Crypto in Plain English - by cryptohunt.it

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**Crypto in Plain English – by cryptohunt.it**

Every day, we explore the world of crypto and blockchain in one minute and in plain English.

Latest Episodes:

What is "Flippening"? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 223 - by cryptohunt.it Aug 05, 2022

Show notes

What is "Flippening"?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day explaining crypto. In plain English.

Ever hear a crypto enthusiast get excited about an event they call "flippening"? Let us break it down for you!

Flippening simply refers to a possible time in the future when Ethereum will overtake Bitcoin in total market capitalization.

Right now, the total amount of money invested in Ethereum is roughly half of that invested in Bitcoin. And so the question is: Will that actually ever happen?

It looks like it might, but it's a long road for Ethereum as an incumbent. Bitcoin dropped from dominating 70% of the crypto market share in early 2020 to just 45%. Meanwhile, Ethereum went from 8% to about 20%.

But there are a lot of other projects that may nib at both their heels. Things are going up and down constantly - but keep an eye on this. It'll give you an understanding of how much the market values each cryptocurrency in relation to all the others.

Let’s say the Flippening does happen… When would that be: Your guess is as good as ours! It’s very hard to predict, but send us your thoughts to podcast@cryptohunt.it if you want to make a guess and we’ll feature you in future episode.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.

What is the Howey Test? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 222 - by cryptohunt.it Aug 04, 2022

Show notes

What is the Howey Test?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day explaining crypto. In plain English.

You've probably just listened to yesterday's episode on Uniswap, the decentralized crypto exchange that is looking into paying the holders of their UNI token a portion of their earnings.

Enter the "Howey test"! Named after the defendant in a United States Supreme Court case from 1946, it is a set of questions that determines if a transaction is an "investment contract".

And that is a very important classification. One of the governments' jobs is to keep its citizens safe, and that includes safety from investment scams. They do this by forcing those offering investments to disclose a lot of information and register their business with the authorities.

As you know, we are a huge fan of learning and doing your own research, and that's exactly what these rules help with, making it harder for people to hide important information. It also forces them to comply with the law.

The technical term is "security". Once such an investment has been classified as a security by applying the Howie test, there is a lot that has to be done and provided by the issuer.

And that's exactly at stake here with Uniswap. As soon as they hand out money to token holders, the US government is almost certainly going to classify the UNI token as a security and enforce all the requirements that come with that. For Uniswap, that may be impossible, or just not worth doing and for that reason alone they might decide to cancel this proposal, at the risk of angering their token holders.

And now that you understand the background, keep an eye on the story in the coming days! It'll get interesting!

What is Uniswap (UNI) and why has it been in the news lately? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 221 - by cryptohunt.it Aug 03, 2022

Show notes

What is Uniswap (UNI) and why has it been in the news lately?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day explaining crypto. In plain English.

Lately, one company was in the news quite a bit. And that is Uniswap. Why is that and what do they do?

Uniswap is a decentralized crypto exchange. That means you can swap one cryptocurrency for another, hence the latter part of the name. And "uni"? Well, that comes from unicorn, the brand animal of the company.

And it's not really a traditional company, it is governed by its users through a DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization.

Let's break it all down!

When you go to Uniswap, the site lets you connect your wallet to exchange one crypto for another. It is a decentralized exchange, because there are no middlemen. Code on the blockchain executes all the trades for you.

Uniswap takes a small fee, but in total that made the company a whopping $40m in 2021.

And the future of what happens with that is now under discussion. Uniswap gives the holders of their UNI token voting rights in company decisions, and a new proposal to distribute the companies income to those token holders has just been released. This would be similar to what a dividend does for stock.

Sounds great for the token holders? Yes and no - because there are legal consequences. That's why Uniswap is in the news, and we'll dive into that in tomorrow's episode about the ominous "Howey test"

Oh, and in case you missed it yesterday - we just started a Patreon account for this podcast so you can get tomorrow’s "Howey Test" Episode already now! If you enjoy this show every day please consider supporting us on patreon.com/crytptoinplainenglish.

