Crypto in Plain English - by cryptohunt.it

Latest Episodes:

Are there 19 million Bitcoins or 21 million? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 163 - by cryptohunt.it May 12, 2022

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Are there 19 million Bitcoins or 21 million?

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

You and us, we’ve talked about this a few times now. Theoretically, there could be 21 million Bitcoins out there, but only 19 million are actually in circulation. Why is that?

Let’s take a step back in history! The year is 2008. Investment banks are collapsing under the load of their own bad financial products, and governments are bailing them out. And people are mad: The governments are printing money to do it, which is creating inflation. You, the normal citizen who caused no harm, suddenly see prices increase everywhere around you.

Bitcoin, which came out shortly after in 2009, is believed to have been created in response to these policies. The idea was: What if we created a new type of money that nobody can mess with, not even the government?

To make that happen, it was written in code that there can only ever be a maximum of 21 million Bitcoins. But things started out much more moderately than that - only 1m were in circulation. The rest is set aside as rewards for mining, the process that validates transactions. It costs money to operate the hardware, and so this reward was made part of Bitcoin.

Which brings us to today. 18m or the 19m existing Bitcoins have all been earned through mining, and 2m are left until the maximum of 21m is reached. Sounds like a small amount, but it will likely take another 50 years to get there thanks to a process called Halfing. Go check out episode 50 for that.

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 diluted market capitalization? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 162 - by cryptohunt.it May 11, 2022

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What is diluted market capitalization?

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

Today, let us explain diluted market capitalization, a term any crypto investor should understand.

But first, jump back one episode where we explain market capitalization itself. A cryptocurrency’s market capitalization is the total amount of money in circulation of that cryptocurrency. Let’s take Bitcoin as an example. Currently priced at around $30,000 per Bitcoin, there are 19 million of them. In total they are worth 590 billion dollars.

That’s a lot of money, but it doesn’t actually include all of the possible Bitcoins. Eventually, there will be up to 21 million Bitcoin in circulation. The difference, a whopping 2 million, is just being held back as rewards for those operating the network, also called miners.

Fully diluted market capitalization refers to the theoretical value of all possible Bitcoins in circulation. If you add those 2m yet-to-be-mined coins to the market cap, you get a total diluted market cap of 650 billion at the current price, a 60 billion US dollar difference.

Head buzzing? Let’s recap. Market cap refers to all the actual money that is currently floating around in a cryptocurrency. Fully diluted market cap is the higher, theoretical value of the maximum possible number of coins.

And in the next episode we’ll explain why the inventors of Bitcoin set a limit at 21 million of them and how you could get some of the ones being held back today.

What is market capitalization? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 161 - by cryptohunt.it May 10, 2022

Show notes

What is market capitalization?

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

Today, let us explain market capitalization, a very basic term any investor should be familiar with.

Market capitalization simply refers to the amount of money all the shares of a company are worth when taken together. Let’s take an example: Coca Cola, the company. Right now, a single share is worth about $65 dollars, and there are about 4.4 billion shares in circulation. Multiply the two, and you will see that Coca Cola has a market cap – short for capitalization – of 281 billion US dollars.

That value helps you compare companies. Pepsi for example, has a market cap of 240 billion US dollars, slightly less than Coca Cola. That means that investors think that Coca Cola has a little more business potential than Pepsi.

The same applies to blockchains. A cryptocurrencies market cap is the amount of coins that exist, multiplied by the value of each. Is your head buzzing? This example will make more sense: A single Bitcoin is currently worth about $30,000. There are roughly 19 million Bitcoins. Add all those zeros and you will see: All of the Bitcoins together are worth 600 billion dollars in market cap, almost three times as much as Pepsi and more than double that of Ethereum.

And now that you understand market cap, go browse the web and compare: How much larger is Apple than Microsoft? How many car companies could you buy with all of the Bitcoins? We are sure you’ll find tons of interesting comparisons, whether they are useful or just fun.

How the NSA helped create Bitcoin - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 160 - by cryptohunt.it May 09, 2022

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How the NSA helped create Bitcoin

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

You’ve heard it everywhere: most governments are really cautious about cryptocurrencies, some even feel threatened by the new technology. It will come as a surprise to you then that the NSA, America’s National Security Agency and one of the largest intelligence agencies in the world, actually created the technology that Bitcoin is based on.

How is this possible? Let’s dig in.

It is the year 1993! The internet is just at the brink of mass adoption, very exciting times! And the military had been using it for a while already, and so have universities, and the US government started to think about security: What if someone figured out a way to listen in?

