1GB blocks would be able to confirm more than 5000tx/s. That would be VISA-level scale (which handles, on average, 1736tx/s). We often hear that we shouldn't raise the blocksize because then nodes would become too expensive to run. But how expensive exactly?
We have the following costs to take into account:

Storage
Bandwidth
CPU/Memory
Electricity

For now, I'm going to assume a non-pruned full node (i.e. a node that stores all transactions of the blockchain) for personal use, i.e. for a computer built at home. I'll add in the calculations for a pruned node at the end, which would likely be the prefered option for people who merely want to verify the blockchain for themselves. If you don't care about the assumptions and calculations, you can just jump right to the end of this post. If you spotted any error, please inform me and I'll update my calculation.

Storage

There's, on average, one block every 10 minutes, that is 144 every day and 4320 blocks every thirty days. I was able to find a 3TB HDD for $47,50 on Amazon, that is $0.018/GB. Storing all blocks with all transactions of a month (4320GB) would be $78.96/mo. Prices for storage halved from 2014 to 2017, so we can assume that to half in 2022, thus we can reasonably assume it'd cost around $40/mo. in 2022.
But would such an inexpensive hard disk be able to keep up with writing all the data? I found a comparable cheap HDD which can write 127MB/s sequentially (which would be the writing mode of Bitcoin). That would be enough even for 76GB blocks!
Edit: For the UTXO set, we need very fast storage for both reading and writing. Peter__R, in his comment below, estimates this to be 1TB for 4 billion users (which would make ~46,000tx/s if everyone would make 1tx/day, so id'd require about 10GB blocks). jtoomim seems more pessimistic on that front, he says that much of that has to be in RAM. I'll add the $315 I've calculated below to account for that (which would be rather optimistic, keep in mind).

Bandwidth

Bandwidth is more complicated, because that can't just be shipped around like HDDs. I'll just take prices for my country, Germany, using the provider T-online, because I don't know how it works in the US. You can plug in your own numbers based on the calculations below.
1GB blocks/10 minute mean 1.7MB/s. However, this is an average, and we need some wiggle room for transaction spikes, for example at Christmas or Black Friday. VISA handles 150 million transactions per day, that is 1736tx/s, but can handle up to 24,000tx/s (source). So we should be able to handle 13.8x the average throughput, which would be 1.7MB/s x 13.8 = 23.46M/s, or 187.68Mbit/s. The plan on T-online for 250Mbit/s (translated) would be 54.95€/mo (plus setup minus a discount for the first 6 months which seems to cancel out so we'll ignore it), which would be $61.78/mo. This plan is an actual flatrate, so we don't have to worry about hitting any download limit.
Note, however, that we don't order bandwidth for only our Bitcoin node, but also for personal use. If we only needed 2MB/s for personal use, the plan would be 34.95€, thus our node would actually only cost the difference of 20€ per month, or $22.50/mo. Nielsen's Law of Internet Bandwidth claims that a high-end user's connection speed grows by 50% per year. If we assume this is true for pricing too, the bandwidth cost for ~200Mbit/s/mo. would go down to ~~12.5% (forgot how exponential growth works)~~ 29.6% of its today's cost by 2022, which decreases our number to $~~2.81/mo.~~ $6.66/mo.
Edit: jtoomim, markblundeberg and CaptainPatent point out that the node would have a much higher bandwidth for announcing transactions and uploading historical blocks. In theory, it would not be necessary to do any of those things and still be able to verify one's own transactions, by never broadcasting any transactions. That would be quite leechy behaviour, though. If we were to pick a higher data plan to get 1000MBit/s downstream and 500MBit/s upstream, it would cost 119.95€/mo., however this plan isn't widely available yet (both links in German). 500MBit/s of upstream would give us max. 21 connected nodes at transaction spikes, or max. 294 connected nodes at average load. That would cost $39.85 in 2022 (with correct exponential growth).

CPU/Memory

CPU/Memory will be bought once and can then run for tens of years, so we'll count these as setup costs. The specs needed, of course, depend on the optimization of the node software, but we'll assume the current bottlenecks will have been removed once running a node actually becomes demanding hardware-wise.
This paper establishes that a 2.4GHz Intel Westmere (Xeon E5620) CPU can verify 71000 signatures per second... which can be bought for $32.88 a pair on Ebay (note: this CPU is from Q1'10). We'd need to verify 76659tx/s at spikes (taking the 13.8x number), so that pair of CPUs (handle 142,000tx/s) seem to just fit right in (given one signature per tx). We'd also have to account for multiple signatures per transaction and all the other parts of verification of transactions, but it seems like the CPU costs are neglegible anyway if we don't buy the freshest hardware available. ~$100 at current prices seem reasonable. Given Moore's Law, we can assume that prices for CPUs half every two years (transistor count x1.416²), so in three years, the CPU(s) should cost around $35.22 ($100/1.416³).
For memory, we again have to take into account the transaction spikes. If we're very unlucky, and transactions spike and there won't be a block for ~1h, the mempool can become very large. If we take the factor of 13.8x from above, and 1h of unconfirmed transactions (20,000,000tx usually, 276,000,000tx on spikes), we'd need 82.8GB (for 300B per transaction).
I found 32GB of RAM (with ECC) for $106, so three of those give us 96GB of RAM for $318 and plenty remaining space for building hash trees, connection management and the operating system. Buying used hardware doesn't seem to decrease the cost significantly (we actually do need a lot of RAM, compared to CPU power).
Price of RAM seems to decrease by a factor of x100 every 10 years (x1.585¹⁰), so we can expect 96GB to cost around $79.89 ($318/1.585³) in 2022.
Of course, CPU and memory need to be compatible, which I haven't taken into account. Chug a mainboard (~$150) and a power supply (~$50) into the mix, and the total would be just over $600 for today's prices. Even if mainboard and power supply prices remain the same, we'd still only have to pay around $315 for the whole setup in 2022.

