Categories
Cryptocurrency

Ethereum Vs. Bitcoin: Which One Of These Deserves Your Attention?

Ethereum and Bitcoin are the two most prominent names in the cryptocurrency space. Ethereum was launched in 2015 with the primary objective of expanding on the capabilities of Bitcoin. The feature of smart contracts makes ethereum unique from its counterparts in the cryptocurrency and blockchain segment. Smart contracts allow for self-execution of contracts, thanks to the embedded code on the blockchain. This feature is preferred by players in fintech and other industries that are looking to increase their efficiency with the help of blockchain technology.

Ethereum Contribution to Crypto Industry

The most notable contribution of ethereum in the crypto space manifests in the form of smart contracts and a decentralized application (dApps) platform. With the help of smart contracts, several functions can be executed automatically – employee contracts can be generated, legal gambling facility can be maintained, and coupon bonds can be acted upon. Even more important is the dApp platform that can be utilized by developers and companies to build new applications to accomplish different objectives in different business segments. Ether is the native coin to ethereum blockchain and in other words, it is an internal cryptocurrency that powers the settlement of the smart contracts. Like other cryptocurrencies, ether can be mined and in terms of market capitalization, it is the second-largest digital coin lagging only behind Bitcoin in valuation. Ether is traded on all well-known cryptocurrency exchanges and has a decent reputation in the market.

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO)

As mentioned above, the distinctive competence of ethereum is its dApp platform that can be utilized by organizations to conceive an altogether new level of the governance structure – without any centralized control. These organizations are referred to as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO). These companies are open and transparent and run according to the protocol recorded on the blockchain. There are doubts regarding the legal status of these organizations. Still, then the importance and significance of DAO are increasingly becoming apparent in the backdrop of the unethical and opaque practices used in the business world today.

Ethereum Vs. Bitcoin

The most significant difference between Bitcoin and ethereum is the fact that the former is only a cryptocurrency. At the same time, the latter is a blockchain platform that is used by organizations to execute smart contracts and build decentralized applications. The scope of ethereum is wider owing to a constellation of services provided by the platform, which clearly provides it an advantage over Bitcoin. You can execute smart contracts with the help of ethereum and also built decentralized applications specific to your business requirements.

This flexibility is not available in the case of Bitcoin, but the advantage of being highly liquid makes Bitcoin most desirable in the world of digital coins. Bitcoin is also the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, which adds to its heft and dominance. However, when it comes to blockchain technology, the open ledger used by the ethereum is much better than that of Bitcoin. The transaction fee charged by Ethereum is more affordable, and the ability to offer faster processing puts ethereum ahead of the Bitcoin on the convenience chart.

Conclusion

There is no direct comparison between Bitcoin and ethereum. Both come with their own set of advantages and have also got their own share of issues. Still, if one has to compare both these blockchain-based technologies on the aspects of comfort, convenience, and versatility, then ethereum has got an advantage over Bitcoin. Ethereum platform offers a wide range of capabilities that are currently unmatched by any other player in the cryptocurrency space. Yes, Bitcoin is larger in terms of valuation and more liquid, but ethereum offers modern blockchain technology and its Smart Contracts feature has really proved to be a game-changer.

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Finance

How Do Forex Brokers Work?

The foreign exchange market is an international decentralized market for the trading and exchange of currencies. This market estimates the rates of foreign exchange of every currency across the globe. It also includes every aspect of exchanging, selling, and buying currencies at determined or current prices.

Who Is A Forex Broker?

A forex broker is a firm that offers traders with a platform for selling and buying currencies. Every transaction in the forex market takes place among different currencies, and so the forex trader either sells or buys the specific pair they seek to trade. A forex broker is also referred to as currency trading brokers and retail forex brokers. Most of the forex broker firms deal with a minor portion of the entire volume in the forex market. The retail currency traders employ the forex brokers to get access to the 24-hour foreign currency market for the purpose of speculation. The more significant firms like the investment banks also provide forex brokerage services to institutional clients.

What Is The Role Of The Forex Broker?

Enlisted below are the different roles and functions of the forex broker.

