tangle school faq
Q. What is the tangle?
A. The real tangle is how transactions in the iota crypto currency are stored. Think of it like a giant family tree where each transaction has a mom and dad all the way back to the very first transaction called the genesis transaction.
Q. Is it better than the blockchain and bitcoin?
A. Yes, it’s a better way to store crypto currency and lots of people are switching from bitcoin to iota.
Q. How do I get started learning how to move money around the tangle?
A. We created simplecoin for this purpose, it’s tangle school and graduates can move on to the real tangle with confidence that they understand where their money really is.
Q. Is simplecoin complicated or simple?
A. Great question, and it’s both. It’s simple in that compared to the real tangle it uses trivial security. But it’s complicated in the sense of you still need to learn some basic tangle concepts like bundles, transactions, addresses, attachment, branch and trunk.
Q. Should I get started with simplecoin or real tangle first?
A. We highly recommend you at least transfer a few coins in the simplecoin tangle first since it’s free and can only help you when you are ready for real iota.
Q. What is a bundle?
A. It’s a group of transactions, often three that move coins from one address to another, and then place left over change in a new third address. Either 100% of the transactions in a bundle are accepted by the tangle or 0. A bundle is atomic.
Q. What is a transaction?
A. A transaction has an amount, and an address. If the amount is > 0 it’s depositing money to that address. If the amount is < 0 it’s withdrawing money from that address.
Q. Where is the private key signature used?
A. For transactions with amount < 0 they need their signature filled out. For other transactions the signature field can be left blank. Look at some random transactions in simplecoin with signatures and see if you can find the pattern between the address and the signature.
Q. Why does change go to a new third address?
A. Unlike a normal bank account where you can write a check for a small amount and keep the rest of your money in your same checking account number, with tangle after each check all your money has to goto a new account for security reasons.
Q. What is attachment, trunk and branch?
A. When you add new transactions to the tangle, you attach them to some existing transaction. If you attach them to a bad transaction, your transaction will also suffer. Think of the family tree. You want your trunk (mom) and branch (dad) to be from a good family without any fraud transactions in their family history.
Q. What is a good example bundle to study?
A. https://simplecoin.life/bundles/AirlineKnifeBlowPeopleIdeaVillageThought
In this bundle 5,000 coins were taken from address PositionBuildingDraftResponsePromotionCause and deposited to address SoftwareScrewSubjectChocolateCarGuestImpression. See if you can transfer 4,000 coins from SoftwareScrewSubjectChocolateCarGuestImpression to some new address at https://simplecoin.life/tangle/add