1.5.7

Digital Currency

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Digital Currency

A digital currency is a recently popular form of money that exists only electronically, unlike coins or banknotes.

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What is digital currency?

  • Digital currencies are money that exists electronically, without a physical form.
  • Examples include cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), as well as digital versions of national currencies.
  • They are used to:
    • Buy goods and services
    • Invest
    • Transfer money internationally between individuals or organisations
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Features of digital currency

  • Digital currency is stored in digital wallets on computers or mobile devices.
  • Transactions take place over the internet.
  • The currency can be sent quickly across the world.
  • They are usually more secure than cash (harder to steal physically).
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What is blockchain?

  • Blockchain is the technology that many digital currencies use to record transactions.
    • It is a digital ledger – a shared, public, time-stamped list of all transactions that is spread across many computers.
  • Once a transaction is recorded on the blockchain, it cannot be altered.
  • Each block of transactions is linked to the one before it → “chain”.
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How blockchain works

  • A user requests a transaction (e.g. sending digital currency to someone else).
  • The transaction is grouped with other recent transactions into a 'block'.
  • Computers on the network solve complex mathematical problems to verify the transaction.
  • Once the transaction is deemed legitimate, the new block is added to the end of the existing chain of blocks.
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Key features of blockchain

  • Security:
    • Every block in the chain has a unique code, making it difficult to tamper with.
    • If one block is altered, the entire chain after it is invalid.
  • Decentralisation:
    • The ledger is not stored in a place or controlled by a bank or government.
    • It is distributed across many computers, which makes it secure.
  • Immutability:
    • Once a block is added to the chain, it cannot be changed or deleted.
    • This makes the transaction history a permanent record.

Jump to other topics

1Computer Systems

1.1Data Representation

1.2Data Transmission

1.3Hardware

1.4Software

1.5The Internet & its Uses

1.6Cyber Security

1.7Automated & Emerging Technologies

2Algorithms, Programming & Logic

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