1. Establish a link between the foreign exchange market and the trader

The forex brokers make it possible for individuals traders to get access to the foreign exchange market. The retail traders hold insignificant proportions of the large foreign exchange. It is therefore infeasible for individual retail traders to trade with the significant players in the forex market. And so, the forex broker plays the role of a bridge between the retail foreign exchange trader and the forex market by providing a platform for trading.

2. Conduct trading on behalf of the individual retail foreign exchange trader

The forex brokers often offer the service of trading in the forex market on behalf of traders. The broker assists the individual trader in establishing a link with the major traders in the forex market. As such, whenever the major trader conducts trading in the forex market, he invests a particular percentage of the individual trader’s money as well. The retail trader then receives a portion of the profit from the profits of the trade. This mode of trading is highly profitable as the bigger players of the forex market are highly experienced in trading and investment, and can make the cuts with ease.

3. Make efforts to educate the trader

The forex broker offers education to the individual traders. Retail traders can access the platform of online forex brokers to learn about trading strategies and tricks for making profits. The forex broker also helps the retail trader to practice demo trading through a demo account before taking part in live trading.

How Much Is The Forex Broker Fee?

The forex broker may charge around $1 for every $100,000 of currency pair exchange. If a retail trader purchases $100,000 EUR.USD, then the forex broker receives a commission of $10.

What Are The Risks Of Foreign Exchange Trading?

Active trading in the forex market involves a variety of risks. The trading can either generate skyrocketing profits or incur terrible losses. An in-depth understanding of the risks and close supervision of the market factors can help to curb the losses to a great extent. Look out for the following risks while trading in the forex market.

1. Margin risk

Leverage risk or margin risk comes with margin trading. Margin trading permits the trader to use the leverage. If the leveraging ratio is too high, then the losses may spiral beyond control. Conduct leveraged trading by enhancing the size of your position in proportion to the borrowed capital.

2. Interest rate risk

The fluctuations in the interest rate expose the trader to interest rate risks. Careful monitoring of the changes in the rates of interest can indicate where the big institutions are making investments for higher returns on their assets.

3. Volatility risk

Volatility risk is the risk that the traders get exposed to because of the high degree of fluctuation within the forex market that results in sudden losses in trade. However, the volatility of the forex market has positive aspects as well, as there can be no profit-making without volatility. The volatility creates pressure in the market that drives the supply and demand dynamic and enables traders to make profits.

4. Broker risk

It is essential to make sure that the broker is honest and reliable before taking part in forex trading.

Categories
Cryptocurrency

Everything You Need To Know About Ripple: A Complete tour

Taking pride as one of the strongest decentralized and cryptocurrency networks, Ripple is a true example of unprecedented technological expertise and an advanced innovative approach. Originally unveiled in 2012 as a subsequent iteration of Ripplepay, Ripple works as a real-time gross settlement network, currency exchange, and remittance facilitator network curated by the globally-acclaimed U.S-based technology firm, Ripple Labs Inc. As highlighted in its whitepaper, Ripple strives to achieve “secure, instantly and nearly free global financial transactions of any size with no chargebacks.” The leading network is built upon a distributed open-source protocol to support transactions involving fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies, commodities, and other units of value like frequent flier miles or mobile minutes.

For any person who wants to deal with XRP, the native cryptocurrency of the Ripple network, it is important for them to learn about RippleNet, which is a singular, global network constituting banking institutions and financial organizations. This globally-reputed conglomerate indulges in sending and receiving of payments via the use of Ripple’s distributed financial, technological expertise. It establishes itself as a unified decentralized global hub of banks and financial entities to facilitate real-time and economical payments for the participating organizations. RippleNet users With its unmatched services and product offerings, Ripple’s XRP stood as the third-largest crypto coin by market capitalization as of April 2020.

The Historical Timeline of Ripple

2004

Canada-based programmer Ryan Fugger founded Ripplepay, a payment system based on the P2P financial communication system.

2011

The team decided to decentralize the network against the background of Bitcoin development. However, they chose a different path that did not involve mining. Chris Larsen, a present board member of Ripple, joined the network.

2012

OpenCoin Corporation was established to encourage the development of cryptocurrency and payment systems. Larsen and Jed McCaleb led it.

