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+---
+layout: post
+title: Cryptocurrency
+subtitle: Introduction to Cryptocurrency terminology 
+gh-repo: daattali/beautiful-jekyll
+gh-badge: [star, fork, follow]
+tags: [introduction,cryptocurrency,terminology]
+---
+
+
+## 1 Introduction
+
+Monero project offers a decentralized and anonymous open-source
+cryptocurrency with a regular update cycle that does not limit the user
+to use certain software or hardware. With such an open approach, it
+is often difficult for users to keep up and be aware of many choices on
+the client side, that can be either good or bad for them.
+As cryptocurrency usage is rising in general, it is also more and
+more frequent to encounter malicious sites or software developers
+that aim to take control over users funds to gain an easy profit. This
+thesis focuses on the Monero usage and mining from usable security
+view to explain the current state in the Monero ecosystem and reflect
+the real-world usage data from both users and miners surveys.
+The goal of this thesis is to map usage habits of Monero cryptocur-
+rency users and miners from both technological as well as security
+view. Another goal is to create a detailed user guideline for user-
+friendly and secure usage of the Monero cryptocurrency including
+key management and backup strategy. For miners, the goal is to im-
+plement an automated deployment of mining rigs using one of the
+popular configuration management tools.
+To find an answer to such research questions and to get real world
+usage data, I conducted a Monero User Research survey in which
+113 participants shared their habits regarding Monero cryptocurrency.
+Based on the survey results and IT industry practices I proposed a
+Monero usage and storage best practices guide that covers the key
+generation, wallet management, and a secure backup scheme.
+Aside from clients, key parts of Monero are also miners and Mon-
+ero network itself. As miners are the ones who verify transactions and
+keep the network running, it was important to describe the mining
+software and categories which are later used in the Monero Miners
+Research survey. In the survey, 60 miners shared technical informa-
+tion about their current mining setups. This was later reflected in the
+proposed guide for designing secure mining environment in which
+the automation was the main aspect.
+The thesis describes a detailed overview of wallet and its types,
+as well as ways how to attack the wallet, followed by transaction
+features in the Monero and problems in Monero environment from
+both Monero network and Monero malware sides.
+The thesis is divided into 10 Chapters. The first three Chapters
+describe Monero cryptocurrency, its development cycle, transactions
+in the network, wallets, multisig together with cryptocurrency com-
+petitors, problems in Monero environment and overall Monero use
+case. The fifth and sixth Chapters describe the Monero User Research,
+its results and propos a detailed guideline for best practices in Monero
+usage and storage. The eight and ninth Chapters describe the Mon-
+ero Miners Research, its results and the design of the secure mining
+environment. The last Chapter covers the final conclusion.
+
+
+## 2 Cryptocurrency
+
+This Chapter is aimed as a starting point that explains terms and tech-
+nology that will occur throughout the following pages and Chapters.
+Although these terms provide only a short description, it is recom-
+mended for every reader to swift through them as in later pages they
+are discussed and used in detail thoroughly.
+**Cryptocurrency** is a digital currency that is designed to use cryp-
+tography to secure and verify its transactions. Cryptocurrencies are
+decentralized as opposed to traditional money transaction systems
+used in the banks. Decentralization is established by using distributed
+blockchain that functions as a transaction database within the currency.
+First cryptocurrency available was Bitcoin [1].
+**Altcoin** is a term used for every cryptocurrency that is not Bitcoin.
+**The fork** happens when developers create a copy of existing project
+codebase and start their path of development with it.
+**The market capitalization** (market cap) is a total value of cryp-
+tocurrency that refers to the total number of emitted coins multiplied
+by the value of the coin.
+**The blockchain** is a technology responsible for storing every trans-
+action that has ever been processed in the cryptocurrency, also often
+called as a ledger. The main purpose of the blockchain is to ensure the
+validity of completed transactions.
+**Transactions** within cryptocurrency are processed together as
+blocks that are verified by miners and then added to the blockchain
+as a new mined block.
+**The wallet** is a storage medium that holds private and public keys
+by which the user can access, send and receive funds. Wallet effectively
+does not have the coins but is rather a key to access them from the
+blockchain.
+**The node** is a computer connected to the cryptocurrency network.
+The node is often referred to as a full node which means that the
+computer maintains a full copy of blockchain. This results in node
+downloading every block and transaction and checking them against
+cryptocurrency rules, especially whether the transaction has correct
+signatures, data format and the right number of emitted coins per
+block.
+
+**The mining** process is done by miners that verify transactions on
+the network and adds them to the blockchain together in the form of
+a block which results in new coins being emitted as a reward for block
+solving.
+**Mining in pools** is the way how individual miners pool their com-
+putational resources. Due to resources pooling, there is a higher chance
+of solving the block, therefore gaining the reward of newly emitted
+coins.