The name ‘cryptocurrency’ has become known to more and more people with the ICO trend that lasted for more than half a year in 2017; however, due to its high technical threshold and very forward-thinking concept, even computer technology professionals may not fully understand its principles, implementation details, and value, let alone most non-technical friends. This article strives to lead readers ‘close to cryptocurrency’ with easy-to-understand language, trying to explain the basic principles and concepts of cryptocurrency without involving technical terminology, and help readers get a general understanding of the current cryptocurrency market.

　　Considering the continuity of reading and understanding, I finally decided to present the relevant content in a long article. Reading the entire article will take about 20 to 30 minutes, please arrange your reading time appropriately.

　　The term ‘cryptocurrency’ is derived from the English word ‘Cryptocurrency’ (Cryptography Currency), which, when translated directly, should be ‘cryptography currency’; although the vast majority of cryptocurrencies are not ‘encrypted’ (the relevant explanation will be given later), the Chinese community still usually refers to them as ‘cryptocurrency’, and this article will also continue to use this name.

　　Cryptocurrency entered the public’s视野 with the publication of the epoch-making paper ‘Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System’ on October 31, 2008, which is commonly known as the Bitcoin (Bitcoin) white paper, and the official launch of the Bitcoin network on January 3, 2009.

　　Although it has only been around for 9 years since its inception, the cryptocurrency market has been growing rapidly in recent years, especially in the past year of 2017. In 2017, the price of Bitcoin at the beginning of the year was less than 1000 US dollars, but by the end of the year, its price had broken through 13,000 US dollars, with a market value increase of more than 12 times; accordingly, the market value of the entire cryptocurrency market increased by dozens of times, and the market value of some cryptocurrencies even increased hundreds of times, which is truly incredible. By the end of December 2017, the members of the cryptocurrency market had exceeded 1300, and there were more than 30 types of cryptocurrencies with a market value exceeding 1 billion US dollars. Cryptocurrency has become an important part of the global financial market that can no longer be ignored.

　　So, what exactly is cryptocurrency?

　　In one sentence: Cryptocurrency is a system based on economic principles, constructed using cryptographic algorithms and distributed network technology, among other computer technologies, to facilitate the transfer of Online casino and How to find it.

　　English-speaking friends can refer to the Cryptocurrency entry in the English Wiki, which contains general introductions to the history, legal issues, basic algorithms, economic circle, theoretical research, and so on. This article will not follow the same line of thought as Wiki, as I believe that cryptocurrencies themselves are highly technical and inextricably linked to computer technology; to clarify what a cryptocurrency is, one needs to start with the technical concepts and try to explain its principles. From the perspective of learning, the best starting point is the beginning of everything: the Bitcoin white paperlottery platform and The latest method. Those with a technical background can study and understand the Bitcoin white paper carefully, which will be the best启蒙 teacher for understanding cryptocurrencies and the development and evolution of various basic protocols that followed. (It is easy to find Chinese resources for the Bitcoin white paper, so no further elaboration is needed here.)

　　Next, I will analyze cryptocurrencies based on my research and understanding, starting with the most basic and most important concepts of three cryptocurrencies.

　　Block

　　A “block” is the basic accounting unit in the cryptocurrency network. Each block contains several “transactions” (Transaction) generated in the cryptocurrency network. Here, a transaction refers to a value transfer in the cryptocurrency network, that is, the transfer of tokens (Online casino and How to find it) between two different owners (network addresses).

　　In the cryptocurrency network, each block must be marked with a “time stamp” (Time Stamp) and connected in sequence as a data chain according to its generation time. Apart from the first block in the entire network (the Genesis Block), all blocks will have a “parent block” that was generated earlier in time. The entire data chain formed in this way is known as the famous “blockchain” (Blockchain). The blockchain is also the common underlying technology for the vast majority of cryptocurrencies today (some cryptocurrencies use other underlying technologies to process data, which will be mentioned later). Storing blockchain data in a “distributed peer-to-peer network” and using some kind of “consensus algorithm” to ensure that all nodes reach a consensus on the data constitutes a complete cryptocurrency system.