The problem at the time was that security was based on encryption algorithms that kept getting cracked by talented hackers and mathematicians. So the NSA decided: Let’s create our own and make it available to everyone. A secure internet for all is better than one everyone can hack. They called it SHA, for “secure hashing algorithm” and it took off like crazy: Everyone uses a version of it today. In fact, even the data transferring my voice to you is encrypted by it right now.

And ironically, the very thing the US government aims to regulate also uses the same algorithms. Bitcoin would not be possible without SHA, and thanks to the NSA anyone can use it for their project. In fact, SHA is so good that Bitcoin was never hacked.

So, next time the topic at the family dinner table turns to the government, you can point out that our internet would not be the same without the NSA.

What is a hash used for? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 159 - by cryptohunt.it May 06, 2022

Show notes

What is a hash used for?

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

No doubt: You’ve heard the word hash thrown around by crypto enthusiasts. Strap in, this is a complicated one, but we’ll break it down. And hey - we guarantee you that lots of those crypto folks don’t actually know what it means either and are just trying to impress you, so here’s your chance to get ahead!

First, let’s talk about the purpose those hashes solve: Simply said, they help prevent fraud in blockchains.

Here’s how that works: Remember that blockchains are nothing other than long lists of transactions, stored as separate copies on many different computers. Altering the history of that blockchain is attractive to hackers, because they could create a different record that suddenly shows them as having lots of crypto.

When people pay with crypto, each group of payments gets summarized as a hash after they have been recorded. The hash is a math function which takes all of those transactions, and that could be a lot of information, and compresses them into a really short, but unique text. It is very easy for a computer to summarize things into a hash, but almost impossible to turn a hash into the original data.

It’s like your fingerprint: All of your genes come together when you are born, resulting in hands with a unique fingerprint for each finger. It works in that direction for every human being, every time. Even identical twins don’t have matching fingerprints. But nobody can take your fingerprint and recreate your DNA from it.

But what does it do for a blockchain? Well, in one direction it makes it very easy to verify that all transactions in a blockchain are correct, but in the other it makes it super hard to unwind them and create an altered history.

And now that we at least know what hashing is used for, let’s look into the role the NSA played in enabling Bitcoin. It’s a pretty big one! Stay tuned for the next episode.

What is Gwei? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 158 - by cryptohunt.it May 05, 2022

Show notes

What is Gwei?

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

If you have used Ethereum, you have likely encountered the term “Gwei” (Christian: Gu-uei). And if you haven’t – tune in, because it’s one of the core things to learn when using Ethereum or similar blockchains.

A Gwei is simply the smallest possible fraction of an Ethereum. While you can certainly send around whole Ethereums, you don’t have to. In fact, an entire Ethereum is worth several thousand dollars, and if you wanted to buy ice cream with it, you would need to send a small fraction of one - otherwise, that would be a very expensive frozen treat!

A Gwei is very similar to a Dollar or Euro Cent. Those cents are also the smallest possible fractions of that currency. When you buy something, the price always comes out to something rounded to the nearest cent. No store will ever charge you 1 dollar and 95.3 cents. It’ll just be 1.95.

And a Gwei is really, really small actually. It’s one billionth of one Ethereum, which is currently worth one 30.000th of a US dollar cent.

But where does the name come from? It is named for Wei Dai, one of the pioneers of the crypto technology that is powering many of today’s blockchains.

And now that you know what a Gwei is, keep an eye out for other names of the same concept. In Bitcoin, it’s called a “Satoshi”, in Cardano a “lovelace”, and Stellar calls it a “stroop”. But now you know: It’s all the same idea.

Who is Jack Dorsey? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 157 - by cryptohunt.it May 04, 2022

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Who is Jack Dorsey?

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

Today, let’s talk about another prominent person in the crypto space: Jack Dorsey.

Jack Dorsey: Isn’t that the Twitter guy, you ask? What does he have to do with crypto?

Yes, that Jack Dorsey, co-founder and long-time CEO of Twitter is also a big player in the crypto space. Let’s dig in, and as always, start at the beginning.

Dorsey, an American born in St. Louis dropped out of college to pursue the idea of what later became Twitter. It took a while and some strange turns - from taxi dispatching to sharing messaging app statuses with friends - for the actual Twitter product to emerge, but the rest is obviously history.

But you may not know that he also started Square, a payments company that helps merchants accept credit card payments on their phone or point of sale terminal. The company has become very successful as well, and for a long time Dorsey was CEO of Square and Twitter at the same time.

