Blockchains were first created for use in cryptocurrencies. The very first blockchain was proposed in a white paper, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” by Satoshi Nakamoto, in 2008. Blockchains provide a great solution to the management of digital assets because of their immutable nature and their resilience to attack.
Though initially there was only Bitcoin, the code for it is open source and many additional cryptocurrencies have been created. The use of open-source code is important for the users of the system to trust in it and to allow developers to form communities and continue to work on it.
Cryptocurrencies extend what we have already learned about blockchains with additional rules specifically related to asset-based transactions. The data that they contain in the blocks relate to these transactions. They also involve the use of wallets, exchanges and miners. They offer additional rules for how and when to do things. We will look at each of these and plenty more in the coming section.
The benefits of cryptocurrencies are:
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