　　Distributed peer-to-peer network

　　Distributed peer-to-peer network, also known as P2P (Peer to Peer) network. Remember the BT downloads and eDonkey that were popular a decade ago? They are representatives of distributed peer-to-peer network technology. The biggest feature of this network is that the business processing computation and data storage in the network are provided by all the nodes participating in the network, rather than by a certain company or organization controlling a number of ‘servers’ as we usually think of them; therefore, it is ‘decentralized’. The cryptocurrency network is built based on such network foundation protocols. All nodes participating in the network can provide computational power to the network and can keep a copy of the blockchain ledger that contains all the transaction data in the network. In this way, no one can easily tamper with historical data, and the entire network will not be easily controlled by a few individuals or organizations.

　　Consensus algorithm

　　Most cryptocurrency networks today use a type of

　　A method involves continuously calculating and recording the transaction data generated in the network into the nodes of the block, which are also known as the accounting nodes, as they provide computational power to the network. These nodes write

　　网络中的另外一种节点就是只对账本数据进行验证，而不实际进行记账（提供计算能力）的节点，它们自然也就不会得到任何奖励；它们的价值就是维持网络秩序（验证网络计算的合法性），并使用网络中的算力以完成交易（业务操作）。在加密货币网络中，要完成一笔交易，通常是要支付一定比例的“手续费”给网络中进行记账工作的节点的。

　　现行各种加密货币网络中，根据它们各自不同的共识算法，要得到一个合法的新区块需要花费数秒到数分钟的时间，这个时间就是所谓的“区块时间”。（比如在比特币网络中，这个时间被控制在10分钟左右。）

　　此外，伴随着加密货币的产生和发展，一种新的产业经济也应运而生了，这就是“矿机产业”，也可以叫做“挖矿经济”。所谓“矿机”，就是专门进行加密货币“挖矿”工作的计算机betting online website lottery onlineThe latest plan。在加密货币发展的前几个年头，大概是从2009年到2012年，挖矿都是使用普通的个人计算机或者服务器、工作站。而随着比特币价格的不断攀升，市场需求也被逐渐放大；从2013年开始，基于ASIC（Application Specific Integrated Circuit，即为专门的应用目的而设计的集成电路）的专业矿机逐渐出现并慢慢走向成熟，乃至后来的产业化。（这种经济模型可以简单的这样理解：我们可以花费一定的一次性购置费用，买入可以进行挖矿的计算硬件，然后以持续的电力投入让矿机全时在线进行挖矿；这样就能相对稳定的获得持续的Online casino and How to find it 收益。）从2015年下半年开始，甚至出现了所谓“云挖矿”（Cloud Mining）的商业化挖矿计算服务。云挖矿，就是用户只需要花费一次性的硬件购置费用，并每天支付小额维持费用给运营商，就可以拥有一定的“挖矿能力”，来不断地获得Online casino and How to find it 奖励；而不需要自行购买矿机、安装软件、提供电力来进行挖矿。（目前比特币官网上的云挖矿服务大概是初期投入6000美元，每天收益10美元左右，也就是大概两年时间可以收回本金；当然，随着比特币价格的浮动，收回本金的时间也可能会缩短或延长。）

　　The above basic concepts will help everyone understand the introduction and comparison of specific cryptocurrencies in the following text. More discussions on network protocols, algorithms, and technical details are beyond the scope and purpose of this article, and will not be elaborated on here.

　　To truly understand blockchain and cryptocurrency technology, we need to have a deep understanding of computer network technology, computer cryptography, and related data structures and algorithms; therefore, how to make friends without a technical background understand and accept cryptocurrency is a huge issue, and this also directly affects the development and application of cryptocurrency.

　　The greatest value of cryptocurrency is ‘decentralization’. That is, no institution, organization, or government can completely control a cryptocurrency. Because the basis for the existence of cryptocurrency is a distributed peer-to-peer network (that is, a network composed of countless power-equal nodes), rather than, as we usually conceptualize, data storage and computation concentrated on a ‘server’ of a government, organization, or company. There is no doubt that this is a revolutionary model. (For well-known reasons, this article will not go into further explanation.)

