Toppie Lessons №1 : What is Bitcoin?
Bingo! Hey guys, I am Mr. Toppie, of course I have been already with you guys in this group as a series of stickers. But in the following days, I’ll be meeting you guys as a teacher! I will introduce the basic knowledge of blockchain and the technical points of TOP Network.
Following my steps, everyone is going to have a better understanding of the history of Blockchain and the technical advantages of TOP Network.
Obviously, TOP is a brand-new public chain of communication industry, which has an excellent performance. But do you know why TOP is using the three-layer ledger design? Why TOP can carry such a large volume of transactions? What’s TOP’s plan in the near future?
Good morning / afternoon / night!! I’m Mr. Toppie, I’m so excited, because today is my first class to be here with you guys. Obviously, everyone in this channel knows what Bitcoin is, but we still need to start with Bitcoin, because it is the source of blockchain applications. That’s why we’ve designed this guide lesson to teach you about Bitcoin so that you’re up to speed and ready to join the crypto-world!!
Now let’s do this!!!
l What is Bitcoin?
Actually Bitcoin released as an open-source software in 2009, which is often credited as the world’s first cryptocurrency and is best defined as a digital currency that only exists electronically.
As we said so many times, Bitcoin is decentralized, meaning it doesn’t have a central issuing authority or political institution that controls the amount of bitcoin in circulation. But the Bitcoin platform is far from anarchy.
The whole process is pretty simple and organized: Bitcoin holders are able to transfer bitcoins via a peer-to-peer network. These transfers are tracked on the “blockchain,” commonly referred to as a giant ledger. This ledger records every bitcoin transaction ever made. Each “block” in the blockchain is built up of a data structure based on encrypted Merkle Trees. This is particularly useful for detecting fraud or corrupted files. If a single file in a chain is corrupt or fraudulent, the blockchain prevents it from damaging the rest of the ledger.
Instead of relying on a government to print new currency, Bitcoin’s blockchain programming handles when bitcoins are made and how many are produced. It also keeps track of where bitcoins are and ensures the transactions are accurate.
There are currently about 17 million bitcoins in circulation. There isn’t a central regulatory agency or government controlling the supply of bitcoins, meaning the supply is controlled by design. The total supply to ever be created is capped at 21 million bitcoins.
This cap raises an argument that Bitcoin could have problems scaling. However, since Bitcoin is essentially infinitesimally divisible (meaning users can transfer as little as 0.00000001 bitcoins), this doesn’t really create a scaling issue. The magic number of 21 million is arbitrary.
It’s believed that Bitcoin was designed to become a deflationary currency to combat the government’s use of inflation as a hidden taxation to redistribute earned wealth. Many people praise Bitcoin for empowering the people by overthrowing the currency printing powers of transient politicians.
l How Does Bitcoin Work?
One of Bitcoin’s most appealing features is its ruthless verification process, which greatly minimizes the risk of fraud. Since Bitcoin is decentralized, volunteers — referred to as “miners” — constantly verify and update the blockchain. Once a specific amount of transactions are verified, another block is added to the blockchain and business continues per usual.
l What is “Mining”?
Instead of a single central server verifying every transaction, essentially every other person on the network verifies each transaction.
Cue the “miners.”
Let me simplify the process so we all understand: Miners are presented with a complicated math problem and the first one to solve the math problem adds the verified block of transactions to the ledger. The calculations are based on a Proof of Work (PoW), or the proof that a minimum amount of energy was spent to get a correct answer.
There aren’t actual human beings hunched over computers with scraps of notebook paper and calculators doing pre-calculus homework; hardware is used to perform Bitcoin mining.
Bitcoin’s built-in reward system compensates successful miners with a chunk of bitcoins. The reward changes over time per Bitcoin’s programming, and the block reward halves about every four years. The current reward for each new block of verified transactions is about 12.5 bitcoins.
The mining processes have become increasingly sophisticated. Bitcoin mining operations take a lot of effort and power, and the sheer amount of competition makes it difficult for newcomers to enter the race and profit. A new miner would not only need to have the adequate computing power and the knowledge to use it to outcompete the competition but would also need the extensive amount of capital necessary to fund the operations.
The above is all of the first lesson. Do you guys understand Bitcoin now? If you have any doubt or questions, Mr. Toppie is willing to answer. Guys, see you in the next lesson! TOP TO BE THE TOP!
You can find TOP Network on:
Email Contact: contact@topnetwork.org
Official Website: http://www.topnetwork.org
Telegram: https://t.me/topnetwork_top
Twitter: https://twitter.com/topnetwork_top
Medium: https://medium.com/@topnetwork
Steemit: https://steemit.com/@topnetwork-top
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/topnetwork_top
About TOP Network
TOP Network is a decentralized open communication network that provides cloud communication services on the blockchain. TOP offers secure, low-cost services such as messaging, calling, video, VPN, CDN, IoT data sharing and more.
TOP Network is also a high-performance public blockchain platform designed to handle real-world business of any size or volume. Powered by innovations including three-layer network, two-layer sharding, two-layer lattice DAG and PBFT-DPoS*, TOP can process several hundred thousand transactions per second on the blockchain.
The long-term mission of TOP Network is to build a public blockchain infrastructure for all Dapps. Our world-class team of over 100 developers is striving for this goal.
TOP Network originated from the common underlying network layer of Dingtone, CoverMe and SkyVPN, three communication apps built by the TOP team before the blockchain project. These apps, having attracted over 50 million users in total, will be ported to TOP Network upon the launch of TOP and generate huge volumes of transactions in the TOP ecosystem.
TOP Network was founded by serial entrepreneur Steve Wei and his colleagues in late 2017. Steve was one of the earliest employees of WebEx in the 1990s. After WebEx, he founded a successful video conferencing software company which was acquired by Huawei in 2010. In 2012, Steve co-founded Dingtone, a public listed company operating popular communication apps such as Dingtone, CoverMe and SkyVPN.
TOP Network has closed $11 million early investments from prestigious institutional investors and individual billionaire investors, including DHVC, Fenbushi Capital, NEO Global Capital (NGC), Ontology Global Capital (OGC), LD Capital and more.