Electricity

I found the following power consumptions:

The CPU requires 80W
Mainboard needs 40W
3 memory modules with 9W
I found a comparable harddrive with 6W. We need N*6W, where N is the number of hardrives (17.28 per year).
Edit: We also need fast memory for the UTXO set, so we'll take some 3x NVMe SSDs for that (see below), which require 18.6W in total.

So we'd have ~~129W~~ 147.6W + N*6W. Electricity cost average at 12ct/kWh in the US, in Germany this is higher at 30.22ct/kWh. In the US, it would cost ~~$11.14~~ $12.75 + N*$0.52 (P*12ct/kWh / 1000 * 24h/day *30days / 100ct/$), in Germany ~~28.06€~~ 32.11€ + N*1.30€.
At the end of the first year, it would cost ~~$20.12~~ $21.73/mo. in the US and ~~50.52€~~ 54.57€/mo. in Germany.
At the end of the second year, it would cost ~~$29.11~~ $30.72/mo. for the US and ~~72.98€~~ 77.03€/mo. for Germany. It increases by $8.98/mo. per year in the US and by 22.46€/mo. per year in Germany.
Electricity prices in Germany have increased over time due to increased taxation; in the US the price increase has been below inflation rate the last two decades. As it's difficult to predict price changes here, I'm going to assume prices will remain the same.

Conclusion

In summary, we get:

Storage: $78.96/mo., $40/mo in 2022, (E:) +$315 initially for NVMe SSDs
Bandwidth: $22.50/mo., ~~$2.81/mo.~~ $6.66/mo. in 2022, Edit: or $95.37/mo. for additional broadcasting, or $28.25/mo. in 2022 prices.
Electricity: ~~$20.12/mo. (1st year, US), $29.11/mo (2nd year, US); 50.52€/mo. (1st year, DE), 72.98€/mo (2nd year; DE)~~ $21.73/mo. (1st year, US), $30.72/mo. (2nd year, US); 54.57€/mo. (1st year, DE), 77.03€/mo. (2nd year, DE).
CPU: Initially $600, $315 in 2022

If we add everything up, for today's prices, we get (E: updated all following numbers, but only changed slightly) $132/mo. (US), $187/mo. (DE) for the second year and ~~$71.92/mo~~. $78/mo. (US), ~~$115.79/mo.~~ $124/mo. (DE) in 2022.
It definitely is quite a bit of money, but consider what that machine would actually do; it would basically do the equivalent of VISA's payment verification multiple times over, which is an amazing feat. Also, piano lessons cost around $50-$100 each, so if we consider a Bitcoin hobbyist, he would still pay much less for his hobby than a piano player, who'd pay about $400 per month. So it's entirely reasonable to assume that even if we had 1GB blocks, there would still be lots of people running full-nodes just so.
How about pruned nodes? Here, we only have to store the Unspent Transaction Output Set (UTXO set), which currently clocks in at 2.8GB. If blocks get 1000 times bigger, we can assume the UTXO set to become 2.8TB. I'll assume ordinary HDD's aren't goint to cut it for reading/writing the UTXO set at that scale, so we'll take some NVMe SSDs for that, currently priced at $105/TB. ~~Three of them would increase our setup by $315 to~~ ~~$915, but decrease our monthly costs.~~ E: However this UTXO set is also required for the non-pruned node, therefore the setup costs stay at $915. Even in the highest power state, the 3 SSDs will need only 18.6W in total, so we'll get a constant 147.6W for the whole system.
In total, this is:

New Storage: $0/mo.
Bandwidth: $22.50/mo., (E:) $6.66/mo. in 2022, Edit: or $95.37/mo. for additional broadcasting, or $28.25/mo. in 2022 prices. (same as above)
Electricity: $12.75/mo. (US), 32.11€/mo. (DE)
CPU: Initially $915

In total, this is $35.25/mo. in the US and $58.57/mo. in Germany for today's prices, or (E:) $19.41/mo. (US) and (E:) $42.73/mo. (DE) in 2022's prices. Which looks very affordable even for a non-hobbyist.
E: spelling
E²: I've added the 3 NVEe SSDs for the UTXO set, as pointed out by others and fixed an error with exponentials, as I figured out.

Looking for a new GPU that lasts as long as the AMD R9 290X has, supporting my motherboard

03-29 14:04 - 'Should blockchain projects really be decentralized?' (self.Bitcoin) by /u/Blockchain_Topbuzz removed from /r/Bitcoin within 371-381min

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor	£179.99 @ Aria PC
Motherboard	ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard	£66.91 @ More Computers
Video Card	Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 4GB Tri-X Video Card	£299.15 @ Scan.co.uk
Case	Phanteks PH-ES614PC_BK ATX Full Tower Case	£77.53 @ Scan.co.uk
Power Supply	Fractal Design Integra R2 650W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	£43.98 @ Scan.co.uk
Monitor	Asus VS228HR 60Hz 21.5" Monitor	£93.11 @ Amazon UK
		Total
	Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available	£912.76
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-31 21:14 BST+0100

'''

In recent days, the FCOIN crisis has received the most attention.

Zhang Jian, founder of Chinese crypto exchange Fcoin, revealed in a [post]^¹ On February 17. Zhang Jian's ‘[Truth announcement]^² ’ seemed to put a bomb in the market. Before that, because the team lost contact for many days, the scandal of the team's dissolution was already rumoured for several days. Now, after the scandal that "FCoin may not be able to pay the 7,000-13,000 BTC" broke out, the only illusion left by investors is finally broken.
In July 2018, Fcoin began the community-based governance. Last October, FMEX, a contract trading platform owned by FT ECOLOGY, officially launched. However, the FMEX daily volume fell from the day of launch, which was astonishing. Coincidentally, in the same month, the public chain project aelf was also involved in rumors that the aelf team had dissolved the wechat community, which indicates that the team might be facing dissolving.
As it turned out, however, the decentralized cloud computing blockchain network project, aelf, wasn't dissolving, but attempted to return to the community by playing down the influence of the founding team.
FCoin, on the other hand, which claimed to be community-based governance, eventually collapsed because of Zhang Jian's team's terrible decision making, and has again raised questions about decentralization and community governance. Is it a false proposition to give back to the community? Should blockchain projects really be decentralized?

