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Unspent Transaction Output
In cryptocurrencies, an unspent transaction output (UTXO, often capitalized as UTxO) is a distinctive element in a subset of digital currency models. A UTXO represents a certain amount of cryptocurrency that has been authorized by a sender and is available to be spent by a recipient. The utilization of UTXOs in transaction processes is a key feature of many cryptocurrencies, but it primarily characterizes those implementing the UTXO model. UTXOs employ public key cryptography to ascertain and transfer ownership. More specifically, the recipient's public key is formatted into the UTXO, thereby limiting the capability to spend the UTXO to the account that can demonstrate ownership of the corresponding private key. A valid digital signature associated with the public key must be included for the UTXO to be spent. UTXOs constitute a chain of ownership depicted as a series of digital signatures dating back to the coin's inception, regardless of whether the coin was minted via mining, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Cryptocurrencies
A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership records are stored in a digital ledger or blockchain, which is a computerized database that uses a consensus mechanism to secure E-commerce, transaction records, control the creation of additional coins, and verify the transfer of coin ownership. The two most common consensus mechanisms are proof of work and proof of stake. Despite the name, which has come to describe many of the fungibility, fungible blockchain tokens that have been created, cryptocurrencies are not considered to be Currency, currencies in the traditional sense, and varying legal treatments have been applied to them in various jurisdictions, including classification as Commodity, commodities, Security (finance), securities, and currencies. Cryptocurrencies are generally viewed as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Distributed Ledger
A distributed ledger (also called a shared ledger or distributed ledger technology or DLT) is a system whereby replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data is geographically spread (distributed) across many sites, countries, or institutions. Its fundamental rationale is Argumentum ad populum whereby its veracity relies on a popular or majority of nodes to force the system to agree. In contrast to a centralized database, a distributed ledger does not require a central administrator, and consequently does not have a Single point of failure, single (central) point-of-failure. In general, a distributed ledger requires a peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer (P2P) computer network and Consensus (computer science), consensus algorithms so that the ledger is reliably replicated across distributed computer nodes (servers, clients, etc.). The most common form of distributed ledger technology is the blockchain (commonly associated with the bitcoin cryptocurrency), which can either be on a public or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Payment Systems
A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, payment instruments such as payment cards, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that make its exchange possible.Biago Bossone and Massimo Cirasino, "The Oversight of the Payment Systems: A Framework for the Development and Governance of Payment Systems in Emerging Economies"The World Bank, July 2001, p.7 A payment system is an operational network which links bank accounts and provides for monetary exchange using bank deposits. Some payment systems also include credit mechanisms, which are essentially a different aspect of payment. Payment systems are used in lieu of tendering cash in domestic and international transactions. This consists of a major service provided by banks and other financial institutions. Traditional payment systems include negotiable instruments such as drafts (e.g., cheques) and documentary credits such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Financial Cryptography
Financial cryptography is the use of cryptography in applications in which financial loss could result from subversion of the message system. Financial cryptography is distinguished from traditional cryptography in that for most of recorded history, cryptography has been used almost entirely for military and diplomatic purposes. Financial cryptography includes the mechanisms and algorithms necessary for the protection of financial transfers, in addition to the creation of new forms of money. Proof of work and various auction protocols fall under the umbrella of Financial cryptography. Hashcash is being used to limit spam. Financial cryptography has been seen to have a very broad scope of application. Ian Grigg sees financial cryptography in seven layers, being the combination of seven distinct disciplines: cryptography, software engineering, rights, accounting, governance, value, and financial applications. Business failures can often be traced to the absence of one or more of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Digital Currencies
Digital currency (digital money, electronic money or electronic currency) is any currency, money, or money-like asset that is primarily managed, stored or exchanged on digital computer systems, especially over the internet. Types of digital currencies include cryptocurrency, virtual currency and central bank digital currency. Digital currency may be recorded on a distributed database on the internet, a centralized electronic computer database owned by a company or bank, within digital files or even on a stored-value card. Digital currencies exhibit properties similar to traditional currencies, but generally do not have a classical physical form of fiat currency historically that can be held in the hand, like currencies with printed banknotes or minted coins. However, they do have a physical form in an unclassical sense coming from the computer to computer and computer to human interactions and the information and processing power of the servers that store and keep track o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Cryptocurrencies