Episode 220: How many active wallets are there on Bitcoin and Ethereum? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 220 - by cryptohunt.it Aug 02, 2022

Show notes

Episode 220: How many active wallets are there on Bitcoin and Ethereum?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day explaining crypto. In plain English.

Last time we tried to answer the question of: How many people are actually using Bitcoin and Ethereum, the two largest crypto currencies?

We did that by looking at daily transactions. Today, we'll continue, and we are looking at something a little different: How many daily active wallets there are.

Think about it this way: You have a real wallet, and you use it to buy things once a day, let's say lunch. That's one wallet and one transaction. But your neighbor eats out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner - three transactions, but still just one wallet.

That's why daily active wallets are an interesting perspective to take, because they represent more accurately how many actual users there are on these blockchains.

And the story is interesting: Ethereum was lagging behind Bitcoin in the beginning, but shot up like a rocket almost immediately. It has since caught up with Bitcoin, and has roughly the same 800,000 daily active wallets now.

So, to summarize today and yesterday - Ethereum caught up in numbers of wallets, but has 5x more transactions. People are using it more actively, building decentralized apps, buying NFTs, etc. - all which is not possible with Bitcoin.

Now go out and do your own research! Just keep in mind one little caveat: While you and your neighbor will probably not carry around more than one wallet, creating those on a blockchain is easy and can be automated. So not every wallet also means there is a new individual behind it.

And one more thing: We just started a patreon account for this podcast. If you enjoy this show every day consider supporting us on patreon.com/crytptoinplainenglish.

How many people actually use Bitcoin and Ethereum daily? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 219 - by cryptohunt.it Aug 01, 2022

Show notes

How many people actually use Bitcoin and Ethereum daily?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day explaining crypto. In plain English.

Sure - many people may buy and hold Bitcoin and Ethereum as an investment, but how many people actually use it every day to move money around? One way to approximate is to look at how many transactions there are

Bitcoin averages about 250,000 daily transactions right now. How many of those are just for investment vs. using it as a digital currency is very hard to tell.

But what is very telling is the comparison with Ethereum: It sits at around 1.2 million per day, almost 5x more than Bitcoin.

And that's an interesting difference. Think about it: There is about half as much money invested in Ethereum, yet much more is happening.

The key - as avid listeners to this podcast will know by now - is that Ethereum is much more versatile, thanks to being programmable money.

And if you are comparing blockchains, transactions per day is certainly a metric that should be in your toolbox. It puts things into perspective and gives you a perspective on how actively something is used.

And tomorrow, we’ll look at a different metric trying to answer the same question: Daily active wallets. But for now, why not go out there and compare a few more blockchains' daily transactions?

What is the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 218 - by cryptohunt.it Jul 29, 2022

Show notes

What is the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day explaining crypto. In plain English.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine - EVM in short - is Ethereum's secret sauce. But what does it actually do?

The Ethereum Virtual Machine is the software that runs Ethereum's smart contracts. And because that explanation isn't all that helpful, let's use an analogy.

Take the game of football. Football has specific rules, and - within those - you can play the game in any way you want. But there are things you need, most notably a playing field.

Those fields can be anywhere, and you can play your games on any of them as long as they are of the right size, have the right markings, etc. In other words, they have to meet a certain standard.

Those football fields are like the Ethereum Virtual Machine. The EVM is a standardized environment that allows smart contracts to run on any Ethereum computer. The smart contracts are like your football game: Computer programs that say: If this happens, do that. For example: If someone sends money here, send half of it to this other wallet that belongs to a charity.

Standardization is the magic ingredient: Just like you can play football on any standard field, the smart contracts will run on Ethereum, no matter what computer is processing them.

And that's really what made Ethereum special when it came out: The ability to do more with money than just move it from A to B. And thanks to the EVM and smart contracts, this works all the time.

