Cryptocurrency & Blockchain

In the below article, we are going to introduce Cryptocurrency & Blockchain Technology. The article is structured like a conversation between three friends who are meeting during the Lockdown.

Sowbharnika : Hi Preetha ✋, How is it going?

Preetha           : Yes, it is going good and How are you? By the way, who is she?

Sowbharnika : I’m good. She is my cousin Sandhiya. She came to spend this lockdown here with me.

Preetha           : Ho! Hi Sandhiya. I'm Preetha, Sowbharnika’s friend.

Sandhiya        : Hi Preetha ✋, Sowbharnika told me about you…It is good to meet you.

Preetha           : Wow, nice. Thank you...How do you spend this lockdown time with her?

Sandhiya      : Yes, We spend this time in an interesting and informative way by learning about Cryptocurrency.

Preetha          : Cryptocurrency???.. What is that? I have never heard of it.

Sowbharnika : Hey Preetha, First of all, do you know what is Currency and who controls it?

Preetha         : Yes, I know what Currency is, the paper money we use to buy products / services. It is a physical money in an economy. The value and the unit varies from country to country. In India, we use Indian Rupees (₹ - INR) whereas in USA they use United States Dollar ($ - USD). But, I am not aware who actually controls them?! 😐 

Sowbharnika : Good, it is normally controlled by Central Bank of the country. In India, the Central Bank is called the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which controls the flow of money. Let Sandhiya explain about Cryptocurrency. 

Sandhiya       : Cryptocurrency is a digital virtual money used as a medium of exchange where creation, transfer, ownership are recorded in a distributed ledger using strong cryptographic algorithm.

Preetha             : 😕😕😕

Sandhiya          : Wait, let me put it in simple terms. Cryptocurrency is nothing but a currency in digital and virtual form. It is an amalgamation of Cryptography and Currency.

Sowbharnika  : It is based on Distributed Ledger Technology like Blockchain. It is designed to solve the most crucial problem in digital transaction called Double Spending.

Sandhiya        : Double Spending is a potential flaw in  digital cash transaction system where the same digital money can be spent more than once. 

Preetha           : Thanks Sowbharnika and Sandhiya for introducing me a new topic of interest. I would like to know more about Blockchain technology?

Sandhiya      : Blockchain is a system to record transactions in a distributed ledger. The transactions are recorded in the form of blocks where each block is connected through Cryptographic Hash. Blockchain is highly secure, immutable, and transparent ledger. 

Sowbharnika  : Until recent times, people Trusted 3rd-parties to store and process their assets of value. These third parties used centralized system to maintain and perform computational tasks. 

Blockchain is a decentralized computation and distributed ledger to immutably store transactions in a verifiable manner efficiently, through a rational decision making process  among multiple parties in an open and public system. 

 

Preetha         : Ok, Blockchain is an important innovation on the internet. It is good for a safe and secure transaction then, can you say how it works in a real scenario?

Sandhiya       : Yes, let's take a Car rental company as an example. Every time person rents a car it creates a transaction and the car rental company acts as an intermediary (trusted 3rd-party) who maintains the database of transactions. 

Incase, of a Car rental company with decentralized system which maintains the public ledger of the people rented and owner. If a user wish to rent any car, they can get the information about the car without contacting the company (intermediary). For every transaction, ledger in all the nodes are updated. This new car rental model is operated by the people involved in the transaction without the involvement of intermediaries.  This is how the Blockchain works.

Preetha          : 😎. It is very interesting to hear about this Disruptive Technology. I am too interested to know more about this.

Sowbharnika : A Cryptocurrency is normally created, transacted, and maintained in a Blockchain.  Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency developed in 2009, by an anonymous developer, who goes by the pseudonym, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Preetha      : Yaay, I heard about Bitcoin, but I assumed it is a form of digital currency. Now I understand it is Cryptocurrency, as it is created by Cryptographic means. 

Sowbharnika : Yes you are absolutely right Preetha👍. But not only Bitcoin, but other popular cryptocurrencies are also created on top of some blockchain. Let me suggest you something, either you spend time researching about each cryptocurrency or learn it from an expert. 

Preetha          : Sure. Apart from Bitcoin, can you share more information on other cryptocurrencies? 

Sandhiya    : As Bitcoin grew in popularity and gained more acceptance, many individuals and organizations started creating their own cryptocurrency based on bitcoin. As a result, alternative cryptocurrencies (often referred to as altcoins) were launched. The cryptocurrencies created based on Bitcoin are LiteCoin and Namecoin.

