Cryptocurrencies

A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency, which is secured by cryptography that makes it impossible to double-spend on a distributed network. There are more than 1600 cryptocurrencies present in today's world that can be used for making payment transactions. Some cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, bitcoin cash, LTC, LINK, tether, etc. are based on decentralized networks like blockchain technology, which is a distributed ledger imposed by distinct nodes of the network. A blockchain behind cryptocurrencies is a public ledger, which is used to store the history of every transaction that cannot be tampered or changed. This makes the transactions secure and safer than the existing systems. But some blockchains do not use any cryptocurrency or tokens. So, it varies significantly that depends on the type of blockchain. In this chapter, we have described the functionality of some cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ETH, XRP, LTC, USDT, BCH, LIBRA, XMR, EOS, BSV, and many others.