　　In addition, the transaction data in the cryptocurrency network is highly redundant (that is, the transaction data can be retained as a complete copy on all nodes in the network); at the same time, blockchain data grows in a unidirectional manner over time (that is, it is irreversible and cannot be altered). This technically ensures that it is extremely difficult to maliciously tamper with historical data, and in practice, it is almost impossible to do so (compared to the mainstream centralized technology currently in use); more importantly, from an economic perspective, the cost of tampering with data in the cryptocurrency network has become so high that it is not worth doing. (For readers who are interested, you can learn about the so-called ‘51% attack’ in the cryptocurrency field on your own. Due to the limitations of this article’s length, no further explanation will be provided here.) From this perspective, the design of the cryptocurrency monetary system is extremely brilliant.

　　目前市面上的绝大多数加密货币都是“开源软件”（也就源代码公开的软件），是由相应的开源软件社区所共同维护的。所以从技术上讲，目前绝大多数加密货币的技术实现都是透明的，是可以互相参考借鉴的。但在实际上线运行，产生了各自独特的Online casino and How to find it 而有了价值属性之后，相应的社区也就有了共同的利益，成为了各自独立的经济体。

　　在介绍具体的加密货币之前，还有一个重要的概念需要给大家解释一下，这就是加密货币网络的“中心化问题”。

　　在前文的基本概念讲解中，我反复提到，加密货币网络是“去中心化”的，这在加密货币诞生的初期，是基本按照理想情况发展的。但随着挖矿经济的不断发展和ASIC矿机的大量应用，加密货币网络的计算能力，逐渐被一些巨大的算力拥有者（他们一般会拥有巨量的ASIC矿机）所垄断。这种模式后来衍生为“矿池”经济，即由若干矿机同时指定同一个区块奖励接收地址，这样当矿池中某个矿机挖到区块时，矿池中的所有参与者都能分到区块奖励，这在一定程度上使挖矿收益更加可预测、更加平滑。比特币网络中最大的矿池，其算力曾超过全网算力的40%，从技术上讲，这已经很接近产生“51%攻击”的风险了。所以，大概从2013年开始，加密货币的技术参与者都在寻求从技术上去规避这种中心化问题的方法，这催生了一些具有“ASIC抗性”的工作量证明算法（因为ASIC通常只配有很小的内存，甚至没有内存，所以具有“强内存”需求，也就是需要比较大的内存支持才可以进行计算的算法都可以认为具有“ASIC抗性”），也随之产生了所谓的“GPU挖矿”（GPU就是我们个人计算机中显卡的处理器，而显卡通常会配有一定量的显存，是可以支持“强内存”需求的算法的），从而使更多我们日常使用的计算机可以加入到加密货币网络中进行“挖矿”来获得收益，使全网的算力相对更加分散，以此来降低“中心化趋势”。很多新的加密货币网络，也是籍由这种改进而产生的。

　　好了，概念性的东西讲的差不多了，下面就让我们来具体地看看一些有代表性的加密货币吧。

　　下文中具体介绍加密货币的时候，会提供一些加密货币的市值和单价信息，这些信息是2018年元旦前后的数据。除了市值以外，本文在选取加密货币时还考量了它们在同时期的成交量，成交量过低的，没有收录。加密货币市场的波动很大，本文中的数据仅供参考。此外，我也会在介绍具体加密货币的时候给出一些我个人的分析观点，同样仅供参考。

　　我认为，从加密货币承载的业务和实际应用场景来看，它们大致可以分为三大类：

　　第一类，为支持自由交易而搭建的Online casino and How to find it 网络

　　这就是以比特币为代表的P2P电子现金系统。从技术上看，这类中的成员很多都是比特币的近亲，它们都对原始的比特币协议做了不同程度的改进；但从业务模式上看，基本可以认为是一样的。下面就是这类加密货币的一些代表：

　　Bitcoin（BTC）

　　比特币，市值约2300亿美元，单价约13000美元。官网： [https://bitcoin.org/zh_CN/] 。

　　比特币发布于2009年1月，是世界上第一个被广泛认可的加密货币，也是目前市值最高的、知名度最高的加密货币。

　　比特币网络中的所有交易信息都是公开的、透明的（就是说任何人都可以查看网络中的所有交易的具体交易方和交易数额），只不过交易的双方被基于网络协议的逻辑上的“地址”（Address）所代替，而不是以通常意义上的中心化的账户名、账号或类似的东西来记录到区块（账本）上的。就像比特币白皮书所描述的那样，比特币仅仅是一个“P2P电子现金系统”，而并不是技术上“加密”的；比特币社区和开发团队也从来没有说过比特币是“加密”的货币。

　　Bitcoin Cash（BCH）

　　比特币现金，市值约480亿美元，单价约2600美元。官网： [https://www.bitcoinabc.org] 。

　　比特币现金是比特币的分叉币，技术上叫做“硬分叉”（Hard fork）。所谓硬分叉，即从区块链的某个区块之后，基于基础协议（算法）的变更，分别产生两个不同的合法区块，再之后的区块则连接在这两个同时存在的合法区块之后分别延续下去，成为两个独立的区块链。

　　比特币网络的这次硬分叉，发生于2017年8月1日，其起因就是比特币社区内争论已久的“扩容”（即提高一个区块所能容纳的最大交易数据量）问题。比特币现金的区块大小上限达到了比特币的区块大小上限的8倍，从而大大提高了整体交易确认速度。比特币现金的市值也在其后的短短数月内就冲到了第四位，仅次于比特币、Ripple和以太币。

　　Litecoin（LTC）

　　莱特币，市值约140亿美元，单价约250美元。官网： [https://litecoin.org/cn/] 。

　　莱特币上线于2011年10月，属于最早的一批“山寨币”（即复制自比特币源码，经过了若干技术修改和更新，并以新的网络所承载的加密货币），也是市值最高、影响最大的山寨币。

　　从技术上讲，莱特币的改动主要是降低了区块时间（降低为约2.5分钟，是比特币的1/4），从而提高了交易确认的速度；同时，采用了一种被称为“scrypt”的强内存需求的工作量证明算法，而非比特币网络所使用的“SHA-256”算法，这使莱特币网络具有了一定的“ASIC抗性”（后来也因此出现了少数可以支持“scrypt”算法的ASIC矿机）；此外，莱特币网络还提高了Online casino and How to find it 的发行量（即货币单价占市值的比例与比特币相比更低，大约也是1/4左右）。所以，称莱特币为“廉价的比特币”是非常贴切的。在业内也有这样说法：比特币是黄金，莱特币就是白银。

　　Dash (DASH)

　　Dash, market value of about 9 billion US dollars, price about 1100 US dollars. Official website: [https://www.dash.org/cn/]

　　The Dash network was initially launched in January 2014, and after two name changes, it was finally named ‘Dash’ in March 2015. Dash was originally also a Bitcoin altcoin, but it added the concept of ‘Masternode’ to its network. Masternodes are nodes with special privileges on the network, which can participate in voting on network protocol changes, and are responsible for executing the ‘Private Transaction’ and ‘Instant Transaction’ functions of the Dash network. Masternodes can share 45% of the block reward corresponding to each new block, but they need to maintain at least 1000 Dash (market value over 1 million US dollars) in their ‘address’ to avoid being disqualified as a Masternode. As of the end of December 2017, the number of Masternodes in the Dash network exceeded 4600.

　　In a strict sense, the Dash network is no longer ‘decentralized’, but more like a trading network controlled by some large companies, capitalists, and even government agencies. And it lacks technical auditing of the main nodes; the confirmation time of private transactions is also not ideal.

　　Monero (XMR)

　　Market value of about 6 billion US dollars, price about 360 US dollars. Official website: [https://getmonero.org]

　　Monero has no official Chinese name, and can be roughly called ‘Monero Coin’, which was launched on the network in October 2013. Monero uses a unique algorithm called ‘Ring Signature’ to hide the sender’s information, and uses ‘Stealth Address’ to hide the recipient’s information; in January 2017, it also added an algorithm called ‘Ring Confidential Transaction’ to hide transaction amount information. This makes the transactions on the Monero network ‘private’, ‘untraceable’, and ‘unlinkable’. Technically speaking, Monero is truly a cryptocurrency that can be called an ‘encrypted’ currency, with the best transaction privacy features in the current market, far surpassing Bitcoin and various altcoins.

