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Bitcoin is limited at 21 million coins. After that, no more btc, and people will trade in btc divisions such as satoshis. But there are hundrerds of bitcoin

Bitcoin is limited at 21 million coins. After that, no more btc, and people will trade in btc divisions such as satoshis. But there are hundrerds of bitcoin alternatives now, some very interesting.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
If there's no more miners / mining, who verifies the transactions? (iirc that's what miners did, but correct me if I'm wrong and miners only generate currency and don't verify transactions)
- endless1234 9y ago
  They do verify transactions, and are incentivized to do so by transaction fees
  - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
    They don't verify transactions actually. That is what nodes do. They retrieve valid transactions from nodes, order them, and then hash them according to the consensus proof-of-work algorithm, which in this case, is SHA-256, until it produces a block that will satisfy the node consensus requirements.
    - pointsphere 9y ago
      Miners are nodes and therefore verifying transactions, and they're the only nodes writing transactions to the blockchain. Non-mining nodes can only verify transactions for themselves , which helps them stay on the chain of their choice but does not extend any chain.
      - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
        Miners require nodes, so they have them too, because without nodes they can't source transactions. Every node, applying consensus rules, extends the blockchain by accepting valid blocks that meet consensus rules. We have had a year long education in the limited power of miners with many people incorrectly attributing responsibility for maintaining the protocol. Miners were rightly shown to be powerless to force consensus changes on the nodes. When push came to shove they did what they were told, at the threat of being crushed with a pow change.
- jamiegreen 9y ago
  As far as I understand, the process of mining is verifying the transactions as well. The miners are generating bitcoin as part of the process of verifying the transactions. After the 21 mil limit is hit, they will be rewarded from the transaction fees. (Someone with more in depth knowledge feel free to correct me if I am wrong).
  - theadamp 9y ago
    You're not wrong. They currently get the block reward and the transaction fees. When there's no more reward to be had they will get just the transaction fees.
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  There is no more BTC created after 21 million coins, but the mining continues. This just means that each block no longer comes with a fixed reward, but the miners will still make money from transaction fees.
Kiro 9y ago
Which are the most interesting ones?
- sametmax 9y ago
  There is no such thing as "most interesting", it depends on what you look for (technical quality, investment, compatibility, etc), what you need (bleeding edge, stability, doc, popularity...). Plus it's hard to assess innovation, some coins may very well be genius and we are not visionary enough to know. Some characteristics to look for: - ASIC resistance. Some currencies make sure you can't just throw money at GPU and become the king of the hill like with Bitcoin. E.G: Vivo, VTC, XMR. - CPU friendly. Some currencies can be mined on CPU, not just GPU. It makes it interesting for embedding in web pages or viruses. E.G: Monero, Aeon, etc. - Privacy focused. Some currencies make it hard to know where does the money comes from and goes to. E.G: Monero, Zcash and co. - Smart contracts. Some currencies are not just money, but gigantic programmable public databases. Ethereum being to smart contracts what bitcoin is to cryptocurrengies in general. - Master nodes. Some currencies provide very fast transactions by featuring nodes responsible to pre-validate them. E.G: Vivo, Dash. - Community. You may want big name supports (Bitcoin, Ripple), great tooling (Ethereum, Monero). You should check if your exchange deal with the currency your target. Personally I like: - Vivo. The team is close to home. The master nodes give me great rewards and I help friends and family to setup theirs, for a fee. Best investment to date, appart from BTC. But only cryptopia deals with them which make it hard to trade. - Monero. Simple to mine, and nobody knows what I do. But a bad rep because of the viruses. - Ethereum: it's the most stable currency IMO, because of all the ecosystem, it's not gonna die. Also awesome team. Very little downside to this one. - Ripple: big names trying to do official things. I'm curious of the result. But it's premined. Sometime I feel like I should stop writing blogs post about Python and be paid as a full time crypto explainer, cause it's like I answer the same questions every day. Anyway, good luck. And don't believe any people telling you they perfectly understand this market, because it's the most irrational one I ever seen. It's unstable. It's exploding. It's crazy. And so fun. Until you loose everything :)
  - keymone 9y ago
    > ASIC resistance ... make sure you can't just throw money at GPU and become the king of the hill; CPU friendly first of all, asics are specially designed hardware, not gpus second, switching to actual gpu- or cpu- friendly algorithm comes with it's own drawbacks - anybody controlling large enough botnet can perpetrate 51% attack against you
cm2187 9y ago
Only a convention. Participants can fork / change the algorithm easily.

