What is cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency is a form of payment that can be exchanged online for goods
and services. Many companies have issued their own currencies, often
called tokens, and these can be traded specifically for the good or
service that the company provides. Think of them as you would arcade
tokens or casino chips. You’ll need to exchange real currency for the
cryptocurrency to access the good or service.
Cryptocurrencies work using a technology called blockchain. Blockchain is
a decentralized technology spread across many computers that manages and
records transactions. Part of the appeal of this technology is its
security. More than 6,700 different cryptocurrencies are traded publicly,
according to CoinMarketCap.com, a market research website. And
cryptocurrencies continue to proliferate, raising money through initial
coin offerings, or ICOs. The total value of all cryptocurrencies on April
13, 2021, was more than $2.2 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap, and the
total value of all bitcoins, the most popular digital currency, was pegged
at about $1.2 trillion.
Cryptocurrencies appeal to their supporters for a variety of reasons. Here
are some of the most popular:
*Supporters see cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as the currency of the
future and are racing to buy them now, presumably before they become more
valuable
*Some supporters like the fact that cryptocurrency removes central banks
from managing the money supply, since over time these banks tend to reduce
the value of money via inflation
*Other supporters like the technology behind cryptocurrencies, the
blockchain, because it’s a decentralized processing and recording system
and can be more secure than traditional payment systems
*Some speculators like cryptocurrencies because they’re going up in value
and have no interest in the currencies’ long-term acceptance as a way to
move money. INVESTING 101
Investing in stock markets is a gamble: while you could win small or win big, you could lose small or lose big – and end up empty-handed.
A stock market is like a supermarket where you can buy or sell shares. To keep it as simple as possible, and for the purposes of this guide, a stock market is simply a place where buyers and sellers meet to sell shares – each one a tiny part of a company listed on an exchange (see below).
Why do shares exist in the first place? To grow, and hopefully boost profits to turn a business into a financial success, firms offer investors the chance to back them with their own cash.
Enter a stock market: in return for your cash, a business offers you a share in its future – so you essentially own a tiny slice of that company and become a 'shareholder'.
And if you wish, this slice of the company you own can then be traded with anyone who wants to buy it.
What kind of growth can I expect from investing? This is usually the question that most investors want an answer to – and the very reason behind most people's decision to put their cash into the stock market. We'll be blunt: we can't actually tell you what you will get (and don't believe anyone who says they know – they're lying). But we can give you an idea of what can be achieved.
With savings rates hovering at historically low levels – eg, 1.3% on a typical competitive savings account – the incentive to look elsewhere for decent returns is strong.
Of course, everyone would prefer to make 5% on their cash but only if you take the right level of risk to suit you. We've said it above but there's no harm in repeating this till we're blue in the face...
WHAT IS BINANCE COIN (BNB)?
Binance Coin is the cryptocurrency issued by Binance exchange and trades with the BNB symbol. Binance coin initially ran on the Ethereum blockchain with ERC 20 standard but has since become the native coin of the Binance chain.
Binance coin has a strict maximum of 200 million BNB tokens.
As of April 2021, Binance Exchange is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, supporting more than 1.4 million transactions per second.
Binance coin was launched during an initial coin offering (ICO) in July 2017.
It offered 10%, or 20 million, BNB tokens to angel investors, 40%, or 80 million, tokens to the founding team, and the remaining 50%, or 100 million, to the various participants through the ICO process.
Almost half the funds raised during the ICO process were intended to be used for Binance branding and marketing, while around one-third were used to build the Binance platform and perform necessary upgrades to the Binance ecosystem.
BNB was initially based on the Ethereum network but is now the native currency of Binance's own blockchain, the Binance chain.
What Is Tether (USDT)?
Tether is a controversial cryptocurrency with tokens issued by Tether Limited, which in turn is controlled by the owners of Bitfinex.Tether Limited formerly falsely claimed that each token was backed by one United States dollar, but on 14 March 2019 changed the backing to include loans to affiliate companies.
Tether specifically belongs to the category of fiat-collateralized stablecoins. This means that a fiat currency like the US dollar, the euro, or the yen, backs each cryptocoin in circulation. Other stablecoin categories include crypto-collateralized stablecoins, which use cryptocurrency reserves as collateral, or non-collateralized stablecoins. Non-collateralized stablecoins don’t have any collateral but operate in a way similar to that of a reserve bank to maintain the necessary supply of tokens, depending on the economic situation.
