and test them but they’re never needed for any of that web user’s favorite sites, they are still useful, as a thought experiment, like Cody Wilson’s printable gun. I mean, no one really is going to carry a Liberator for self-defense. You can make a better zip gun in your garage. But it’s the fact that you can make a Liberator that is important. This is not to say that Dot-Bip would just be a thought experiment. I’m saying it would be an added feature if you never need it, to help liberate minds, and remove one more monopoly. Governments want monopolies on everything. This week it’s fake news. Who knows what it will be next week. For that matter, a lot of what they’ll try to shut down as “fake news” is real news, or parody, or humor. And Dot-Bip can help protect that too. Cointelegraph: What do you think about practicality? Will it be easy enough to use Dot-Bip for the common man to care? Michael W. Dean: Yes, I think it could be that easy. In our first beta, it will be a little harder than accessing dot-coms, but more for the webmaster than the web user. But that will get easier too. I mean, Bitcoin wasn’t easy to use at first. Hell, neither was the web when I first got on it in 95. But our first beta, which will use the existing BipCoin Blockchain, will still be much easier than NameCoin, for the webmaster, and especially for the web user, the end user. Cointelegraph: Do you foresee any trouble from governments seeking to maintain the final word on what stays online? Michael W. Dean: I hope not. However, if any member of the Dot-Bip team is ever found dead of a drug overdose, a car crash or an apparent suicide, a government agency was behind it. Cointelegraph: Bonus round: do you have information that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton? hip-proof-dns-succeed-where-namecoin-failed Hot markets… Powered by CryptoCompare

Bitcoin—the godfather of all cryptocurrencies—is also a father, and grandfather, to over 436 altcoins that account for approximately six percent of the total sum of the cryptocurrency market. 

But what's up with Bitcoin's reproductive rate, and what's the forking point of it all? Here’s a rundown of Bitcoin’s most popular—and less popular—altcoin spin-offs. 

A Bitcoin fork, in crypto lingo, can be described as a radical update to the network protocol. There are two types, hard and soft. The latter acts as a minor upgrade, and the former quite literally tears the protocol in two. In other words, when devs fall out, become fed up with the status quo, or otherwise want to build something off the back of Bitcoin, they can, with a hard fork.

Since Bitcoin's genesis in 2009, there have been approximately 436 hard forks—of which, around 250 are defunct as of writing.

The first Bitcoin fork occurred as early as 2011 and is credited for kicking off the altcoin market: Namecoin.

With a fixed supply of 21 million, a proof-of-work (POW) consensus algorithm, and the same underlying code, on the surface, Namecoin is Bitcoin in everything but name. Its use case, however, differs dramatically, with the project centering itself around creating censorship-resistant, private, and secure domain names. It also didn't have an enigma for a creator—unlike Bitcoin. 

It's this ability to levy Bitcoin's codebase and create something entirely different on top of it that sparked the “forking” mania. Litecoin was next to do so, just two months after Namecoin's initial split, and would go on to become the most notable of all of Bitcoin's altcoin derivatives.

Known as the silver to Bitcoin's gold, Litecoin appeared as a hybrid of Bitcoin and another now-defunct Bitcoin fork known as Fairbix (which itself came from a previous Bitcoin fork known as Tenebrix). In the genealogical Bitcoin family tree, Litecoin could, therefore, be defined as Bitcoin's Grandchild.

Litecoin intended to develop upon Bitcoin, focusing on speeding up its transaction rate. Taking an improved, more efficient POW algorithm derived from Fairbix, and combining it with code from Bitcoin core (its main codebase), Litecoin managed to do just that—finding acclaim as Bitcoin’s right-hand coin and securing a place in the crypto market's upper echelons.

Though it looked to improve on Bitcoin, Litecoin has always managed to strike a delicate balance, becoming a functional sidekick to Bitcoin rather than a fully-fledged usurper. However, another major fork was about to give Bitcoin a run for its money.

In August 2017, four years after Litecoin's inception, another particularly notable hard fork occurred: Bitcoin Cash.

