INVESTIGATING BITCOIN AND ETHEREUM, REAL GOLD HERE!
BITCOIN HASHRATE VS DIFFICULTY
Bitcoin and Ethereum both involve using digital currency and blocks, but their purpose is different. By usage of the Merkle Tree, each block contains approximately a 200 byte portion of information including the timestamp, root hash, previous block hash, and nonce. Each block contains the hash of the previous block storing all transactions in the block.
This causes the changing of one block to make the entire block chain have an error, since if one block has the hash changed, the next block will not contain the correct hash, and all future hashes of the following blocks will not match. The purpose of the Merkle Tree is that if one block is altered, it will cause all future blocks to be invalid with an invalid proof of work.
ETHER REBOUND
With Merkle Tree technology, it takes approximately 10 minutes to produce one block, causing it to be time consuming to create a new block. This allows the benefit of causing the difficulty of changing a block chain, because if one block is altered, every future block would also need to be altered.
With Bitcoin, a peer to peer network is used, and in order for it to be approved, it must be approved by at least 51% of the miners of the blockchain, further causing it to be difficult to alter the blockchain. Miners can only receive Bitcoins for blocks after the first block, known as the genesis block, because the genesis block does not include that hash of any previous block, since there is no previous block.
Bitcoin is an alternative payment system and has different uses that Ethereum. Bitcoin allows the benefit of allowing monetary transfers, including international transfers, when banks are closed and for significantly less fees than banks and other financial institutions charge. Bitcoin also has the advantage of being accepted as payment by various companies such as Dell Computers, AirBaltic airline tickets, CheapAir (hotel rooms and flights), Expedia (hotels), Bitcoin Coffee, FoldCoffee, PizzaForCoins (Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa John’s), and online sites such as Overstock, TigerDirect, and NewEgg.
Ethereum, another type of cryptocurrency, has the major difference in which Ethereum blocks include a copy of the latest state and the transaction list. Ethereum is used for building applications, in comparison to Bitcoin being used for financial transactions. Ethereum has the target of generating an alternative code of behavior of the creation of decentralized applications.
Ethereum is very functional for circumstances in which there is a concernment of varying applications being able to interact, swift growth time, and security of uncommon and scarcely used applications.
ETHEREUM DIFFICULTY CHART
With Ethereum, this occurs by there being a blockchain with Turing-complete encoding communication which allows any person the ability to write “smart contracts” along with decentralized applications. In comparison with Merkle Tree, Ethereum allows smart contracts that are not available in Bitcoin and boxes that, only when certain regulations occur, can be unlocked.
Since Ethereum uses Turing-complete mechanics, it is possible for any programmer to define a mathematically determined smart contract. Ethereum uses “accounts,” in which the state is made up of items and each account contains a 20 byte address that allows information and worth to be exchanged through accounts.
ETHEREUM VS BITCOIN POPULARITY
These accounts contain four fields which are nonce, current ether balance, storage, and contract code. Whereas transaction fees in Merkel Tree are paid using Bitcoin, Ethereum pays its transactions fees using ether. Transaction time with Ethereum takes seconds, compared to the minutes it takes with Bitcoin. Both cryptocurrencies are beneficial since their uses vary, which can be seen through their high popularity.
Works Cited
“Bitcoin Difficulty Chart.” BitInfoCharts, 4 June 2018, bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-difficulty.html.
“Bitcoin Difficulty and Hashrate Chart.” BitcoinWisdom, 4 June 2018, bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty.
“ETH BTC – Ethereum to Bitcoin Price Chart.” TradingView, TradingView, 4 June 2018, www.tradingview.com/symbols/ETHBTC/.
