I am writing a series of articles, to assist non-technical users and newbies to the world of Crypto to understand more technical concepts. My main goal is to enable the non-technical audience to have conversations with the more technical audience.
In one of my earlier articles - Some Technical Words explained in laymen's terms I had a request in te comment section to do some crypto words in laymen's terms. So here goes.
Some Crypto and Blockchain Technical words in Laymen's terms"
As a start, here is a nice infographic about how a Blockchain works:
Token Sale or ICO : A way of raising Bitcoin or alternative crypto currency to kick start a project. I have written a Laymen's terms explanation here
AltCoin : This is any digital cryptocurrency, which is not Bitcoin, hence the reference to "Alternative" to Bitcoin.
Cryptography : A very secure encrypted method, to communicate. It is actually a science to encrypt and decrypt messages.
Blockchain : A blockchain is nothing else as a digital ledger that keeps an detailed audit trail of all transactions.
Github : Github is a repository or a place to store code, documentation, or anything you would like to make public in a secure and organised manner.
Mining : The process in which blockchain transactions are verified and added to the blocks in a chain. This is done by solving cryptographic algorithms which in turn creates cryptocurrencies.
Trustless : The ultimate state of trust, in other words, you do not have to even think of trusting something. I have written a post about trustless in laymen's terms
Smart Contracts : These are contracts that are created with computer code, and execute things in a specific sequence. When this happens do that . I have written a laymen's terms article about Smart Contracts](https://steemit.com/technology/@jacor/smart-contracts-in-laymen-s-terms) should you want to understand in more detail.
Transaction Block : These are a list of transactions that are grouped together in order to add it to the next block for confirmation and consensus.
Consensus : When we mine crypto currency, there are a group of miners all around the world involved. They all try to solve a specific algorithm. When the algorithm are solved by any miner, all the other miners need to confirm that the answer to the algorithm is correct. When a certain percentage of the miners agree that the answer is correct, they reach consensus, and the block is created.
Block Reward : Miners are actually in a race to solve the algorithms explained above. Each time when a block is created a percentage of the crypto in the block is awarded to the miner that won the race.
Block Height : The number of blocks are connected together refers to the block height. Height 0 will be the first block in a blockchain.
Genesis Block : The first block which is created in a blockchain.
Halving : There will only be a specific amount of Bitcoin created during the mining process, 21 Million Bitcoin to be exact. Every four years, the number of Bitcoin which is created in a block is halved. SO there are less and less coming into existence, making Bitcoin very scarce. The final halving will take place in 2140. In my opinion, it will be worth a fortune at this stage.
I hope these explanations help somebody out there. Please let me know if you have a specific technical topic or specific word / term. which you want explained in Laymen's terms.
Some of my other in Laymen's Terms Post.
ICO's or tokensales in Laymen's terms
Crypto Wallets in Laymen's terms
Smart Contracts in Laymen's terms
Artificial Intelligence in Laymen's terms
Blockchain and Digital Signatures - In Laymen's Terms
Trustless - What does it mean in laymen's terms?
Cyber Attacks explained in laymen's terms
Machine Learning - In laymen's terms
Internet of things and what it is in laymen's terms
Big data - What is it really about - In laymen’s terms
Some Technical Words explained in laymen's terms
Happy Steeming!
This is a really valuable post to spreading the world on Blockchain Technology. I own a couple of Spanish blogs dedicated to educate and assess on Blockchain. Can I translate this article and post them there? Giving you credit of course!
Kind regards @jacor, thank you for sharing :)
No Problem whatsoever. Go for it thanks :)
Awesome @jacor! you're welcome ;)
There you go! Thanks again :) https://steemit.com/spanish/@arturomdg/terminos-blockchain-explicadas-en-cristiano
Interesting post, Thanks for sharing @jacor . The other links are also super helpful.
New term for the day was Consensus, in relation to cryptocurrencies.
I am always great-full for these comments. Thanks @ yoza.ossan
This is a fantastic post and I will definitely refer people to it when they ask me about cryptocurrency.
Thanks @interanvil
A good post in laymen's term,
Can you tell which technology coin would you prefer in future?
Right now there are too many coin in market works different technologies. your answer would appreciate.