2013

The XRP token was released in January. In April, it received investments from leading firms like Google Ventures, Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, Vast Ventures and collected $1.5 Million. Later, the firm was renamed as Ripple labs.

2014-2016

The firm kept on expanding its operations by earning support from the industry leaders. In October 2015, the name was changed again to Ripple.

About XRP

XRP is a leading cryptocurrency that is built on the XRP ledger system. The XRP ledger is an open-source, decentralized, permissionless interface that is powered by the excellence of blockchain technology. It is capable of executing and processing transactions in 3 to 5 seconds. One can send XRP directly without the intervention of a central authority, which eventually makes it a potential instrument for eliminating the gap between two different currencies speedily and economically. The curators designed XRP to facilitate transactions involving large sums of money at minimum costs. Owing to its high potential, XRP has attracted an impressive list of banking institutions and payment providers in its client umbrella, including American Express, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander, Unicredit, and MoneyGram.

Unlike other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, which takes over an hour and ETH, which takes nearly two minutes for transaction processing, Ripple claims that XRP takes less than four seconds to complete a transaction. XRP is widely accepted on all the major crypto exchanges as it successfully counters the scalability limitations prevalent in other crypto networks. The XRP token has a maximum total supply of 100 Billion tokens and the firm owns nearly 60% out of the total sum. Ripple network handles 1,500 transactions per second and can scale up to 50,000 transactions per second, whereas Ethereum and Bitcoin can handle 15 and 3-6 transactions, respectively.

How does Ripple work?

The XRP ledger is managed by the independent participants of a global “XRP community,” of which Ripple is an active participant. The distributed database stores information about all the Ripple accounts. The core network is “managed by a network of independent validating servers that constantly compare their transaction records,” which implies that the independent validator nodes reach consensus on the order and validity of the transactions. The consensus agreement is the final and irreversible settlement in nature. The consensus is reached on all the outstanding transactions every 3-5 seconds post, which a new ledger is issued. Anyone can be a validator such as universities, crypto exchanges, and financial entities. Currently, there are 34 validators in which Ripple controls seven, nearly 21% of all the validators.

What is Ripple used for?

Ripple is primarily designed to cater to the requirements of giant financial institutions and business entities like banks. It allows banking organizations to transfer a wide range of assets, including cryptocurrency and fiat money, in a secure, transparent, and cost-effective manner. The platform performs transfers between institutions at a very high speed and gives a stiff competition to traditional transfer methods like SWIFT. Buying Bitcoin through bank transfer can be quite cumbersome as it will involve a lot of time-consuming processes like contacting the bank, sending transactions to a swift bank code account, etc. This requires a lot of effort and is complicated too. However, with Ripple, this can be done instantly as it facilitates sub-second transactions for its partner firms.

Conclusion

The article given above highlights all the ifs and buts concerning one of the leading cryptocurrencies XRP and its channelizing network, Ripple. The firm is constantly on a development spree. It is fast proliferating into different countries across the globe to popularize XRP and encourage crypto mass adoption. The platform aspires to bring more and more people under the purview of cryptocurrencies. Ripple strives to give the maximum benefits and convenience to its users through its high-end technology. It aims to reduce the burden on institutions like banks that are involved in big and continuous transaction circles. The network is already a favorite for customers worldwide, and it aims to strengthen its control in the market further. So, start exploring the crypto world opportunities through the Ripple network.

Categories
Cryptocurrency

A Guide to Ethereum’s Hard Fork

Fork or Harfork is a fundamental term related to blockchain technology, used to denote an important change in the network’s protocol which can validate blocks that were invalid earlier or vice versa. A hard fork needs the upgradation of all existing users and nodes, to the protocol software’s latest version. Such a radical change can occur in any crypto or blockchain technology-based platform like Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.. Upgradation is required as the nodes of the upgraded version do not accept those of the previous one which results in a permanent divergence. When a new rule is added to the existing code, a fork or change is created in the blockchain, which leads to divergence. Resultantly, one route follows the latest version and the other route sticks to the older version, although after some time, the old chain got outdated, gets upgraded to the latest version. This is how a hard fork primarily functions.