A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership records are stored in a digital ledger or blockchain, which is a computerized database that uses a consensus mechanism to secure E-commerce, transaction records, control the creation of additional coins, and verify the transfer of coin ownership. The two most common consensus mechanisms are proof of work and proof of stake. Despite the name, which has come to describe many of the fungibility, fungible blockchain tokens that have been created, cryptocurrencies are not considered to be Currency, currencies in the traditional sense, and varying legal treatments have been applied to them in various jurisdictions, including classification as Commodity, commodities, Security (finance), securities, and currencies. Cryptocurrencies are generally viewed as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Blockchain
The blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of Record (computer science), records (''blocks'') that are securely linked together via Cryptographic hash function, cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a Trusted timestamping, timestamp, and transaction data (generally represented as a Merkle tree, where Node (computer science), data nodes are represented by leaves). Since each block contains information about the previous block, they effectively form a ''chain'' (compare linked list data structure), with each additional block linking to the ones before it. Consequently, blockchain transactions are resistant to alteration because, once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be changed retroactively without altering all subsequent blocks and obtaining network consensus to accept these changes. Blockchains are typically managed by a peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer (P2P) computer network for use as a public distributed led ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Double-spending
Double-spending is the unauthorized production and spending of money, either digital or conventional. It represents a monetary design problem: a good money is verifiably scarce, and where a unit of value can be spent more than once, the monetary property of scarcity is challenged. As with counterfeit money, such double-spending leads to inflation by creating a new amount of copied currency that did not previously exist. Like all increasingly abundant resources, this devalues the currency relative to other monetary units or goods and diminishes user trust as well as the circulation and retention of the currency. Fundamental cryptographic techniques to prevent double-spending, while preserving anonymity in a transaction, are the introduction of an authority (and hence centralization) for blind signatures and, particularly in offline systems, secret splitting. Centralized digital currencies Prevention of double-spending is usually implemented using an online central trusted thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Cryptocurrency Wallets
A cryptocurrency wallet is a device, physical medium, program or an online service which stores the public and/or private keys for cryptocurrency transactions. In addition to this basic function of storing the keys, a cryptocurrency wallet more often offers the functionality of encrypting and/or signing information. Signing can for example result in executing a smart contract, a cryptocurrency transaction (see "bitcoin transaction" image), identification, or legally signing a 'document' (see "application form" image). History In 2008 bitcoin was introduced as the first cryptocurrency following the principle outlined by Satoshi Nakamoto in the paper “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.” The project was described as an electronic payment system using cryptographic proof instead of trust. It also mentioned using cryptographic proof to verify and record transactions on a blockchain. Software wallets The first wallet program, simply named ''Bitcoin'', and somet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Double-spending
Double-spending is the unauthorized production and spending of money, either digital or conventional. It represents a monetary design problem: a good money is verifiably scarce, and where a unit of value can be spent more than once, the monetary property of scarcity is challenged. As with counterfeit money, such double-spending leads to inflation by creating a new amount of copied currency that did not previously exist. Like all increasingly abundant resources, this devalues the currency relative to other monetary units or goods and diminishes user trust as well as the circulation and retention of the currency. Fundamental cryptographic techniques to prevent double-spending, while preserving anonymity in a transaction, are the introduction of an authority (and hence centralization) for blind signatures and, particularly in offline systems, secret splitting. Centralized digital currencies Prevention of double-spending is usually implemented using an online central trusted thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
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Set (mathematics)
In mathematics, a set is a collection of different things; the things are '' elements'' or ''members'' of the set and are typically mathematical objects: numbers, symbols, points in space, lines, other geometric shapes, variables, or other sets. A set may be finite or infinite. There is a unique set with no elements, called the empty set; a set with a single element is a singleton. Sets are ubiquitous in modern mathematics. Indeed, set theory, more specifically Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, has been the standard way to provide rigorous foundations for all branches of mathematics since the first half of the 20th century. Context Before the end of the 19th century, sets were not studied specifically, and were not clearly distinguished from sequences. Most mathematicians considered infinity as potentialmeaning that it is the result of an endless processand were reluctant to consider infinite sets, that is sets whose number of members is not a natural number. Specific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |