A cryptocurrency is a digital asset designed to function as a means of exchange through cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of additional units of the currency. Cryptocurrency are classified as a subset of digital coins and are also classified as a subset of alternative currencies and virtual currencies.
Bitcoin, created in 2009, was the first decentralized cryptonnet. Since then, numerous criptomonedas have been created. These are often called altcoins, as a mixture of alternative bitcoin. Bitcoin and its derivatives use decentralized control instead of centralized electronic money / centralized banking systems. Decentralized control is related to the use of the bitcoin blockchain transaction database in the role of a distributed ledger.
The decentralized cryptomoneda is produced by the whole system of cryptomonedas collectively, at a speed that is defined when the system is created and publicly known. In centralized banking and economic systems, such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the provision of foreign exchange through the printing of units of fiduciary money or the requirement of additions to the digital bank account books. In the case of the decentralized cryptomoneda, companies or governments can not produce new units, and so far they have not provided support to other companies, banks or corporate entities that have the value of the assets measured in it. The underlying technical system on which the decentralized cryptones were based was created by the group or individual known as Satoshi Nakamoto.
As of September 2017, there are more than a thousand specifications of crypton coins; most are similar and are derived from the first fully implemented decentralized cryptoneon, bitcoin. Within cryptomoneda systems, security, integrity, and balance of ledgers are maintained by a community of mutually suspicious parties called miners: members of the general public who use their computers to help validate and seal transactions and add them to the ledger according to a particular time stamp. scheme. Miners have a financial incentive to maintain the safety of a crypto-coin ledger.
Most Cryptocurrencies are designed to gradually decrease the production of foreign exchange, placing a ceiling on the total amount of foreign currency that will ever be in circulation, imitating precious metals. Compared to ordinary currencies held by financial institutions or held in cash, crypto-coins may be more difficult to capture by law enforcement. This difficulty stems from the use of cryptographic technologies. A prime example of this new challenge for law enforcement comes from the case of Silk Road, where the bitcoin stash of Ulbricht "was carried out separately and ... encrypted." Cryptocurrencies as bitcoin are pseudonymous, although additions like Zerocoin have been suggested, which would allow true anonymity.