Giving back to the community = Escaping with money?

Communitization was once regarded as the biggest "Feature" of FCoin.
Over the past year, FCoin has set up Social Committees, Basic Regulations, Community Partnership System, Community Discipline Supervision Committee, Community Organization Departments, and Professional Committees that cover a wide range of talents. Together with the collective decision-making + Division of Labor and Cooperation Mechanism formed by the Social Committee, it seems that FCoin's decision-making has basically achieved community-owned and community-driven.
Judging from the completeness of the mechanism, FCoin stands out among all the blockchain projects/teams on the market. However, it was not until FCoin crashed that people realised that this platform, where decision making is handed over to the community and community governance is implemented, has had a serious payment crisis for a long time. But this fact was not known to the community, leading to the outside world believing that FCoin was functioning properly, and there was no omen for the final collapse.
It makes you wonder: Did FCoin really give back to the community? Over the past two years, following the large drop in the blockchain markets, many projects were nominally "de-centralized", but in reality, were simply exit-scams. After such things happen over and over again, people have concerns about the team's loss of contact and giving back to the community. However, the ultimate collapse of FCoin, which advocated community focus, undoubtedly puts a big black spot on community-owned and community-driven projects.
There is a reason why investors continue to accumulate doubts. Last May, ONO, a blockchain project, was shut down and its founder was accused of starting a new business. However, the founders later publicly responded that the project is still ongoing and they were working on the ONO innovation model, which is expected to be launched in December.
But until now, we haven't seen any new developments in the project, and the founder has long disappeared. Even if project decentralization is seriously stigmatized, in the crypto world, there are many projects that fulfill the dream of giving it back to the community.

Why do people still believe in decentralization?

BCH's Infrastructure Funding Plan have been the hotly debated. the proportion of Miners' donations are also updated with community recommendations. and miners and developers can also vote on and participate in decisions-making about proposals that affect their vital interests.
Last month Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, a well known project, said in public that from a technical perspective, Ethereum is certain to survive because of the number of well coordinated developers. However, from the social perspective, he is not very sure. BUTERIN's statement also shows us how important a founder can be in a blockchain project.
During the second half of 2019, aelf was involved in the rumors. On October 21 last year, several wechat groups whose name including aelf suddenly disbanded. Due to the endless occurrence of exiting with money in blockchain projects, investors began to worry about whether the aelf team has dissolved.
However, the follow-up situation proves that the decentralized cloud computing blockchain network project is not dissolving, but was trying to return to the community by downplaying the role of teams.
We found ‘aelf community’, a WeChat official accounts platform, keeps tracking aelf project's progress. While there had been rumours that aelf had disbanded in the last quarter of last 2019. But in fact, during this period, aelf has been providing regular updates of the progress about its R & D and ecological construction to the outside world.
For example, the day after the rumor spread, aelf announced that it would launch the public test with awards for the aelf Enterprise 0.8.0 beta. On Oct 29th, aelf Enterprise was officially listed on Google Cloud Marketplace. Up to now, it has launched on Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Cloud Azure and Huawei Cloud platforms, and has become Amazon AWS and Huawei Cloud Technology partners, providing a more efficient, convenient and high-quality development environment for enterprise users (supporting multi cloud operation). Besides, Team members also continue to make their voices heard in international media or events.
On the other hand, aelf is also promoting its technology’s R & D. From the GitHub code base of aelf, we can see that the code development of aelf has been steadily active since the second half of last year.
Another perspective, from Dec 2019 to Feb 2020, aelf successively released aelf Enterprise V0.9.0 and aelf enterprise V 0.9.2. It is known that aelf Enterprise, a blockchain commercialization solution featuring "Independence, Efficiency and Security", can be used by all industries involved in value transfer to build the underlying blockchain. It is especially suitable for solving the problem of high cost of maintaining credit in business cooperation scenarios such as aviation, tourism, financial services, real estate, logistics, etc.
In addition, aelf seems to have some achievements on theoretical research. On 17 Feb. 2020, aelf officially launched the aelf Economy and Governance White Paper, which describes the various roles and interests in the ecosystem, including the rights of production nodes, candidate nodes, investors, developers and cooperation rules.
Decentralization is not without a bright future. The founder of Bitcoin disappeared for a decade, and bitcoin operated normally for that time. Ethereum has successfully built a prosperous ecosystem, which is not only the credit of Buterin and the Ethereum foundation, but also the credit to the tens of thousands of ecosystem participants such as developers, miners, token holders, etc.
We don't deny that there are a lot of blockchain projects that are secretly taking investors’ funds in the name of community and decentralization. Now, with FCoin falling in this fundamental crisis, "Give it back to the community" is once again ridiculed by the public. But in fact, compared with the teams that boast to ‘Give it back to the community’, they are actually often still centralization.
Rome can't be built in a day. It's probably the safest way to gradually give up decision-making power and move towards community-based governance. At present, we do see a lot of blockchain projects, still groping for a properly motivated, sustainable way to do business, and firmly practicing the initial desire of decentralization.
'''
Should blockchain projects really be decentralized?
Go1dfish undelete link
unreddit undelete link
Author: Blockchain_Topbuzz
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Unknown links are censored to prevent spreading illicit content.

