Fast Chain Science | Do you know the history of cryptocurrency development?

The origin of cryptocurrency

With the increasing power of the government and banks, it is increasingly difficult for people to fully protect their privacy. A cyberpunk movement with libertarianism at its core was launched, advocating the use of technology to protect privacy. Cryptography is one of them. Through cryptography, people can have the right to selectively expose their privacy.

In 1993, the mathematician and computer programmer Eric Hughes wrote in his article'A Cypherpunk's Manifesto': “In the open society of the electronic age, the protection of privacy is necessary. Privacy is not the same as secrets. A person’s privacy is something he doesn’t want. Everyone knows something, and a secret is something he doesn’t want anyone to know. Privacy is a person’s right to selectively disclose his personal information to others."

15 years after this article was published, in 2008, Bitcoin came out. But before Bitcoin, people have made some attempts in terms of anonymous digital transaction systems. The idea of ​​anonymous transactions originated from the American computer scientist and cryptographer David Chaum. In 1990, he built an encrypted electronic payment system, DigiCash. The system uses "blind signature", which allows users to use digital signatures for transactions without revealing their identity. But the biggest drawback of this system is that it is a centralized system, which is owned by Chaum's own company, and the company is responsible for all signature verification. This shortcoming eventually led to the company's bankruptcy in 1998.

Hashcash & B-money

Hashcash was proposed by British cryptographer Adam Back in 1997. It appeared in the beginning to prevent the spread of spam and protect user mailboxes from denial-of-service attacks (also known as flood attacks, which is a network attack technique whose purpose is to exhaust the target computer’s network or system resources. Temporarily interrupt or stop the service, causing its normal users to be inaccessible). The recipient can verify the authenticity of the content by checking the Hashcash stamp in the header.

In 1998, computer engineer Wei Dai published an article expounding the concept of an anonymous, distributed electronic cash system, which he named "b-money". This system contains proof of work for generating new currency. Everyone is responsible for maintaining a copy of the database. The copy will show who owns what. Everyone’s work will be verified by the community. A collective account book will be generated and Everyone updates regularly. Just like modern cryptocurrencies, staff members are rewarded while providing computing power.

Although such a system can only be deployed in the mind at the time, b-money did not mention some specific consensus implementation details, but b-money is still the first one in the true sense to propose to solve computer problems and achieve A system of decentralized consensus to generate electronic money.

The concept of B-money also provides inspiration for the development and design concept of Bitcoin. If you read the Bitcoin white paper, you will find that the first reference is from Wei Dai's b-money. Dai Wei and Adam were also the first two people that Satoshi Nakamoto consulted when he was developing Bitcoin in 2008.

The difference between cryptocurrency and token

Question1

What is cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency refers to the currency in this decentralized network. For example, Bitcoin, Ether (Ethereum is the ecology, Ether is the currency in the ecology), Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash are all cryptocurrencies.

Question 2

What is a token?

The coins issued directly on the above-mentioned blockchain network are called tokens. Tokens are issued by project parties, such as EOS, TRON, VeCHain, etc. now. The generation of tokens does not require any technical content, I can generate them. He is just based on figures from other systems.

Many people invest in cryptocurrencies, but invest in tokens. These two values ​​are completely different. the basic. Encryption currency may have many functions, such as privacy protection, smart contracts, transparent and open gambling technology, and so on. But cryptocurrency has the function of currency, that is, cryptocurrency must have the function of storing value. But tokens have no stored value function.