Litecoin (LTC) is developed by Charlie Lee, which became one of the top 5 cryptocurrencies in 2017.

Namecoin (NMC) was developed by Vinced, which acts as a decentralized DNS.

 

Preetha       : Are all those altcoins active even today?

Sowbharnika : No Preetha, some cryptocurrencies due to its failures became inactive and paved the way for the introduction of new cryptocurrencies. Some inactive cryptocurrencies are Coinye, Onecoin, Petro.

Preetha       : Can you share about other popular cryptocurrencies that are active?

Sandhiya   :  Peercoin, Dogecoin, Primecoin, Ripple, and many others.

Peercoin (PPC) is a cryptocurrency where new coins are generated based on holdings of individuals.

Preetha          : Wait Sandhiya, DogeCoin (DOGE) is something related to dogs?

Sandhiya      : Yes you are right Preetha, DOGE known as Joke Currency was developed as featuring Shiba Inu dog from the "Doge” Internet meme as its logo. This coin is used in the Internet Tipping system.

Preetha           : Likewise, is Primecoin related with Prime numbers?

Sowbharnika : Yes, your guess is absolutely correct, Preetha !!! 👏

PrimeCoin (XPM), searches for a chain of prime numbers, which were developed by the Peercoin developer.

Sandhiya       : Yes, your guess wins because their name implies their features. Let me tell you about the next one which is Ripple. 

Ripple (XRP) is not based on bitcoin, is a Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) System.

 

Ether (ETH) is the cryptocurrency based on Ethereum Blockchain, featuring smart contract functionality. Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency platform after Bitcoin, which was developed in the year 2015.

Preetha           : Oh, nice to know !!!

Sowbharnika: Post introduction of Ethereum, Tether, Zcash, BitcoinCash came into existence. 

Preetha           : So is there any country which started using or issuing cryptocurrency?

Sandhiya        :  Aurorocoin which was launched in 2014, as an alternative to Iceland's króna. 

Preetha         : Happy to have known so much information about Cryptocurrency. But I would also like to know is there any disadvantages in this new form of currency?

Sowbharnika : Very important question. Like two sides of the same coin, inspite of having multitude advantages, cryptocurrency also faces numerous challenges. Some of them are scalability, security issues, privacy, anonymous illegal transaction and data breaches.

It's our responsibility to keep an eye on the development in this area. Participate based on our own Analysis. 

Preetha        : Thank you 🙏 both. I had a nice time learning from both. I will also share about this new technology with my friends. 

Sandhiya    : Yes, that is very important 👍. Kindly share and create awareness about this technology that is going to impact everyone in near future, also to your parents. See you then ! 😊

Sowbharnika : Bye !!! 😊

 

                                                                    ---    ***    ---

Authored by: Sowbharnika K

Reviewed by: Ramaguru Radhakrishnan

Definition & Images from : நம்Chain Terminologies Series

HyperLedger Besu - Node Setup

                                        

This article is part of Hyperledger Besu Series. 

Part 1 - Hyperledger Besu Installation

In this part of the series, we are going to see how to setup a permissioned network within our local computer. 

Step 1: Move the besu folder from Downloads/ or your default download directory to your Main Working directory with enough storage space.  

Step 2: Install Curl in your system.

Step 3: Create a folder for the Permissioned Network within the besu-1.5.0 folder.

 

View of Besu directory after Permissioned-Network folder creation

Step 4: Create three folder Node-1, Node-2, Node-3 each representing a Node in the Permissioned Network.

 

 

View of Permissioned-Network folder with three Nodes

Step 5: Within each Node folder, create a data folder for storing the blockchain data. The Node key is also saved within this directory when node starts Besu.

View of Node Folder showing the sub-directory 'data'

Step 6: Genesis Block is the first Block in the Blockchain. We need to create a Genesis config file in json format and place it in the Permissioned-Network directory. Clique is the consensus algorithm here, so we need to include atleast signature of one node in the genesis file.  

Step 7:  Copy the file from the link and paste in Permissioned-Network Directory

Step 8: Get the Node-1 Address from the file in /Node-1/data/nodeAddress1 and replace that instead of text <Node-1 Address>  for the parameter  "extraData" in the cliqueGenesis.json file.

 Step 9: Copy the permissions config from the link and paste in data directory all Nodes (/Node-1/data, /Node-2/data, /Node-3/data)