　　However, it is obvious that this private feature has become a negative factor from the regulatory perspective. Because you can no longer trace and associate transactions based on transaction addresses, as you could in a transparent network like the Bitcoin network, and then establish a ‘blacklist’ to prevent transactions with illegal or malicious addresses.

　　Bitcoin Gold (BTG)

　　The market value is about 4.5 billion US dollars, and the price is about 260 US dollars. Official website: [https://bitcoingold.org].

　　The Chinese name can be called ‘Bitcoin Gold’, which is another hard fork of the Bitcoin network. The network started a new protocol mining from block 491406 of the Bitcoin network on October 24, 2017, and entered the new protocol blockchain from block 491407; since then, Bitcoin Gold has become an independent blockchain with its own Online casino and How to find it.

　　The biggest technical change in Bitcoin Gold is the adoption of a proof of work algorithm called Equihash, which is used by Zcash (ZEC) and is known for its ASIC resistance. Therefore, in practice, it is only suitable for mining with GPUs. The source code name of Bitcoin Gold is BTCGPU.

　　Upon reading this, some friends might wonder why Bitcoin had to undergo two hard forks in 2017, resulting in three types of cryptocurrencies?

　　This issue is well worth exploring. There must be technical reasons involved, as issues like block expansion and ASIC resistance in algorithms have been discussed in the community for a long time; but why wait until the second half of 2017 to address these technical issues? I believe that the main reason is more economic in nature, and is closely related to the interests of early Bitcoin holders and capital operations. (Both of these hard forks have a common characteristic: addresses that already owned Bitcoin before the fork would receive an equivalent amount of new currency after the fork. Therefore, it is obvious that early Bitcoin holders or those who hold a large amount of Bitcoin would gain significant additional profits after the hard fork.) Due to the limited space of this article, a detailed analysis is not provided here.

　　Verge (XVG)

　　Market value of about 2 billion US dollars, price about 0.15 US dollars. Official website: [https://vergecurrency.com/langs/zh_CN/].

　　It was first launched in 2014, then named ‘DogeCoinDark’, and renamed to Verge in 2016. This cryptocurrency integrates Tor (i.e., the famous ‘onion routing’ protocol) and I2P (Invisible Internet Project, a network protocol that allows anonymous communication) into the network transmission protocol to hide the IP address of the sender of the transaction; but besides that, there is no essential difference from the Bitcoin network. The Verge network shortens the block time to 30 seconds, greatly increases the currency issuance, and supports 5 mining algorithms.

　　Zcash (ZEC)

　　Market value of about 1.8 billion US dollars, price about 560 US dollars. Official website: [https://z.cash/zh/index.html].

　　The Zcash network was launched on October 28, 2016. There are two types of network addresses in the Zcash network, used to support two different consensus algorithms. One is called ‘Transparent Address’ (i.e., t-addrs, Transparent Address), where transactions between these addresses are no different from those in the Bitcoin network; the addresses of the transacting parties and the transaction amounts are transparent and public. The other is called ‘Shielded Address’ (i.e., z-addrs, Shielded Address), where transactions between these addresses are verified using a consensus algorithm known as ‘zk-SNARKs’ (zero-knowledge Succinct Non-interactive ARgument of Knowledge). This algorithm can verify the legality of transaction data under the condition of ‘zero knowledge’ (i.e., without revealing any specific transaction information). This algorithm can be said to be ‘high-end’; however, the problem is that transactions in the Zcash network are not by default, or even mandatory, to use this ‘Shielded Address’. As of the end of 2017, only 5% of transactions in the Zcash network were completed through ‘Shielded Address’, and most wallet applications and Online casino and How to find it exchanges do not support transactions with ‘Shielded Address’, so this feature of Zcash has not actually become a real selling point.

