The Genesis Block- Steemit Crypto Academy Season 4 - Homework Post for Task 3 for prof. @awesononso

a) What is a Cryptocurrency?

b) What is Cryptography and how does it make cryptocurrencies secure?

c) Explore the Steem Genesis Block and Sign in as proof of completion.

Hello everyone, it's an awesome week again and I'm delighted and hopeful to be here again for another remarkable class.

I want to use this opportunity to appreciate our very own professor @awesononso for his efforts in putting this lecture together for our understanding.

What is a Cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is the first virtual currency formed in 2009 by a group of persons or an individual know as Satoshi Nakamoto. Who was said to have disappeared without a trace after the formation of the bitcoin (Cryptocurrency) genesis block.

As the name implies, Cryptocurrency is a secret currency though not the physical or handy type of currency like our naira note, dollar note, euro note etc. But are virtual currency that runs on a blockchain while functioning with Cryptography.

What is Cryptography

Cryptography is the application and investigation of ways in which information, communication, messages, data that are useful are secured and prevented from invaders or hackers in a peer to peer system of operation.

For instance, the image above from whatsapp chat is an example of cryptography because the message is end to end encrypted and can only be decrypted by the person the message is meant to.

How does it make cryptocurrencies secure?

Even though I used whatsapp as a case study above, the whatsapp account of any user can be hacked and used by the hacker to oppress the friends of the original owner of the account because it is a centralized application.

But in a decentralized blockchain that cryptography work on, it is impossible for the account to be hacked. So it means that, Cryptography encrypt messages are sent by using codes for instance I'M SORRY can be represented as 55()6899 and this message can only be decrypted by the recipient, even though this message has been viewed, the viewer cannot understand the contents without the keys necessary to unlock it.

Cryptocurrency transactions can also be made successfully and in time without a third party because of cryptography.

Explore the Steem Genesis Block and Sign in as proof of completion.

To explore steem genesis block, the first thing is to login with the address
https://steemworld.org/

The first page that opens once the address is logged into is the above page and the block explorer as highlighted above is clicked.

After that a block number page will appear, having 1 on the box because I am looking at the first block of steem blockchain and then I click OK.

Steem block explorer block 1 contains block details
Timestamp 2016-03-24 17:05:00

Block ID 0000000109833ce528d5bbfb3f6225b39ee10086

Previous ID 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Signing key STM8GC13uCZbP44HzMLV6zPZGwVQ8Nt4Kji8PapsPiNq1BK153XTX

Witness: initminer

Witness signature 204f8ad56a8f5cf722a02b035a61b500aa59b9519b2c33c77a80c0a714680a5a5a7a340d909d19996613c5e4ae92146b9add8a7a663eef37d837ef881477313043

And many more as shown above. I decided to click on the initminer as shown above and I was shocked to what I found.

According to the timestamp on the block explorer was created 2016 and then I saw that the account was created January, 1970 and was active 52years ago. That part I didn't understand.

Here I login to my account with my private key.

Conclusion

Since the emergence of Cryptocurrency, is a light to individuals because people can decide to invest in electronic currency trading for getting about the banking system of our time that is not trust worthy.

Also, cryptography has even made it much easier for individuals to ease fear that may come up as a result of electronic hackers.

I want to say thanks once more to professor @awesononso for his efforts in putting this lecture together.