100 Reasons to Buy Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the most censorship resistant money in the world.
You don't have to buy a “whole” bitcoin so don't freak out if you look at the price. You can buy a piece of one no problem.
The Dallas Mavericks accept Bitcoin on their website. You don't trust Mark Cuban. He's the best shark.
Bitcoin is the best performing asset of the last decade (better than S&P500).
Diversify your current portfolio.
It's not illegal in the USA.
You holding just one satoshi slightly limits the supply and can rise the price for everyone else.
[In late 2019] hash rate is the highest it has ever been
Suicide insurance; if Bitcoin rises in price there is no worse feeling than regret.
Some of the smartest people in computer science and cryptography are working on it. Trust nerds.
Look at the all time historical chart. No technical analysis just tell me what you think when you look at it.
Money is a belief system... and I want to believe.
Transparent ledger, no funny business going on it's easy to audit.
Elon Musk appears to be a fan. How's that for an appeal to authority
There is a fixed limit in the number of bitcoins that will exist. 21 million bitcoin, 7 billion people on earth. Do the math.
There are so many examples of governments inflating their currency to the point where it becomes unusable. Read the wikipedia page for Venezuela or Zimbabwe.
Altcoins make sacrifices in either security or centralization. There are altcoins out there that claim to be innovating but just check the scoreboard nothing has flipped Bitcoin in market value or even gotten close.
With technology developing at a rate faster than law, governments and for-profit businesses have the ability to monitor our purchases, location, our habits, and all of this has happened without consent. People made jokes and conspiracy theory, but sometimes conspiracy is real. Most people are good, but there is absolutely evil out there. There are absolutely evil people in positions of power. There are absolutely evil people that work together in positions of power. Does anyone actually believe that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. Go read about Leslie Wexner. Go read the cypherpunk manifesto.
The upcoming halvening in 2020 will reduce the number of Bitcoin created in each block, making them more scarce, and if history repeats more valuable.
Bitcoin has lower fees than traditional banking.
Gold has the advantage of being a physical thing. But unlike gold you know Bitcoin is not forged, or mixed with another metal, and you can easily break it into tiny pieces and send it over the internet to someone.
Bitcoin could spark new interests maybe you start to read more into economics, computer science, or Brock Pierce.
Bitcoin has survived with no leader, marketing team, public relations, or legal team.
Because Wired magazine said Bitcoin was dead at $2, Forbes said it was dead at $15, NY Times at $208, and CNN at $333.
Just do a cost benefit analysis. What happens if Bitcoin fails and it goes to zero vs. what happens if it succeeds, and becomes world money.
Bitcoin encourages long term thinking, planning, saving. Due to inflation we are punished by holding on to cash. Look up the statistics on the average savings account while we are bombarded with consumerist bullshit like Funko pop heads, Loot crate subscription services, and new syrup flavors for coffee. Currently we are encouraged to spend now, seek immediate gratification, and ignore what we are becoming as Amazon picks out our clothes and toothpaste ships it to the house and we sit and watch streaming services where content is pushed to us and I'm supposed to buy that this garbage is actually “trending”. Our lives have become so comfortable that idiots spend $60 to escape a room and have someone take your picture when you get out. What would our ancestors think.
Maybe you're a day trader looking to use a trading bot in an unregulated market.
Bitcoin has 7 letters in it. Lucky number 7.....
Bitcoin promises to bank the unbanked, and provide services to those not otherwise “qualified” to open a bank account.
It's just cool, don't you want to seem smart to all your friends.
The origin story is so nuts there's going to be a movie or several movies about the early days of Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto remains anonymous to this day. Imagine if the inventor of the cell phone was anonymous.
If you have money to burn, don't buy soda, weed, or some girls private snapchat it's a dead end put it towards Bitcoin and give it to your child in the future.
To avoid getting ripped off by foreign exchange fees just because you were born one place and your friends were born in another place.
Can't live off the grid in your log cabin and still use Mastercard. Bitcoin is one piece of opting out.
If one country adopts BTC as the national currency, it doesn't take much thought to realise that others will follow.
Join a welcoming and unique community. Everyone is super nice because they want your money.
You can stick it to the baby boomers.
You can stick it to the vegans.
You can stick it Roger Ver.
Maybe your IQ is 70 and you'll do whatever CNBC Fast Money recommends.
Maybe a hacker infects your computer, records you doing that thing, and threatens to release the tape if you do not pay them 1.5 Bitcoin.
You're a risk taker looking for some risky investment.
Aliens attack like Independence Day, blow up major cities in major countries, your money is still safe with Bitcoin. As long as there is a some guy, some person, living on an island with a copy of the ledger out there on your'e good. We're all good.
Many proposals to scale the number of transactions, may the best plan win.
One day you might have to use BTC to pay taxes, buy food, and charge your Tesla.
You want to support a political group and remain private.
You can trust math more than you can trust people to set an emission rate.
Government don't know how much you have.
The first response to Bitcoin being published by Hal Finney stated that Bitcoin was positioned to reach million dollar valuation. Hal was the first bull and passed away in 2014, missing a lot #doitforHal.
Baddies can't freeze your money if they mad at you.
The Big Bang Theory mentioned it, maybe you want to be like Sheldon the bazinga guy.
Mid-life crisis.
Be contrarian. In a world where everyone zigs it's sometimes good to zag.
Don't have any hobbies, and you just need a reason to get up in the morning.
Enjoy learning? Bitcoin is a topic where there is so much to learn, and so much development, that it really becomes a never ending journey. For someone who likes learning, it's more productive than speedrunning a video game.
Yolo. You only live once. This isn't a dress rehearsal, if there's something your kind of interested in pursue it. That's true for anything not just Bitcoin. But if you're reading this I'm assuming you're interested.
Bitcoin is not a ponzi scheme. The difference is Bitcoin does not need new people buying in to work, blocks being added will continue even if the community stopped growing.
With religion on the decline maybe you want to join a cult. Crypto twitter is a great echo chamber to meet like minded people.
Satoshi Nakamoto found a way to distribute a global currency in a fair way with the ability to adjust the mining difficulty as we go, it's really incredible. You still need computers and electricity to mine new bitcoin today but it's an extremely fair way for people to earn. There was no premine of Bitcoin. Everyone who has Bitcoin either bought it at what the market said, or they earned it.
No CEO in charge of Bitcoin to make bad decisions or a board of directors that can make changes. The users, an ever growing number, are in charge.
Bitcoin has no days off, it has no workers in charge who can get sick or take a holiday.
Bitcoin has survived 10 years (and more). While there will always be dangers, I'd argue that those first few years it was most vulnerable to fail.
Have some trust in the cypherpunks. Anyone who held and didn't sell bitcoin as it went from pennies to five figures is not looking to get rich. They want to change the world.
Potential president Tulsi Gabbard disclosed owning some.
Digital money is the future, anyone who has tried Venmo can see that. Well Bitcoin is a digitally native asset.
Refugees can use Bitcoin to store their wealth as they flee a failing country.
Bitcoin is an open source project. Anthony Pompliano likes to call it a virus but I like how the author of the Bitcoin Standard describes it. Bitcoin is like a song. As long as one person remembers it you can't destroy a song.
Triple entry accounting. When humans first started recording who owes who what we had single-entry accounting. The king's little brother would keep everything written down, but we had to really trust this guy because he could simply erase a line and that money would be gone. When double-entry accounting started to spread 500 years ago it brought with it massive innovation. Businesses could now form relationships across the ocean as they each kept a record. We did not have innovation again until Satoshi's Bitcoin, where blockchain can be used as the neutral third party to keep record. It might not sound important but blockchain allows us to agree upon an objective reality.
Bitcoin is non-political.
Bitcoin is easy to accept. I mean kind of. It's certainly easier than setting up a bank account.
A sandwich used to cost 10 cents in America, I walk into Subway and they don't even have $5 foot longs anymore. Inflation man..
It's a peaceful protest.
Critics say that mining wastes electricity, but if Bitcoin adoption continues the world will actually be incentivized to produce more renewable energy. There are so many waterfalls and sources of energy in the middle of nowhere right now. People might not see a reason to build a power plant over there now, but in the future it can make business sense. Take that waterfall mine bitcoin, and sell them to the people who can't mine. It allows for a business to sell their energy anywhere.
Get into debates around Bitcoin, build those critical thinking skills.
“Predicting rain doesn't count, building arks does”
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.”
"I never considered for one second having anything to do with it. I detested it the moment it was raised. It’s just disgusting. Bitcoin is noxious poison.”
The immaculate conception. No cryptocurrency can have a start the grassroots way Bitcoin did, it's just impossible given how the space has changed.
There are more than 1000x more U.S. dollars today than there were a hundred years ago.
Bitcoin is the largest transfer of wealth this decade from the least curious to the curious.
The concept of the Star Wars Cantina, Galt's Gulch, or young Beat Generation kids sitting in a basement smoking cigarettes and questioning the world can only exist if money remains fungible.
You can send money to your Dad even if he lives in a country run by bad boys.
Memorize your key, and walk around the world carrying your money in your head.
Free speech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9JGmA5_unYGmA5_unY
The Federal Reserve is objectively way too powerful.
John Mcafe promised that if bitcoins were not valued at 1 million dollars by the end of 2020 he would eat his own penis on national television. It will be a sad day if we don't hit that 1 million.
The Apple credit card.
If we ever get artificial intelligence it'll be able to interact with Bitcoin.
Katy Perry is aware of crypto so if by some chance you run into her, you get one chance to strike up conversation, so here's your chance to shine. You don't ask for a picture, you don't say she's pretty, or name your favorite song. Take your shot and ask about what type of cold storage she uses for her bitcoin.
Many people are afraid of a world currency because it's associated with a centralized world power taking control. Bitcoin allows for neutral world money.
Stick it to Mark Zuckerberg.
Developers developers developers developers developer developers.
About 85% of the supply has already been mined.
Bitcoin can always improve. As long as the proposal is really good the code can be upgraded, and if the baddies invent ways to hurt the chain we can just fork off it's just code.
Memes
Name recognition and momentum above all other cryptocurrencies.
3% discount with Bitcoin at Crescent Tide Cremation Services. Nice cant wait to die.
Like having a swiss bank account in your pocket.
Blow up the banks (in minecraft).