Different Types of Fork

In an Open Source Software, where projects are developed in the open, with complete transparency, “a fork occurs when the source code of a project is copied to be developed independently of the original project.” Forks again can be of two types- soft and hard forks, where we already know about hard forks. Soft forks are protocol upgrades that are compatible with the older version backward, but not vice versa. Thus, the network would be incapable of breaking up into chains or issuing new cryptocurrencies. Another fork is a ‘planned upgrade where the upgrade has been planned well in advance, on the blockchain network.’ Like Ethereum (ETH) has already developed its roadmap for the next five years. For Instance, where the blockchain code is forked and changed for introduction and generation of the new currency, a majority of blockchain ecosystems develop through this kind of fork, like Litecoin, Namecoin, etc.

Also, a change might occur when there is a rift between the developer and miner community, like the schism and subsequent split in the Ethereum network after the DAO project was hacked at the cost of millions of ETH. The discord in the community w.r.t. the response to the hack, resulted in a hard fork where some continued with the mining of the original chain, leading to the network’s split into two groups, Ethereum Chain and Ethereum Classic. This is often referred to as ‘go-to- contentious fork.’

An Overview of Ethereum’s Hard Fork

In the case of Ethereum, the developers have planned for significant changes that the network would undergo over a period of time. This change, tantamounting to a slow process of development of the network, has been seen as a necessary measure for its long term evolution. A gradual transition would take place from ‘proof-of-work’ to ‘proof-of-stake,’ although a hasty upgrade is uncalled. Once the transition to the proof-of-stake mechanism is complete, we would get what would be known as ETH2.0.

These forks, therefore, function as Ethereum Improvement Proposals to make the network more advanced and improved. A number of these proposals would be included in the fork and this is based on the ‘Request for Comments’ proposal system, which provided the basic proposals of the way the internet has turned out to be today. “Lately, there has been announced a new model called EIP-centric forking by Martin Holst Swende, which is the process of how AllCoreDevs are making decisions about EIPs and forks.”

Ethereum’s Development Cycle

There are four primary stages in Ethereum’s development cycle- Frontier, Homestead, Metropolis, and ETH2.0 Beacon Chain.

  • Frontier, as the name suggests, launched the ‘Ethereum Mainnet, ’ which signaled the mining of Ether and prototyping of decentralized applications.
  • Homestead was the first production release by Ethereum and hence introduced changes that magnify development capability and user accessibility.
  • The third stage is Metropolis, which brought specific attributes with it like scalability, increased security, enhanced privacy, and efficiency along with the flexibility to the Ethereum network. This phase, being a crucial phase of maturation, has been divided into two parts-
  • Byzantium– where a privacy-protecting technology zK-SNARKS, which is used by different projects like zcash, was introduced to the network along with many upgrades to smart contract operations. It was also characterized by a delay of the ‘difficulty bomb,’ and the block reward was reduced from 5 to 3 ETH.
  • Constantinople consisted of several upgrades for operation and network maintenance, of which the first phase was St.Petersburg. This phase made operations on certain chains cheaper, and the block reward was brought down from 3 to 2 ETH. Followed by St.Petersburg would be Istanbul, which would be further divided into two stages- Muir Glacier and Berlin.
  • Muir Glacier does not follow the standard nomenclature scheme as it is an emergency or unplanned fork. “It comes between Istanbul and Berlin named after the popular glacier in Alaska because of the Ice Age difficulty bomb delay. This emergency fork addresses the impending Ice Age on Ethereum Mainnet.”
  • Berlin is the second stage of Istanbul and has generated a lot of debate owing to its suggested change of the Ethereum network’s mining algorithm.

ETH2.0 Beacon Chain is the final phase of Ethereum’s expected roadmap, which would complete the transition from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stage consensus along with the introduction of the Beacon Chain. Cross-shard communication, a shift from EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) to Ethereum Flavoured Web Assembly (e-WASM), would make it the most crucial stage of transformation for the Ethereum network. Two live chains would function with the older one being eventually subsumed by ETH2.0 and pushed into one of the shards. However, a lot of work remains to be done before the shift into the final phase is complete and the Ethereum community is still in two minds regarding the transition. Once the transition is complete, Ethereum would become one of the most advanced public blockchain networks worldwide, which would give further impetus to the growing ‘techno-social phenomenon.’

