Cryptocurrencies are booming in 2021, with a market cap moving from 750 to more than 3,000 billion dollars. Let’s face it, this is mainly due to speculation. A lot of people involved do not have a clue of what is behind the tokens they invest in.
But if we put that aside and look at the technical fundamentals, we can acknowledge that 2020–2021 are bringing along a bunch of new blockchains with better, faster (viable?) consensus mechanisms, like Proof of Stake, and new widely used applications, like decentralized finance (DeFi) and Non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Before going into those, we need to take a step back: What is a blockchain? A cryptocurrency? A Proof of Work? A block? A wallet? A smart contract? The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)? An ERC-20 token? An NFT? Decentralized Finance (DeFi)? Oracles?
This article is the first of a series of 3 that focuses on the technical fundamentals behind crypto:
- Blockchain 101: Blockchains and Consensus Mechanisms
- Blockchain 102: Crytpocurrencies, Wallets and DApps
- Blockchain 103: The EVM Ecosystem, a Good Entry Point for Devs
Disclaimer: Not a financial advice.
