See Also
Is your cryptocurrency at risk of a 51% attack?
Half plus one attacks could theoretically happen to any Proof of Work based cryptocurrency. The amount of risk of such an attack happening depends on several factors, including the number of miners who participate in the network, the distribution of hashrate among the miners, the existence of unknown and exploitable security flaws and other factors. […]
History and importance of Open Source Software in cryptocurrency development
Open Source Software (OSS) plays a critically important role in the development of cryptocurrencies, but it is almost always ignored or taken for granted by most crypto users. It’s as if the transparency and collaborative spirit that OSS provides had always been there, available to us whenever we needed it. But the truth is far […]
How decentralized is Bitcoin? How can Bitcoin be secure if nobody controls it?
Bitcoin’s decentralized consensus system is the key to understanding how it can be secure without anyone in particular having to verify every transaction. In the same article, we’ve discussed the particulars of the Byzantine Generals’ problem and how Bitcoin solved this classic dilemma when applied to digital currencies. Here we will discuss what controlling Bitcoin […]
ELI5 Proof of Stake (PoS) – How does PoS work?
In the cryptocurrency universe, Proof of Stake (PoS) is one of the most popular alternatives to the Proof of Work (PoW) family of consensus mechanisms. While PoW systems invest large amounts of energy to make sure transactions are legit, PoS does not require mining hardware. Proof of Stake “miners” (stakers) must lock a financial stake […]