Categories
Cryptocurrency

How Blockchain Can Tackle the Issue of Double-spending of Bitcoin

Blockchain technology has achieved significant popularity ever since it came into existence. The technology has also started getting acceptance all across the world in a gradual manner. Blockchain-controlled cryptocurrencies have led to a sort of revolution in terms of digital currency usage. Cryptocurrencies have gone a long way in redefining the way money is used. The entire world is now slowly moving towards the direction of decentralized digital currency. We have got the opportunity of using digital currency at several locations. Apart from the various advantages that digital currency offers, some disadvantages have also plagued it, and double-spending is one of the major issues. Given below are some of the vital points related to blockchain technology and double spending:

How Can Blockchain Help You Make Error-free Transactions?

Blockchain can effectively enhance the efficiency of digital transactions by letting people and companies carry out direct digital transactions sans any intermediaries. It helps in bringing down the cost, boosts the security of the transaction, and helps in making the system far more transparent.

What is Double-spending?

Double-spending can be defined as the risk associated with a digital currency that may be spent twofold by an individual or organization. It has emerged as one of the graves yet unique problems linked to the decentralized digital currencies. The possibility of double-spending surges as digital information can be conveniently replicated effortlessly by tech-savvy people who have acquired a detailed understanding of the blockchain network along with computer power required for manipulating it.

Physical currencies do not face this problem as it is not that simple to replicate them. Additionally, the parties included in the transaction can instantly verify their authenticity and earlier ownership of physical currencies without much hassle.

It is worth noting that double spending takes place when a blockchain network gets interrupted, and cryptocurrencies are robbed. The robber may send a copy of the currency transaction in a bid to make it appear authentic or may remove the transaction altogether. When a cryptocurrency is not effectively secured in a wallet, it will be robbed. However, it is not a common phenomenon.

The common ways of double-spending are when a blockchain robber sends several packets to the network, thus reversing the transaction so that it appears as if it never took place.

Is Double Spending an Issue?

Digital money differs from cash. The moment you carry out a transaction with digital cash, you broadcast the transaction to available nodes in the network. Nodes can be defined as computers that run the software on which the digital currency is supported. The nodes are required to receive and verify the transaction and it is a time-taking procedure. The real problem arises here. It faces the issue of stopping somebody from copying the transaction and rebroadcasting it before it has been verified on the network. The network may face the issue of ascertaining the transaction, whether it is genuine or fake.

How Blockchain Proves Effective in Solving Double Spending?

The emergence of Blockchain technology has proved to be highly effective in various aspects and tackling the issue of double-spending is one of them. It can effectively eliminate all the bottlenecks that prevail in the conventional technology that we have been using. When we discuss the problems linked to cryptocurrency, Blockchain can solve this by applying a confirmation mechanism along with a global ledger that is distributed to all peers in the network.

Blockchain has become the central technology of all existing cryptocurrencies, and it is available with features that make this technology an indispensable one. Whatever transactions or data exchange occur at this platform will have the data stored in sequential order along with time-stamping. It will ease the process of tracing the information. All the transactions are cross-checked by nodes, and only after this, it will enter the global ledger. The transaction which gets the highest confirmations from miners will be included in Blockchain while the others will be rejected. The merchants receive the advice to wait for a minimum of six confirmations.

Bitcoin’s Timestamp Server:

A white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto’s advised usage of a timestamp service as an effective solution to curb the issue of double-spending. The server secures a hash of block transactions and highlights the hash to all existing nodes in the Bitcoin network. The main function of a timestamp is to prove that all available data in the hash couldn’t be established after the hash got published. Each timestamp will include an earlier timestamp in its hash. It builds an immutable record of the order in which transactions will occur.

Conclusion:

Therefore, we can conclude here that Blockchain can significantly eliminate double spending woes by way of timestamping groups of transactions. It then highlights the transactions to all nodes in the Bitcoin network. Because the transactions get time-stamped on Blockchain and linked to earlier ones, it will be near impossible to tamper with them.