Rather than a separate group of developers leveraging the Bitcoin codebase to create something new, Bitcoin Cash was the result of an internal battle. Developers disagreed on a solution to the scaling issue of the time—Bitcoin's inability to process large numbers of transactions. 

Bitcoin Cash proponents believed the matter could be fixed by increasing Bitcoin's block size, allowing the network to process more transactions per block. Bitcoin core devs opted for a solution dubbed segregated witness, or SegWit, a method of separating certain parts of transaction data to free up space.

In the end, no accord was reached, and the chain split.

A year later, in November 2018,  Bitcoin Cash went through a hard fork of its own, one similarly fraught with conflict and chaos—once again over block size. The result was yet another split, rending in a contentious fork, known as Bitcoin SV.

Nevertheless, even with hundreds of offspring looking to overthrow Bitcoin, out of approximately 7,000+ altcoins with a current combined market cap of $330 billion, Bitcoin captures well over half of that value with a market cap dominance of 58%. It just goes to show, new isn’t always better.

Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency you will see in the market.

There are many other alternative cryptocurrencies to Bitcoin currently, and each comes with its unique differences, functionalities, and purposes.

Bitcoin have had a tremendous impact on the entire world economy, as well as how financial transactions are being carried out in different parts of the world.

As a result of Bitcoin’s widespread impact, many have tried to follow in Satoshi Nakamoto’s footsteps and attempted to create and also release their own cryptocurrency.

Today, there are thousands of different cryptocurrencies, effectively making Bitcoin a catalyst of the crypto world. These alternate coins to Bitcoin are referred to as, “Altcoins.”

As a cryptocurrency investor, investing only in Bitcoin may not be a good strategy, because these these new altcoins do increase in value and then, you can make money off price fluctuations.

In this article, I will explain everything you need to know about alternate crypto coins (Altcoins), and their effects on the entire crypto world.

Altcoin is a  term coined for cryptocurrencies following Bitcoin’s success, and it came from two words: “alt” and “coin” – meaning “alternative coin.”

These are generally marketed as being strong alternatives to the first popularly known cryptocurrency, BTC, as they tackle what seem to be the Bitcoin’s limitations.

Despite that selling point, altcoins are still competing against Bitcoin, the most popular (and highest valued) cryptocurrency in the world, and must have competitive advantage to succeed.

Many altcoins are built using the basic framework of Bitcoin, giving most of them that much-desired aspect of being “peer-to-peer”.

Also, much like Bitcoin, they aim to provide a cheap and efficient means of transaction.

The very first altcoin released to the public was actually Namecoin, announced in April 2011. Namecoin was actively used and mined even till today.

It was based on the Bitcoin code, and used the same proof-of-work algorithm – just like BTC, Namecoin is limited to 21 million coins.

In general, altcoins work very similarly to Bitcoin. However, there can be some minor differences between different coins.

Below is a list of the most important facts about altcoins:

As altcoins evolved over the years, categories within the “altcoin” umbrella have emerged. There is also some movement toward separating most of these concepts from altcoins.

If that trend continues, altcoins might refer only to mining-based cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin in the future.

Below are a few different kinds that have been created over the years:

These are the Altcoins that followed the mining aspect of Bitcoin – the process in which new coins are created by solving challenging cryptographic equations to unlock blocks.

Some of the top altcoins on the market are mining-based, including the extremely popular Ethereum.

These are similar to traditional stocks, in the sense that they often promise dividends like ownership of a business or a pay-out. They’re often launched in an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and are linked to businesses.

Utility tokens are sometimes sold on ICOs as well. However, unlike security tokens, they will provide a claim on services.

The main difference between a security token and a utility token is that security tokens pass the Howey Test, while utility tokens do not.

The major aim of Stablecoin, is to cancel out the volatility that comes from keeping your financial value in volatile cryptocurrencies.

They cancel out the volatility by keeping value of a coin to real-life assets like fiat currencies (such as the US dollar or Euro), resources (like gasoline), and some precious metals (like gold).

Tether is a popular example of Stablecoin, but there are some other Stablecoins in the crypto-market.

Finding Altcoin price is similar to tracking the price of Bitcoin on the internet.

There are several tools online to follow up with the prices of different Altcoins, but my favourite is CoinMarketCap.

This service displays a complete list of different cryptocurrency assets available in the market, and with their respective prices.

Altcoins are available on many cryptocurrency exchanges, including some of the popularly known peer-to-peer marketplaces like; LocalBitcoins and Paxful.

On CoinSwitch, which is my favourite platform for buying Altcoins, you can trade your Bitcoin cryptocurrency for different Altcoins (with Ethereum Classic and Bitcoin Cash being most popular options).

Altcoins are risky, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth investing in. It may be useful to first of all divide your portfolio into risk layers, especially if you intend to speculate on new crypto-coins.

I strongly recommend you get a portfolio tracker like KryptoGraphe, to keep track of your coins.

There are many factors to consider when looking to purchase an altcoin. A few important points to consider before committing are as follows:

Have it in mind that most altcoins can’t be purchased with fiat currency – meaning you’ll want to purchase and swap Bitcoins for your desired choice of altcoin on the right exchange.

Some exchanges like Changelly, let you purchase BTC with a credit card directly on the exchange. After purchasing BTC, you’ll need to find an exchange that offer your altcoin.

I recommend CoinSwitch, as it hosts a list of the top currency exchanges, the “markets” or currency pairs these exchanges trade in, hourly trades, daily volume, and percent market share.

Unless you are a ninja cryptocurrency trader, steer clear of the less popular exchanges. More popular exchanges are more liquid.

Higher liquidity means you’ll be able to buy altcoins quicker and closer to the market’s clearing price.

Need a primer on liquidity?

Search the currency exchanges and do some research on exchanges that have your currency pair. Once you’ve settled on the best exchange, you’ll need to register.

It’s good to have separate crypto wallets for your altcoins and Bitcoin (respectively). Once you’ve bought any altcoin, just move it to a cryptocurrency wallet – hardware wallets are the most secured in the market.

Binance seems to have a large database of Altcoin so far, as they keeping adding new crypto coins in their marketplace.

Binance is one of the best cryptocurrency exchanges you can actually use to buy any coin of your choice for investment. They have up-to 500+ different Altcoins as at the time of writing.

Ethereum is now stable enough to have stood on its own blockchain, and is entirely independent of Bitcoin influence to an extent.

Nonetheless, alternative cryptocurrencies launched after the great success of Bitcoin, are known as “Altcoins”. Many of the altcoins are built up on the basic framework provided by Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Thus, Altcoins are peer-to-peer, involve a mining process by which users solve difficult problems to unlock blocks, and offer efficient and cheap ways to carry out transactions on the web.

Current leading examples of Altcoin include Litecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Neo, Eos, Monero, etc.

Bitcoin is still the top-father dog of all cryptocurrencies.

However, plenty of altcoins are beginning to make wave, since over 5,000 cryptocurrencies are currently on the crypto market (and more being introduced every day).

It will only be a matter of time before people find the next big cryptocurrency like BTC.

Poloniex, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchange has announced that they are supporting the Bitcoin on TRON (BTCTRON) early this month and Poloniex users will be able to use the Swap feature to exchange their Bitcoin to BTCTRON for free directly from their Poloniex Wallet. BTCTRON is a wrapped Bitcoin under the TRON blockchain and let’s get to know more about BTCTRON.

BTC on TRON is still in its early stages and further developments will be implemented soon, such as yield farming and using BTCTRON as a transport layer for quickly sending Bitcoin between addresses.

Also, users may have the option to swap back their BTCTRON back to BTC, the same way on how users converted BTC to BTCTRON and there are no fees associated with swapping BTC to BTCTRON or BTCTRON to BTC.

Poloniex is one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges that was launched in 2014 and is based out of Wilmington, Delaware, in the United States. It was very previously acquired by Circle, a Goldman-Sachs backed company.

The exchange also provides its customers with a secure trading environment and advanced charts and data analysis tools. The platform enables users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies such as litecoin, namecoin, dogecoin, and more.

TRON’s token wrapping technology has made waves in the industry and adding BTCTRON on Poloniex, this will be another achievement for both TRON and Poloniex.

For more news and updates, see Tron Spark.