Establishing a smart contract commercial scenario: Chainlink, Zk-Snarks and sharding technology work together to make the ultimate killer

This text was translated from Chinese, open following link in Chrome and translate to see all images:
https://bihu.com/article/1242138347
EDIT: found an English text with pictures:
https://medium.com/@rogerfeng/making-smart-contracts-work-for-business-how-chainlink-zk-snarks-sharding-finally-delivered-8f268af75ca2
Author: Feng Jie translation: Liu Sha
“The highest state of technology is to integrate into the various scenes of everyday life, to fade away from high-tech outerwear and become a part of everyday life.” – Mark Weiser
People in the future will not even think that smart contracts are "innovative." By that time, smart contracts would permeate every aspect of life, and people couldn't even imagine what the era of non-digital currency would look like.
Later historians may divide human business history into two eras, the pre-smart contract era and the post-smart contract era. After all, digital money has brought unprecedented changes to the nature and patterns of business practices in the real world. An anonymous member of the Chainlink community once said: "Smart contracts can change the DNA of the business."
Of course, like all the technological revolutions of the past, smart contracts also need to reach a "tipping point" to truly achieve large-scale applications. So we need to ask ourselves two questions:

What exactly is this so-called tipping point?
As of August 2019, have we reached this tipping point?

To reach the tipping point means unlocking the ultimate nirvana of business.
Tipping point We can think about this issue from the perspective of mainstream companies. Imagine what a perfect smart contract platform should look like. What characteristics should this platform have? Or what features must be possessed?
To reach the tipping point, you must establish a public chain with the following four characteristics:

Privacy protection
In addition to the cryptocurrency, the transaction can also be settled in mainstream legal currency and comply with the regulatory requirements of financial markets such as ISO 20022.
Achieve scalability without sacrificing decentralization or security, that is, solving the "impossible triangle problem."
Connect the external data under the chain, that is, solve the "prophecy problem."