　　In addition, the Zcash network is operated by a profitable American company with government backing (Zerocoin Electric Coin Company), rather than maintained by the open-source software community; and the company will charge 20% of all block mining rewards for the first 4 years after the Zcash network goes online as so-called ‘founder’s reward’; therefore, there are many doubts and concerns about the degree of decentralization of the Zcash network in the industry. (There have been reports about the centralized risk at the protocol level from foreign media and communities.)

　　Second category, decentralized application (smart contract) platform

　　The main goal of this type of cryptocurrency is not just to complete point-to-point transactions, but to serve as the ‘decentralized’ internet infrastructure service, providing a running platform for so-called ‘decentralized’ applications. The representative of this type of cryptocurrency network is Ethereum. (The so-called ‘Smart Contract’ can be simply understood as a business logic implementation mechanism that can be automatically executed by platform-level basic services in a decentralized blockchain network. The contract code can be understood as the actual contract terms; the performance of the contract can trigger the execution of the contract code through specific transactions, thereby automatically achieving the agreement.)

　　Ethereum (ETH)

　　Ethereum, with a market value of about 85 billion US dollars and a price of about 850 US dollars per unit. Official website: [https://www.ethereum.org].

　　Ethereum is the world’s first decentralized application platform, which technically supports so-called ‘Smart Contracts’. It implements a ‘Turing-complete’ virtual machine – EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), defines its own development language and compiler, and builds a relatively complete ecosystem. Its first production version, Homestead, was officially released in March 2016.

　　Ethereum has the most active decentralized platform technology community at present, which is undergoing a transition from the Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm to the Proof of Stake (PoS) algorithm, along with several related technical improvements. These changes are jointly decided and implemented by the Ethereum community.

　　Here is some introduction to the concept, history, and current version of Ethereum. Please refer to the previous articles I have published on the ‘Ethereum Homestead Guide Chinese Version Extracts’. No further elaboration will be provided here.

　　Cardano (ADA)

　　With a market value of about 20 billion US dollars and a price of about 0.7 US dollars. Official website: [https://iohk.io/projects/cardano/] .

　　Cardano is jointly developed by a Hong Kong company (IOHK) and the University of Edinburgh, the University of Athens, and the University of Connecticut. Cardano is a new decentralized application platform designed with a layered structure. Its first layer, the ‘Settlement Layer’, was released on September 29, 2017. This basic protocol layer of Cardano uses a proof-of-stake algorithm called ‘Ouroboros’, which was published on the IOHK website in August 2017, and is developed using Haskell (a functional programming language). In the future, it will expand to the ‘Control Layer’ to facilitate the support of applications such as games and betting, and will also provide identity labeling, credit systems, and integrate wallet applications to provide a universal wallet that supports automated cryptocurrency exchange and transactions.

　　It should be said that it is a strong competitor of Ethereum, but because it started late, the maturity of technology, operation, and market recognition still need to be observed.

　　NEO (NEO)

　　With a market value of about 6 billion US dollars and a price of about 90 US dollars. Official website: [https://neo.org] .

　　NEO is an intelligent contract platform initiated by Chinese nationals, developed using Microsoft’s C# language. The official website has a complete Chinese introduction, everyone can learn about it on their own.

　　As open-source software, the NEO official documentation lacks detailed technical descriptions of some specific technical features (such as NeoX, NeoFS, NeoQS) promoted on its website, and it does not provide specific information such as a development roadmap, so the degree of technical completion is worth examining. From the current perspective, its technical community activity is not high.

　　EOS (EOS)

　　With a market value of about 5 billion US dollars and a price of about 9 US dollars. Official website: [https://www.eos.io] .

　　EOS is also a new decentralized application platform that is currently in the test network phase. According to its white paper published in June 2017, it is designed to support horizontal and vertical scaling of decentralized applications. EOS will provide some basic features similar to an operating system, such as account management, authentication, database, asynchronous communication, and the ability to schedule applications on multiple CPUs or clusters. Ultimately, it will enable the blockchain to handle millions of transactions per second, eliminate user fees, and allow for quick deployment of decentralized applications. From the detailed technical description in its white paper, this is a very promising project.

　　TRON (TRX)

　　The TRON platform, with a market value of about 5 billion US dollars, has a price of about 0.08 US dollars. Official website: [https://tron.network] .

