{"id":514,"date":"2017-02-13T10:16:59","date_gmt":"2017-02-13T08:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/?p=514"},"modified":"2017-02-13T10:18:40","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T08:18:40","slug":"bitcoin-a-new-journey-glossary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/2017\/02\/bitcoin-a-new-journey-glossary\/","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin: a new journey – Glossary"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"Bitcoin\u00a0Glossary<\/h3>\n

For a couple of years now I have been interested in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and have embarked on a road of educating myself with it. \u00a0On of the first stumbling blocks is to get used to terms used and Bitcoin speak. \u00a0I am currently reading Mastering Bitcoin from Andreas Antonopoulos<\/a> and found exactly what I need and are reporducing[1<\/a>] it here for easy reference.<\/p>\n

address<\/em><\/p>\n

A bitcoin address looks like 1DSrfJdB2AnWaFNgSbv3MZC2m74996JafV. It consists of
\na string of letters and numbers starting with a \u201c1\u201d (number one). Just like you ask
\nothers to send an email to your email address, you would ask others to send you
\nbitcoin to your bitcoin address.<\/p>\n

bip<\/em><\/p>\n

Bitcoin Improvement Proposals. A set of proposals that members of the bitcoin
\ncommunity have submitted to improve bitcoin. For example, BIP0021 is a proposal
\nto improve the bitcoin uniform resource identifier (URI) scheme.<\/p>\n

bitcoin<\/em><\/p>\n

The name of the currency unit (the coin), the network, and the software.<\/p>\n

block<\/em><\/p>\n

A grouping of transactions, marked with a timestamp, and a fingerprint of the
\nprevious block. The block header is hashed to produce a proof of work, thereby
\nvalidating the transactions. Valid blocks are added to the main blockchain by network
\nconsensus.<\/p>\n

blockchain<\/em><\/p>\n

A list of validated blocks, each linking to its predecessor all the way to the genesis\u00a0block.<\/p>\n

confirmations<\/em><\/p>\n

Once a transaction is included in a block, it has one confirmation. As soon as
\nanother block is mined on the same blockchain, the transaction has two confirmations,
\nand so on. Six or more confirmations is considered sufficient proof that a
\ntransaction cannot be reversed.<\/p>\n

difficulty<\/em><\/p>\n

A network-wide setting that controls how much computation is required to produce
\na proof of work.<\/p>\n

difficulty target<\/em><\/p>\n

A difficulty at which all the computation in the network will find blocks approximately
\nevery 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

difficulty retargeting<\/em><\/p>\n

A network-wide recalculation of the difficulty that occurs once every 2,106 blocks
\nand considers the hashing power of the previous 2,106 blocks.<\/p>\n

fees<\/em><\/p>\n

The sender of a transaction often includes a fee to the network for processing the
\nrequested transaction. Most transactions require a minimum fee of 0.5 mBTC.<\/p>\n

hash<\/em><\/p>\n

A digital fingerprint of some binary input.<\/p>\n

genesis block<\/em><\/p>\n

The first block in the blockchain, used to initialize the cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n

miner<\/em><\/p>\n

A network node that finds valid proof of work for new blocks, by repeated hashing.<\/p>\n

network<\/em><\/p>\n

A peer-to-peer network that propagates transactions and blocks to every bitcoin
\nnode on the network.<\/p>\n

Proof-Of-Work<\/em><\/p>\n

A piece of data that requires significant computation to find. In bitcoin, miners
\nmust find a numeric solution to the SHA256 algorithm that meets a network-wide
\ntarget, the difficulty target.<\/p>\n

reward<\/em><\/p>\n

An amount included in each new block as a reward by the network to the miner
\nwho found the Proof-Of-Work solution. It is currently 25BTC per block.<\/p>\n

secret key (aka private key)<\/em><\/p>\n

The secret number that unlocks bitcoins sent to the corresponding address. A secret
\nkey looks like 5J76sF8L5jTtzE96r66Sf8cka9y44wdpJjMwCxR3tzLh3ibVPxh.<\/p>\n

transaction<\/em><\/p>\n

In simple terms, a transfer of bitcoins from one address to another. More precisely,
\na transaction is a signed data structure expressing a transfer of value. Transactions
\nare transmitted over the bitcoin network, collected by miners, and included into
\nblocks, made permanent on the blockchain.<\/p>\n

wallet<\/em><\/p>\n

Software that holds all your bitcoin addresses and secret keys. Use it to send, receive,
\nand store your bitcoin.<\/p>\n

[1] – Reproducing from \u201cMastering Bitcoin<\/em> <\/a>by Andreas M. Antonopoulos<\/a>\u00a0(O\u2019Reilly). Copyright 2015 Andreas M. Antonopoulos, 978-1-449-37404-4.\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin\u00a0Glossary For a couple of years now I have been interested in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and have embarked on a road of educating myself with it. \u00a0On of the first stumbling blocks is to get used to terms used and Bitcoin speak. \u00a0I am currently reading Mastering Bitcoin from Andreas Antonopoulos and found exactly what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[163,142,109],"tags":[164],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bitcoin","category-books","category-learning","tag-bitcoin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1SHVw-8i","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariusb.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}