What is crypto shilling? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 217 - by cryptohunt.it Jul 28, 2022

Show notes

What is crypto shilling?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day explaining crypto. In plain English.

Where there is a lot of money and a lot of desire to make it, there are always scams. And crypto is one of the most scammed areas right now.

That's why people are "crypto shilling". Shilling means that they talk well about a project to get others to buy into it. The goal is almost always to pump up the value and for them to dump their holdings, making sometimes large amounts of money.

But you won't find people just saying: "Buy my crypto". Shilling is usually much less obvious and more crafty. Influencers and celebrities may just casually talk about a coin, giving it the allure of popularity. Or people are starting to talk about how something is about to break out.

You get the point - and that's why we always say: Do your own research. You can not trust other people, no matter how much you think of their reputation.

Stay safe out there and have fun researching! Give us a visit at cryptohunt.it/projects to start.

What is Blockchain As A Service? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 216 - by cryptohunt.it Jul 27, 2022

Show notes

What is Blockchain As A Service?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day explaining crypto. In plain English.

Imagine you want to create your own blockchain, one that will change the world.

And remember that blockchains are decentralized, meaning many computers participate in validating all of the transactions independently.

That means you will need to operate a bunch of your own computers until you find others to help with that.

Where do you put them? In your bedroom? Your friends' garages? All of those locations?

Well, lucky for you, big cloud computing providers like Amazon and Microsoft have anticipated your needs. They are providing "Blockchains As A Service" where you can rent and manage those resources virtually, all with the click of a button.

And that is Blockchain as a Service. Next time you run into someone dreaming of their own blockchain, tell them about it. Your friends' garage spaces will thank you.

What is a crypto oracle? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 215 - by cryptohunt.it Jul 26, 2022

Show notes

What is a crypto oracle?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day explaining crypto. In plain English.

Today: Let's understand what a crypto oracle is.

Imagine you had a bet with your friend: If the temperature goes above 100 Fahrenheit next week, you get $20 from them. If it doesn't, they get $20 from you.

And you decide to do this with blockchains, so you set up a smart contract. This is a simple program, and both of you deposit $20 worth of crypto into it. It will pay the winner $40 when the time comes.

There is only one problem: The program doesn't know what temperature it is outside, because blockchains are designed to work entirely by themselves.

That's where an Oracle comes in: It is a third party data source that your smart contract can get the current temperature from.

So there you have it: An oracle is just an external data source, and hopefully one that you can rely on. And guess what - you were right, and it got really hot - and the smart contract worked. Congrats, you made $20!

What is Golden, and how is it trying to catalog the world’s knowledge? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 214 - by cryptohunt.it Jul 25, 2022

Show notes

What is Golden, and how is it trying to catalog the world’s knowledge?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day explaining crypto. In plain English.

Let's end this special about Proof of Physical Work with Golden, a "decentralized canonical knowledge graph".

Is your head spinning already? Hang in there, we'll break it down.

You see, all knowledge can be broken apart into smaller pieces, and we can describe how these pieces relate to each other. That's what a canonical graph is.

For example: A banana. Banana is a thing and a type of fruit. It has certain properties, such as taste being sweet and color being yellow. You could describe every fruit using those properties and slowly build a database. And fruits are connected to other types of things - a banana grows in certain regions for example. Now you'll start describing the regions according to their properties - where they are, what their climate is, etc.

This way, we can create a connection between the entire world's knowledge and structure it in a way that is much more usable than freeform text like Wikipedia. We could find all the yellow fruits that grow in a certain climate for example.

Golden is trying to build this knowledge graph. They will reward editors with tokens whenever they add a piece to the puzzle. And you can see that there are endless amounts of those pieces - anything you can think about can be described as knowledge. And because it's on the blockchain, changes can be made and are documented openly.

Such a database doesn't exist today at scale, and hopes are that it'll fundamentally change the way we can access and process knowledge.

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