If you are thinking: come on, what about crypto, here we go: Dorsey had long been interested in crypto and eventually even renamed Square to Block, with a roadmap to accept crypto at all payment terminals. He also sold his first tweet as an NFT for $48m, is a proponent of Bitcoin, and has publicly criticized Ethereum many times.

Dorsey recently left his CEO job at Twitter, to focus full time on Block. So keep an eye on that - we’ll likely see some interesting blockchain announcements from them soon.

Who is Gary Vee? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 156 - by cryptohunt.it May 03, 2022

Show notes

Who is Gary Vee?

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

If you have been around crypto and NFTs, you might have heard of Gary Vaynerchuck, who is best known by his online name Gary Vee.

And if you haven't heard of him, stay tuned - because Vee is an interesting person. Most recently for example, he made a reported $90m with VeeFriends, his own NFT collection.

Vaynerchuk is an entrepreneur, investor, and influencer. Born in Belarus in the mid-seventies, Vee emigrated to the United States where he developed a knack for innovative marketing while helping his parents grow their East Coast wine business.

But how exactly did he become this immensely popular Web 2 influencer, who is making waves in crypto?

It was that wine store experience that inspired him to start a Youtube channel about wines, which quickly evolved into an increasingly successful channel about everything online marketing.

Nowadays, he's a big influencer, who can fill stadiums with people who want to hear him speak. And on top of that, he's been very successful with early bets on startups like Facebook and Coinbase.

And where do influencers go these days to make another buck? Crypto of course. He's been interested in it since 2014 and invested in projects like the Bored Ape NFTs.

And that led him to create his own NFT series. Although criticized as "childish" art, he was able to market a series of his own drawings as NFTs and make a reported $90m off those. Vaynerchuk disagrees – of course. To him those pieces of art are true to themselves because they came out of his own hand.

And that's just what it is - art is subjective and we'll let you judge as always. But keep in mind: Where influencers meet crypto, there might not be long term value for the buyer.

Who is Charles Hoskinson? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 155 - by cryptohunt.it May 02, 2022

Show notes

Who is Charles Hoskinson

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

This episode is about Charles Hoskinson, who you may know as the founder of Cardano. So let’s dig in, because there is a lot of history here.

Hoskinson isn’t only the founder of Cardano, he was also among the original five co-founders of Ethereum. We already talked about two of the technical brains behind Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood, but Hoskinson was more on the business side of things. He helped the young team raise money through a so-called ICO, short for initial coin offering. That’s when a company sells their own token to the public instead of old-school shares.

Eventually, Hoskinson was fired by Vitalik Buterin over a disagreement about the vision of the company. Hoskinson wanted to make Ethereum a commercial project, raise VC money, and build revenue streams. Buterin wanted to keep it a non-profit which it remains till this day.

Hoskinson went on to start Cardano, a direct competitor to Ethereum. And that’s really where the most interesting part of the story lies – the crypto world is quite small if you look closely. Three of the largest blockchains have all been started by people who met on the original Ethereum team.

Who is Gavin Wood? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 154 - by cryptohunt.it Apr 29, 2022

Show notes

Who is Gavin Wood?

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

Today, we want to introduce you to yet another cofounder of Ethereum - Gavin Wood.

Gavin Wood is an interesting person to know because he developed some of the core technologies that power today’s blockchains.

But let’s start at the beginning! Wood was born in the UK, where he attended the University of York and got a Masters in Software engineering and later on a PhD. He then went on to work as a research scientist for Microsoft.

But his most fundamental contributions started when he joined Vitalik Buterin as one of the Ethereum Co-Founders at the very beginning in 2013. Remember that Ethereum’s goal was to create a blockchain that allows people to build all kinds of financial applications on, as opposed to just functioning as a means to move around money, like Bitcoin did at the time.

To achieve that goal, a lot of completely new fundamentals had to be invented. It can get a little technical, but all you need to know is that he programmed many of them and it would be fair to say that Ethereum wouldn’t be the same without him.

Eventually, he left Ethereum in 2016 and founded another blockchain you may have heard about: Polkadot. Remember how he created all those fundamental technologies to let people create cool things on Ethereum? Well, with Polkadot his plan was even more ambitious - why have just one blockchain that serves all purposes like Ethereum? What if we created a technology allowing anyone to create their own blockchain, fully customizable to their own needs?

But you may have also heard Wood’s name pop up in mainstream media for another reason: He’s the single largest contributor of crypto donations to support Ukraine: He donated $5.8 million dollars to their government… all over the DOT, Polkadot’s native token, of course.

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