Now that we have Chainlink, zk-snarks and sharding technology, we have reached this tipping point.
Next, let's explore how this ultimate nirvana is actually made. Our discussion will be mainly from the perspective of Ethereum, which is still the top smart contract platform for community size and mainstream applications.
So what about the private chain?
Before delving into it, I want to take the time to solve an unavoidable problem. The mainstream view has always believed that the private chain is a more suitable solution for the enterprise. Therefore, we first dialectically analyze the two advantages and two major drawbacks of the private chain.
Disadvantages

Centralization leads to relatively lower security

It's not surprising that IBM and Maersk's blockchain freight alliances have a hard time finding customers who are willing to join. How can other freight companies be willing to let their biggest competitors (Maersk) verify their trading data? Only madmen dare to do this.

The staking of the horses occupy the hills:

This problem is even more serious than centralization. John Wolpert, co-founder of the IBM blockchain, wrote an excellent article called Breaking the Barriers to Realize Security: Why Companies Should Embrace the Ethereum Public Chain, which he covered in detail in the article.
If every company builds its own private chain, it will lead to chaos in the mountains. Today's B2B ecosystem is very complex. Imagine the innumerable private chains of the world intertwined to form a huge "spider web." This is not only cost-effective, but also not scalable.
The starting point of the blockchain is to break down barriers instead of building more barriers.
"One day, one of your big buyers called you to ask if you want to join their private chain. You promised. The next day you received a call from the wholesaler to ask you the same question. Then came the supplier, freight. Business, insurance company or even bank, and each company may have several private chains! Finally you have to invest a lot of time and cost to operate dozens of blockchains every day . If there are partners to let you join them at this time The private chain, you might say "Forget it, or fax me the order!" ”—Paul Brody (Ernst & Young)
“Every time you connect two private chains through a system integrator, you have to pay a lot of money .”
Advantage

Scalability: With the Ethereum public chain implementing fragmentation technology, this advantage is rapidly shrinking.
Privacy protection: At this stage, the classification of public chain / private chain is actually not very accurate. The Aztec , Zether, and Nightfall protocols (both based on the zk-snarks protocol) effectively provide a "private chain model" for the Ethereum public chain, allowing it to switch between the public and private chains. Therefore, a more accurate classification should be the alliance chain and the public chain.