Bitcoin is limited at 21 million coins. After that, no more btc, and people will trade in btc divisions such as satoshis. But there are hundrerds of bitcoin alternatives now, some very interesting.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

If there's no more miners / mining, who verifies the transactions? (iirc that's what miners did, but correct me if I'm wrong and miners only generate currency and don't verify transactions)

endless1234 9y ago
They do verify transactions, and are incentivized to do so by transaction fees
- Frogolocalypse 9y ago
  They don't verify transactions actually. That is what nodes do. They retrieve valid transactions from nodes, order them, and then hash them according to the consensus proof-of-work algorithm, which in this case, is SHA-256, until it produces a block that will satisfy the node consensus requirements.
  - pointsphere 9y ago
    Miners are nodes and therefore verifying transactions, and they're the only nodes writing transactions to the blockchain. Non-mining nodes can only verify transactions for themselves , which helps them stay on the chain of their choice but does not extend any chain.
    - Frogolocalypse 9y ago
      Miners require nodes, so they have them too, because without nodes they can't source transactions. Every node, applying consensus rules, extends the blockchain by accepting valid blocks that meet consensus rules. We have had a year long education in the limited power of miners with many people incorrectly attributing responsibility for maintaining the protocol. Miners were rightly shown to be powerless to force consensus changes on the nodes. When push came to shove they did what they were told, at the threat of being crushed with a pow change.
jamiegreen 9y ago
As far as I understand, the process of mining is verifying the transactions as well. The miners are generating bitcoin as part of the process of verifying the transactions. After the 21 mil limit is hit, they will be rewarded from the transaction fees. (Someone with more in depth knowledge feel free to correct me if I am wrong).
- theadamp 9y ago
  You're not wrong. They currently get the block reward and the transaction fees. When there's no more reward to be had they will get just the transaction fees.
nathan_f77 9y ago
There is no more BTC created after 21 million coins, but the mining continues. This just means that each block no longer comes with a fixed reward, but the miners will still make money from transaction fees.

Kiro 9y ago

Which are the most interesting ones?

sametmax 9y ago
There is no such thing as "most interesting", it depends on what you look for (technical quality, investment, compatibility, etc), what you need (bleeding edge, stability, doc, popularity...). Plus it's hard to assess innovation, some coins may very well be genius and we are not visionary enough to know. Some characteristics to look for: - ASIC resistance. Some currencies make sure you can't just throw money at GPU and become the king of the hill like with Bitcoin. E.G: Vivo, VTC, XMR. - CPU friendly. Some currencies can be mined on CPU, not just GPU. It makes it interesting for embedding in web pages or viruses. E.G: Monero, Aeon, etc. - Privacy focused. Some currencies make it hard to know where does the money comes from and goes to. E.G: Monero, Zcash and co. - Smart contracts. Some currencies are not just money, but gigantic programmable public databases. Ethereum being to smart contracts what bitcoin is to cryptocurrengies in general. - Master nodes. Some currencies provide very fast transactions by featuring nodes responsible to pre-validate them. E.G: Vivo, Dash. - Community. You may want big name supports (Bitcoin, Ripple), great tooling (Ethereum, Monero). You should check if your exchange deal with the currency your target. Personally I like: - Vivo. The team is close to home. The master nodes give me great rewards and I help friends and family to setup theirs, for a fee. Best investment to date, appart from BTC. But only cryptopia deals with them which make it hard to trade. - Monero. Simple to mine, and nobody knows what I do. But a bad rep because of the viruses. - Ethereum: it's the most stable currency IMO, because of all the ecosystem, it's not gonna die. Also awesome team. Very little downside to this one. - Ripple: big names trying to do official things. I'm curious of the result. But it's premined. Sometime I feel like I should stop writing blogs post about Python and be paid as a full time crypto explainer, cause it's like I answer the same questions every day. Anyway, good luck. And don't believe any people telling you they perfectly understand this market, because it's the most irrational one I ever seen. It's unstable. It's exploding. It's crazy. And so fun. Until you loose everything :)
- keymone 9y ago
  > ASIC resistance ... make sure you can't just throw money at GPU and become the king of the hill; CPU friendly first of all, asics are specially designed hardware, not gpus second, switching to actual gpu- or cpu- friendly algorithm comes with it's own drawbacks - anybody controlling large enough botnet can perpetrate 51% attack against you

cm2187 9y ago

Only a convention. Participants can fork / change the algorithm easily.