Beginner Coin Introductions
The following series of five posts will be my attempt at accurately and succinctly explaining the mechanics of the top five market cap cryptocurrencies to new cryptocurrency enthusiasts, of which there are many. My goals are to provide the highest-value relevant information in between 100-150 words. The concise nature of each analysis mainly services the short attention span of the modern reader and will be used as scaffolding for later extrapolations
Newcomer Analysis 1: Bitcoin
Current Market Cap: $510,475,984,114
Bitcoin currently acts as a store-of-value as well as a payment system, and is finite, thus being constantly compared to actual physical gold.
Anyone with internet access can create a wallet and send/receive Bitcoin.
Bitcoin has a distributed ledger; publicly available records of transactions maintained by “mining”.
Miners are compensated for verifying block transactions in Bitcoin. Hash/ing relates in part to the technical aspect of the actual computational verifying process implemented by miners.
The reward “halves” every four years, with the finite bitcoin supply approximated to be fully mined by 2140, at which point miners are to be incentivized solely by network fees.
Currently, this coin enjoys first-mover advantage in the cryptocurrency space not only through increased use but also through massive institutional adopters such as PayPal.
My bias: Overall, a practical and in-demand coin, although not as innovative as competitors.
References:
https://coinmarketcap.com/
https://www.investopedia.com/news/how-bitcoin-works/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickchong/2020/11/05/october-crypto-recap-paypal-embraces-bitcoin-institutional-adoption-central-bank-digital-currencies/?sh=2fb7cd72576d
Disclaimer: I am by no means a cryptocurrency professional. I am a BS in Finance and approach my analyses through an economic and financial point of view. I do my best to integrate all current relevant information into analysis. Any criticism/comments/revisions are welcomed in the comments.