By 2020, the label of the public chain/private chain will gradually disappear. The public and private chains will no longer be two opposing concepts. Instead, the concept of publicly traded/private transactions and confidential contracts/open contracts is changed, and the scope of these transactions and contracts varies according to specific needs, either bilaterally or multilaterally or even publicly.
All in all, the private chain has two major drawbacks compared to the public chain. Not only that, but the two major advantages of the private chain are also rapidly disappearing.
“Technology will evolve over time, so there will be a variety of solutions to solve existing problems. Ultimately, the public-chain platform will have the same performance, scalability and data privacy as the private chain, while at the same time ensuring security and Decentralized."
Feature 1: Privacy protection (predictive machine and public chain privacy)
Enigma founder Guy Zyskind once joked in his MIT graduation thesis that smart contracts can only become commercially valuable if they become "confidential contracts." He later proposed that zk-snarks and Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) are the most promising solutions. He said nothing wrong.
What is zk-snarks ? Zk-snarks is a zero-knowledge proof mechanism (ZPK). So what is the zero-knowledge proof mechanism? In short: a zero-knowledge proof mechanism allows you to prove that you own certain information without revealing the content of the information.
Vitalik Buterin explained this concept in detail from a technical point of view in an article published in 2017. Hackernoon also wrote an excellent article explaining the concept in an easy-to-understand way with the example of a five-year-old child and Halloween candy.
What is the trusted execution environment? The trusted execution environment lets the code run on closed hardware, and
1 ) The guarantee result cannot be tampered with
2 ) Protecting absolute privacy, even hardware running code can't get confidential information.
The most well-known trusted execution environment is Intel SGX. Chainlink has established a partnership with Intel SGX after acquiring Tom Crier.
Ernst & Young released the Nightfall agreement on Github on May 31, 2019. A well-known accounting firm with a history of 100 years will choose to add privacy features to the public chain instead of developing a private chain. This is a problem.
Since then, the community has been actively developing on this basis, not only to improve the code, but also to develop a plug-and-play Truffle Box for those who are not good at writing code. Blockchain communities and businesses generally rarely collaborate, so these collaborations fully demonstrate the popularity of Nightfall.
Prior to this, two zk-snark-based Ethereum public chain privacy protocols were introduced, namely AZTEC (Consensys) and Zether (Stanford, JPMorgan Chase). An obvious trend is slowly taking shape.
In the field of oracles, Chainlink uses both zero-knowledge proof and a trusted execution environment to complement each other. Trusted execution environments guarantee data privacy, even for nodes that cannot access data (this feature is critical for bank accounts and API keys).
Chainlink is still trying to implement a trusted execution environment, and nodes can access data temporarily, so authentication services are also needed. Although the credible execution environment is almost 100% foolproof, in theory, a strong shield has a spear that can penetrate it. Therefore, the team is currently trying to run zk-snarks in a trusted execution environment (Thomas Hodges mentioned this in the 2019 Trufflecon Q&A session). The combination of the two can form a very robust and complete system. The attacker must find a way to strip all the layers of an onion at the same time to make any effective attack (and it is already difficult to peel off a layer of skin).
“Chainlink combines a trusted execution environment with zero-knowledge proof to build what we call a defense-in-depth system, which means they provide all the tools needed for smart contract developers, including trusted execution environments, multiple nodes, and Data sources, fine margins, reputation systems, asymmetric encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, WASM, and OTP+RNG, these features allow smart contract developers to adjust the confidentiality and cost of contracts based on specific budget and security needs. Machine, Chainlink and its four major application scenarios》
In the future, zk-snarks may be upgraded to zk-starks (a fully transparent zero-knowledge proof mechanism) that protects the system from quantum computer attacks. And the best thing about zk-starks is that it's more scalable than zk-snarks. In other words, it can better protect privacy, and the cost of gas will not increase.
If you want to learn more about zk-starks, you can read a popular science article written by Adam Luciano.
Feature 2: Scalability (scalability of predictive machines and public chains) To understand this problem, we can make an analogy like this:
A public chain is like a large enterprise, and every employee (ie, a node) must attend each meeting (ie, confirm each transaction). Imagine how inefficient this company is! Only customers who have a lot of money (ie gas fees) can get their requests to the forefront. And this is not the most serious problem. The most serious problem is that the more employees (ie nodes) who join the company, the harder it is for the company to function properly! In the end, the company not only failed to expand linearly, but also became smaller and smaller. Although this guarantees decentralization and security to the greatest extent, the price is completely abandoning scalability.
There are various temporary fire fighting solutions, but no one solution can completely solve this "impossible triangle problem." For example, EOS uses the DPOS mechanism (share authorization certification mechanism), where only 21 super nodes (many of which are well-known nodes) are responsible for verifying all transactions.
Sidechains (such as Bitcoin's Lightning Network and Ethereum's lightning network) guarantee scalability and decentralization at the expense of security.
So how to use the fragmentation technology to solve this problem? Let's make another analogy:
In reality, there is only one company that is not too much to ask everyone to attend all meetings, that is, small start-ups (that is, private chains that limit the number of nodes).
In most cases, large companies divide employees into thousands of teams (ie, shards), and each team's principal (ie, the certifier) is responsible for reporting to the senior management (ie, the main chain). If people from different teams need to collaborate (and sometimes also), then they can collaborate by cross-shard receipts. If a new employee joins the company, the team can be re-segmented (ie re-sharding). This allows for linear expansion.
In fact, the process of developing a start-up to a large enterprise is surprisingly similar to the process of Ethereum 1.0 developing into Ethereum 2.0.
“The Ethereum 1.0 period is that several people who are alone are trying to build a world computer; and Ethereum 2.0 will really develop into a world computer.” Vitalik Buterin said in the first piece of the workshop.
Since Ethereum was not originally built on the principle of fragmentation, it takes seven steps to achieve the goal (this is a bit like the word morphing solitaire game). The first step is planned for January 3, 2020.
At the same time, developers can use many other blockchain platforms designed based on the fragmentation principle. Some platforms, including Zilliqa and Quarkchain, are already compatible with Chainlink.
If you want to see more in-depth technical analysis of shards, check out an article by Ramy Zhang.
In the field of oracles, Chainlink has the following two characteristics:
1 ) Use Schnorr threshold signatures to quickly reach consensus in a cost-effective manner. The next version of the chain only needs 16,000 gas.
2 ) We have previously discussed the need to use trusted execution environment hardware to ensure that nodes cannot access sensitive data. Since you have hardware in your hand, you can use it to do some actual computing work, so that you can properly reduce the amount of computation on the smart contract platform.
"With the SGX system (Town Crier) and zero-knowledge proof technology, the oracle can be truly reliable and confidential, so the boundaries between the oracle and the smart contract are beginning to flow... Our long-term strategy... is to let The predictor becomes the key chain of computing resources used by most smart contracts. We believe that the way to achieve this goal is to perform chain operations in the oracle to meet various computing needs, and then send the results to the smart contract."Chainlink White Paper, Section 6.3 (26 pages)
Of course, this “long-term strategy” has certain risks, unless Chainlink can implement a trusted execution environment and its service provider ecosystem can achieve a qualitative leap. However, the Chainlink team's vision is absolutely forward-looking: under-chain computing is a key factor in ensuring that blockchains are not dragged down by large amounts of IoT data.
The Internet of Things has dramatically increased the current state of big data. At present, most of the data is still generated on the software side, and it is not real-time data, and most of the data in the future will be real-time data generated on the sensor side. One of the big drawbacks of real-time data is that it increases storage pressure. For example, Coughlin Associates expects an unmanned car to generate 1G of data per second. This means that the same car will produce 3.6T data per hour!
The only viable solution is to do real-time analysis of the data, rather than storing the data first. In the Global Cloud Index: 2016-2021 Forecast and Methodology White Paper, Cisco predicts that more than 90% of data in 2021 will be analyzed in real time without storage.