　　TRON is also a smart contract platform initiated by Chinese individuals, aiming to create a decentralized internet infrastructure service where everyone can freely publish content and store data. By distributing, circulating, and trading digital assets, it builds a decentralized content and entertainment ecosystem for application developers, content service providers, and self-media. This network is currently in the first stage of its development roadmap. The official website has a complete Chinese introduction, and everyone can learn about it on their own.

　　Qtum (QTUM)

　　Qtum Chain, with a market value of about 4.5 billion US dollars and a price of about 60 US dollars. Official website: [https://qtum.org/zh/].

　　Qtum is a commercial decentralized application and smart contract platform that adopts a technical design strategy for mobile application use. This network is quite interesting, as it uses the UTXO model (Unspent Transaction Output, which can be simply understood as balance) of the Bitcoin network for transaction processing to support lightweight wallets that can run on mobile devices (i.e., not saving the complete blockchain ledger data to reduce the storage requirements of the wallet application); in smart contract processing, it uses the account model and EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine, used to execute contract code) used by Ethereum; in consensus algorithm, it directly uses the Proof of Stake algorithm. Qtum implements an ‘Account Abstraction Layer’ to enable EVM to interact with underlying data similar to Bitcoin blockchain data.

　　The third category is decentralized networks designed for specific businesses and application scenarios in vertical fields

　　The last category of cryptocurrency is those that have been specially designed and implemented for use in vertical business fields, with dedicated decentralized networks. The representative is Ripple, which saw its price surge more than tenfold in December 2017.

　　Ripple (XRP)

　　XRP, with a market value of about 90 billion US dollars and a price of about 2 US dollars per unit. Official website: [https://ripple.com/cn/].

　　The Ripple network was launched in 2012, using the ‘Ripple Consensus Algorithm’ to complete transactions and record specific transaction data on the ‘Ripple Consensus Ledger’, a customized blockchain ledger. The ‘Ripple Consensus Ledger’ includes built-in currency exchange functions and source matching algorithms (automatically matching the most suitable exchange rate provider) to support automatic exchange between different currencies. Ripple can be considered a middle currency network customized for cross-border payments, international remittances, and other business involving currency exchange.

　　By the end of 2017, dozens of multinational banks and financial institutions had supported cross-border payment services based on Ripple; the market value of Ripple also grew by over 380 times in 2017, becoming the first cryptocurrency in the field to truly be called a ‘爆發式’ (explosive) growth phenomenon.

　　IOTA (IOT)

　　With a market value of about 11 billion US dollars and a price of about 4 US dollars. Official website: [http://iota.org].

　　Any discerning person would immediately think of this as a cryptocurrency network designed for the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT). Based on blockchain storage, data has a natural flaw in computational efficiency, so the IOTA network uses a non-blockchain data structure called Tangle to store transaction data. Tangle is a ‘Directed Acyclic Graph’ (DAG); the IOTA network, based on this, employs a series of ‘Markov Chain Monte Carlo’ (MCMC) algorithms to select data for verification on the Tangle when a transaction arrives; thus, it provides the ability to complete ‘micropayments’ (very small payments) between hardware and hardware without network fees. Additionally, IOTA offers some related technical features to support expansion and application development.

　　IOTA is still in the Beta version; however, it is evident that this newly established infrastructure network for IoT’s underlying data storage and interaction will generate significant market expectations as the IoT becomes more widespread.

　　NEM (XEM)

　　With a market value of about 10 billion US dollars and a price of about 1 US dollar. Official website: [https://nem.io].

　　The NEM network was officially launched in March 2015, adopting the ‘Proof of Importance’ (PoI) algorithm as its consensus mechanism, and introducing innovative technologies such as multi-signature accounts, encrypted messages, and a reputation system known as ‘Eigentrust++’. The NEM network provides APIs for various mainstream development languages, eliminating the need for a specialized smart contract language like the one used in Ethereum for specific development; it offers a highly customizable business data management function, officially termed the ‘Smart Asset System’ by NEM, which can be applied in fields such as finance, logistics tracking, ICO, document management, and decentralized verification; it also provides an optional private (customized) data security solution.

