2020 I will start with post about minimal (In my opinion) knowledge needed to understand cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology world. I hope that it will be good beginning on the journey. I will base on BTC blockchain, wallets etc. since you probably know it from name at least.
Last post was summary of 2019 (it is in Polish)
Where to get your first wallet
I had discussion with some people about what wallet beginners could use. Most of them pointed to project named Exodus. You can get installation files from this site. There is version for popular systems windows, linux (.deb, .zip), mac os as, Android and IOS. After installation ui of the project will look like this:
Important note: Of course you can use whatever project you choose. Just remember to make sure that private keys will be held by you and only you.
Dictionary
- Blockchain – It’s nothing else than big decentralized ledger
- Public key – another name of your wallet address which is public for everyone in the BTC network
- Private key – This one should be known only to you and you should not share it with anyone (it will give anyone who have this key access to your wallet address including assets available on it!). You should keep it written down in some safe place only with it you will be able to access your assets.
- Seed – In most cases it’s 12-24 words used for generating new account and restore them. (it will give anyone who have this key access to your wallet address including assets available on it!)
- PoW – Proof of Work implemented consensus algorithm used to produce new blocks and confirm transactions on the chain
- Miner – Computer unit which produce blocks and confirm transactions included in them
- DApps – Decentralized Apps it’s self explaining 😉 i.e. some exchanges, wallets apps
- Transaction Fee – If we want to our transaction be processed sooner than later then we need to pay extra for it. There is option to send assets with fee equal to 0 but then processing of such transaction might took longer
Price
There is plenty of sites where you can check current price of cryptocurrencies. I can recommend two of them which I personally use coinpaprika and coinmarketcap. You can see there prices in USD, PLN, BTC, ETH and other. There are also descriptions of crypto with links to original sites of each project.
Check transactions or accounts balance without use of dedicated application
Even when you have no intention to install wallet for your own you can still check the blockchain in the browser. Just go to https://www.blockchain.com/explorer and choose BTC as a type of account you would like to look for.
Hope that will be good begin for your adventure with cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology world. I would love to hear from you what do you think about such posts. If it helped you please share it to reach and help more people to understand a little more about that mystic blockchain technology.
See you next time!
Łukasz