Hey @prasanna, In my opinion there will be various coins to address various issues. I do not believe there will only be one coin in the end. I do however believe that Bitcoin might become the new gold standard... it actually already is as the value of most coins are measured against it...
Thanks for explaining all these terms! It was hard seeing many of these terms everyday without understanding what they actually mean :D Of course, I could've just searched for information about them but meeeh... I'm a bit too lazy ^^
It is a great pleasure @trendo
:)
join my group on facebook
my group is --"STEEMIT" join and make your DREAM come true
and follow and upvote me on steemit and i will follow you 100%.
beacause a huge group can make a huge amount of money
my link is -- https://steemit.com/@avinashjadon
Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Upboat is a friendly half-human, half-robot which hopes to help promote the better posts of Steemit by trying to ensure they get the recognition they deserve.
@UPBOAT looks for numerous signals before deciding on who to UPBOAT and is likely to summon our robot friends to share some robot love with you to show affection.
I'VE BEEN AT SEA FOR 4 DAYS AND HAVE GIVEN 105 UPBOATS! PLEASE HELP @UPBOAT STAY AFLOAT ON THE STEEMIAN SEAS BY DELEGATING SPARE SP OR PATCH WATER LEAKS BY UPBOATING.
This post has received a 3.13 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @upboat.
Thanks @upboat and @drotto
😀😀😀😀
This helped me!! Thanks for the useful info.
It is a great pleasure :)
This post is really help non technical person engage in cryptocurrency. In fact large percetage of steemit user are writer means have a minimal knowledge on the blockchain and cyrpto world.
This was verry helpful. Was explained verry well. Thank you! :)
It is a great pleasure
You have cleared so many questions; can't believe am getting out of the past jargon! Thanks, am right behind as your fan. Keep making my life easier.
Thanks @gigpen 👍🏻
@jacor Thank you for your time and efforts. Am I correct in presuming that solving cryptographic algorithms can only be done with special hardware/machines? TIA
That is indeed true @aedroberts, you do need special hardware to mine, but did you know that in the Steem world where we operate in the coins are generated on a daily basis, based on a percentage of market cap :) We each receive our share out of a daily reward pool allocated by the Steem Blockchain. In laymen's terms we can say Blogging is the new mining :)
Thanks for your reply, @jacor however, I remain a bit confused. I guess I thought that the witnesses did the mining. So, are you saying that Steem is not truly an altcoin, but a free-form cryptocurrency that exchanges with Bitcoin and all or most altcoins?
What do you see this evolving into?
This is helpful, thanks @jacor!
I
Thank you for very usable information .
It is a great pleasure :)
It's tough to bridge the gap, even a "layman's" explanation of blockchain seems to have so much vocabulary and logic to grapple with.
Thank you @jacor this is a very valuable post to me because I do not understand all the terminology. I am thankful that you took the time to do this for us.
Thanks for the comment @stardust. Anytime 👍🏻
Thanks for sharing @jacor . It's really informative
Wow thanks for this simple and straight forward guide,will resteem .
Thanks @jaraumoses
Great post and good resource - thanks for putting it together and I look forward to browsing through the references.
Thank you so much for this post. It cleared out loads of doubts i had about this community in general and how everything works.
I've recently joined this network and i'm still figuring things out. 🍺 cheers!
Thanks for clarifying the term 'Trustless' - one which I didn't understand well. I kind of had an idea.. but not 'full and total' understanding.
Also ..the explanation of smart contracts was useful. I read a long article on an ALTCOIN yesterday - and there was the mention of 'smart contracts'. It was a rather new coin with promise. And it's built on a trading platform - so that people will be able to request what they are into -- such as perhaps trading their services (#work services ) in exchange for #GOLD.
These Digital times we live in -- I am utterly & totally amazed. It's kinda fun. Anyone else have a comment on 'the DIGITAL Age'?
It's gettin' interesting.
It takes me some time to understand all of this stuff so thank you for the simpleness for a simple person! Resteeming to read proplerly later!
informative post. @shifu approves.
Amazing
Hi my friend great post thanks a lot
Please visit my page and read my post
https://steemit.com/technology/@vahidrazavi/generate-bike-helmet-from-artificial-spider-warp
It is a great pleasure :)