Tether has repeatedly claimed that they would present audits showing that the amount of tethers outstanding are backed one-to-one by U.S. dollars on deposit. They have failed to do so.[50] A June 2018 attempt at an audit was posted on their website in June 2018 which showed a report by the law firm Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan LLP (FSS) which appeared to confirm that the issued tethers were fully backed by dollars.
What Is Cardano (ADA)?
Cardano is a decentralized third-generation proof-of-stake blockchain platform. While it shares characteristics and applications with other blockchain platforms like Ethereum, Cardano distinguishes itself from others through a commitment to peer-reviewed scientific research as building blocks for updates to its platform.
Three organizations are responsible for Cardano’s development: IOHK, Cardano Foundation, and EMURGO. The first two are non-profit foundations and the third is a for-profit entity. The IOHK, which is responsible for building Cardano, works with a team of academics spread out across the world to produce research and review platform updates before implementation to ensure that they are scalable.
Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of Ethereum, began the development of Cardano in 2015 and launched the platform in 2017.
FAST FACT "Ada" is Cardano's digital currency and is named after Ada Lovelace, a 19th-century countess and English mathematician who is recognized as the first computer programmer. DOGE COIN
Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a joke, making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time.Despite its satirical nature, some consider it a legitimate investment prospect. Dogecoin features the face of the Shiba Inu dog from the "Doge" meme as its logo and namesake. It was introduced on December 6, 2013, and quickly developed its own online community, reaching a market capitalization of US$85,314,347,523 on May 5, 2021.
Dogecoin.com promotes the currency as the "fun and friendly internet currency", referencing its origins as a joke. Several online exchanges offer DOGE/BTC and DOGE/LTC trading.
Dogecoin is an altcoin with many users. Mainstream commercial applications of the currency have gained traction on internet, such as a tipping system, in which social media users tip others for providing interesting or noteworthy content.
Trading physical, tangible items in exchange for DOGE takes place on online communities such as Reddit and Twitter, where users frequently share currency-related information.
Dogecoin has also been used to try to sell a house, and has been used in the pornography and poker industries.
Dogetipbot was a cryptocurrency transaction service used on popular sites like Reddit and Twitch. It allowed users to send Dogecoins to other users through commands via Reddit comments. In May 2017 Dogetipbot was discontinued and taken offline after its creator declared bankruptcy; this left many Dogetipbot users losing their coins stored in the Dogetipbot system.
POLKADOT
Polkadot is a heterogeneous multi-chain interchange and translation architecture which enables customised side-chains to connect with public blockchains.
The protocol was created by the Ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood.
Gavin Wood, Thiel Fellow Robert Habermeier and Peter Czaban are the co-founders of Polkadot. Gavin Wood is a co-founder of Ethereum and served as the Ethereum Foundation's first Chief Technology Officer.
While developing Ethereum and developing the new Ethereum 2.0 specification that would include sharding, Dr. Wood and his team began pondering the sharding hurdles a blockchain would face. From initial conception to a white paper, it took him about four months to come up with a vision for a heterogeneous multi-chain framework, the Polkadot Protocol. Wood released the Polkadot white paper on November 14, 2016.
The technology surrounding Polkadot is set to help support the decentralization of the web, a concept pioneered by Dr. Wood and coined ‘Web 3.0’. The subsequent innovations that followed Polkadot were Substrate, a framework to efficiently build your own blockchains; and the “canary” Kusama network that is independent of Polkadot but runs on early, unaudited versions of the same software as a proving ground for bleeding-edge technology.
Investing in stock markets is a gamble: while you could win small or win big, you could lose small or lose big – and end up empty-handed.
A stock market is like a supermarket where you can buy or sell shares. To keep it as simple as possible, and for the purposes of this guide, a stock market is simply a place where buyers and sellers meet to sell shares – each one a tiny part of a company listed on an exchange (see below).
Why do shares exist in the first place? To grow, and hopefully boost profits to turn a business into a financial success, firms offer investors the chance to back them with their own cash.
Enter a stock market: in return for your cash, a business offers you a share in its future – so you essentially own a tiny slice of that company and become a 'shareholder'.
And if you wish, this slice of the company you own can then be traded with anyone who wants to buy it.
What kind of growth can I expect from investing? This is usually the question that most investors want an answer to – and the very reason behind most people's decision to put their cash into the stock market. We'll be blunt: we can't actually tell you what you will get (and don't believe anyone who says they know – they're lying). But we can give you an idea of what can be achieved.
With savings rates hovering at historically low levels – eg, 1.3% on a typical competitive savings account – the incentive to look elsewhere for decent returns is strong.
Of course, everyone would prefer to make 5% on their cash but only if you take the right level of risk to suit you. We've said it above but there's no harm in repeating this till we're blue in the face...