　　NEM is a blockchain product mainly positioned in enterprise applications and can be said to be a new generation of customizable enterprise application basic platform based on blockchain technology.
lottery cheats，come on baby
　　Stellar (XLM)

　　Market value of about 10 billion US dollars, price about 0.5 US dollars. Official website: [https://www.stellar.org].

　　Stellar was initially built based on the ‘Ripple consensus algorithm’, but later, due to technical disagreements, Stellar began to design a new algorithm called the ‘Stellar Consensus Protocol’ (Stellar Consensus Protocol, SCP) independently, and store transaction data on its customized ledger data structure. The Stellar Consensus Protocol is a distributed consensus algorithm designed around the so-called ‘Replicated State Machine’ (a data structure derived from the famous Raft algorithm), published in April 2015. The Stellar network based on this new consensus algorithm was officially launched in November 2015.

　　Stellar is positioned in the financial services infrastructure and is an encrypted currency network customized for personal financial services. Its main application fields are payment and small transfers. Stellar provides a ‘micro-savings account’ (Microsavings accounts, that is, small current savings accounts) to support services such as tuition fees, health insurance, and small loans, and also supports building Slack bots (Slack is an integrated communication, file management, search, and tool application platform, and Slack bot is a robot assistant program based on the Slack platform) to track account transaction records.

　　Cryptocurrency, as a global, decentralized monetary economic network, is a very forward-thinking concept. It provides us with a value network platform independent of the existing monetary system, free from government policy influence and lack of regulation, which is a true free market with an immeasurable value. It is believed that for a long time in the future, it will coexist and interact with the existing monetary system. As of now, the legalization of cryptocurrency (Online casino and How to find it) at the government level is still on the way, and only a few countries have formal channels to enter this market; but we should never and cannot ignore its existence anymore.

　　Generally, each cryptocurrency will have its own white paper (concept description) and even yellow paper (technical detail description), describing its logical concepts, network protocols, algorithms, and implementation details. A cryptocurrency without a white paper is just playing tricks, it is online fraud; even if there is a white paper, we still need to judge whether it is just a simple copy of another cryptocurrency, whether it really has improvements or innovations, and whether it really has value in some business. This is probably very difficult for friends who are not from a technical background.

　　The current cryptocurrency market has a certain speculative nature, as it is not common for a currency like Ripple to grow several hundred times in a year; there are capital operations and bubbles in it. However, the growth potential of this market is beyond doubt. 2018 is likely to be a year of major breakthroughs in the field of cryptocurrencies, so entering the market this year may not be a bad choice.

　　However, I still want to advise everyone: when judging a specific cryptocurrency, do not follow the crowd blindly or follow the trend; and do not participate in any pre-sales, issuance, or other forms of fundraising activities of Online casino and How to find it with unclear background, business model, or technical description for the sake of short-term gains.

　　If you really want to enter this market, you must do your homework first.

　　I must give you a thumbs up to those who have the patience to read this far.

　　I am very proud of the content in the first half of the article that explains the basic concepts, because I did not use any specific technical terminology or profound concepts (such as ‘private key’, ‘hash algorithm’, ‘Byzantine fault tolerance’, etc. that are often explained in some articles introducing blockchain or cryptocurrencies); I think since it is an article for enlightenment and popular science, it should be understandable to friends who do not understand computer technology. Of course, because I am from a technical background, I also have regrets about the depth of this article; the content of this article could actually be expanded to the capacity of a book, and maybe in the future I will try to complete it.

　　The classification of cryptocurrencies in this article is my original view for reference only. I am more optimistic about the future development of the latter two types of cryptocurrency networks: in the short term, they are the third type because they can be quickly combined with specific businesses and generate real business value; while the second type of networks, as belonging to the new generation of Internet infrastructure services, are similar to Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS in the past, and require a longer period of technical maturity and the construction of the community and ecosystem. However, I always believe that ‘decentralized’ Internet is the direction of the future and the trend of the times; with the improvement of relevant technologies and the implementation of applications, it will also be understood and accepted by more and more people.

　　Finally, I hope that both technical and non-technical friends can gain some useful information from this article.