That is to say, the essence of data is that it can only exist in just one instant. The nature of the blockchain is not to be modified, so the two are as incompatible as water and oil.
The solution is to analyze the raw data under the chain, extract the meaningful results and send them to the blockchain. The combination of fragmentation technology and trusted execution environment forms a new computing architecture, similar to the cloud computing-fog computing-edge computing architecture.
It should be noted here that it is good to improve computing power, but this is not the main purpose of the blockchain.
The fundamental purpose of the blockchain is not to reduce the original cost of computing and data storage. After all, technology giants such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Tencent, Alibaba, and Dropbox have built world-class cloud services. The centralized server wins high computational efficiency (but the blockchain will greatly improve the computational efficiency through fragmentation technology, and will catch up with it one day). The value of the blockchain is to reduce the cost of building trust. Nick Szabo calls it "social scalability" (this is a relative concept to the "operational" scalability we have been talking about). Vitalik Buterin also made it clear that the meaning of smart contracts is to accept small arithmetic delay penalties in exchange for a substantial reduction in "social costs."
Alex Coventry of the Chainlink team once raised the question: "We have missed many opportunities for cooperation and reciprocity because we can't confirm whether the other party will fulfill the promise?"
Is there any potential for data storage projects like Siacoin and IPFS? What about decentralized computing projects like SONM and Golem?
Siacoin 's core value proposition is not that its computing efficiency is higher than traditional cloud services. The cost of computing is required to split, repeat, and reassemble data. And companies are more capable of buying the latest and greatest hardware than individuals. Siacoin's core value proposition is to process data in an Airbnb-like mode, so management fees will be lower than traditional models. It also generates additional social value, such as flood control, privacy and security, and anti-censorship.
The same is true of Golem and SONM. Even with the most efficient protocol, it is inevitable that a small amount of delay will be imposed and fined to coordinate the hardware of different geographical locations. Therefore, under the condition that all other conditions are equal, the centralized hardware still has the advantage of faster computing speed. However, the core value proposition of the above project is to use the Airbnb-like model to reduce management costs.
We must strictly distinguish between "social scalability" and "operational scalability", and the two cannot be confused. I will explain these two concepts in detail when I discuss "Magic Bus and Lightweight Library" later.
Feature 3: Compatible with legal currency
Most mainstream companies do not regard cryptocurrencies as "real currencies." In addition, even if someone wants to use cryptocurrency for trading, it is very difficult to actually operate because of its high price volatility. I discussed the “price volatility problem” in detail in Chapters 8 and 9 of the previous article. These problems do not completely erase the existence value of cryptocurrencies, because cryptocurrencies also have many advantages that legal currency does not have. I am just emphasizing what we need to know more about the comfort zone of mainstream companies.
Chainlink acts as a universal API connector that triggers open banking payments. Chainlink is fully compliant with ISO 20022 and has established a long-term partnership with SWIFT (it is worth mentioning that SWIFT has not been updated for a long time and hopes to be updated after the SIBOS 2019 conference).
PSD2 will take effect on September 14, 2019. All banks in the EU will all comply with this new regulation by then. In other words, the bank must put all account data in the "front end" and can be called through the API. The approved third party (ie, the Chainlink node) can trigger the payment directly without the payment service provider.
Although the United States and Japan have not adopted similar laws, many banks still spontaneously promote the development of open banks. Banks open APIs to third-party developers to create new revenue streams and customer experiences that ultimately increase profitability. In addition, this will allow banks to better respond to competitors in the mobile payment and financial technology sectors in an APP-centric economic model.
As this open banking revolution continues, Chainlink will connect smart contracts with the world's major currencies (US dollar, euro, yen, etc.).
Only one external adapter is required to connect to the authenticated API. From a programming perspective, it is relatively simple to allow everyone in the community to contribute code to the code base (and thus achieve scalability). Chainlink has released adapters for PayPal and Mister Tango (European version of PayPal).
Feature 4: Data connection with the chain
Chainlink has been working on solving the "prophecy problem" and successfully succeeded on the main online line on May 30, 2019.
Chainlink has made many achievements in just a few months. Provable (formerly Oraclize) was successfully used on the Chainlink node and finally settled the debate about whether the predictor should be centralized or decentralized.
Synthetic Ether lost 37 million Ethercoins in a hack because it did not connect to Chainlink. Fortunately, the money was finally recovered and did not cause any loss. This lesson illustrates the importance of decentralized oracles.
In addition, both Oracle and Google have partnered with Chainlink to monetize their API data and create a virtuous circle to capture the market opportunities that Facebook missed.
There are new nodes coming online every week, and the network activity has been very high. The Chainlink team maintains a list of certified nodes in the documentation and Twitter releases. Twitter user CryptoSponge also set up a new development for the Tableau push update Chainlink team:
Regarding the importance of the current stage in the history of blockchain development, Brad Huston summed it up very brilliantly:
"The biggest problem with cryptocurrencies is to build bridges between cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies and big data. Chainlink is very beautifully narrowing the distance between the three. Now it can even be said: 'The bridge has been built.'"
Magic bus and lightweight library
Let's summarize what we discussed earlier. The real purpose of the blockchain is to reduce the cost of building trust and achieve "social scalability."
Therefore, according to this logic, the main application scenarios of platforms such as Ethereum 2.0 and Zilliqa should be in the B2B field. I quote a sentence I wrote in a previous article:
“My conclusion is: If the smart contract is successful, it will also succeed in the B2B field first.”
The private chain itself is self-contradictory and destined to fail. It has led to the phenomenon of occupying the hills, thus increasing the social cost, which is in opposition to B2B itself, and ultimately it is self-restraint. ”
Before the emergence of fragmentation technology, even simple games (ie, etheric cats) could not be smoothly run on the public chain, let alone dealing with complex B2B contracts and even changing commercial DNA. With the sharding technology, everything is ready.
Despite this, we can't use Ethereum 2.0 as an all-powerful platform. Just now we said that although it is a good thing to speed up the calculation, this is not the real purpose of Ethereum 2.0. And before we also said that due to the irreversible modification of the blockchain, it is not good to deal with a large number of fleeting real-time data of the Internet of Things. In other words, we must be soberly aware that Ethereum 2.0 will not replace traditional web 2.0. Instead, we should make better use of the real advantages of Ethereum 2.0:
“There is a new concept now, that is to think of the Ethereum main network as a global bus... We use the Ethereum 2.0 main network to treat various business resources as a working group on Slack: it can be easily built and integrated. And restructuring. The SAP inventory management system in your company, the dealer's JD Edwards ERP system, and the financial technology partner's tall blockchain system can seamlessly interface, eliminating the need to develop an infrastructure specifically for each partner." - John Wolper describes his ideal "magic bus"
Ethereum 2.0 should be an integration center, not a data center or computing center. It should be a library built specifically to store B2B contract terms (to be honest, even with fragmentation technology, the amount of data is large enough).
We should not expect Ethereum 2.0 to be an all-powerful platform, but rather develop it into a "lightweight library."
If we reorder the pyramid model just now, the architecture of the magic bus is obvious:
Of course, the positional relationship in the above model is not static. With the development of 5G technology, edge computing and IoT sensors, they may bypass the cloud to directly interact (or even bypass the fog end). If the collaboration between Iotex and Chainlink is successful, then the edge can interact directly with the trusted execution environment.
Time will tell if Airbnb's shared data storage and computing model can make management costs lower than the current mainstream Web 2.0 model. Time will also prove whether the market really needs anti-censorship, anti-tampering, security protection and privacy protection. Do users really care about these social values and are willing to pay for them? Do they think these are just the icing on the cake or the most fundamental value?
in conclusion
Whether it is the battle between web2.0 and web3.0 or the battle between cryptocurrency and legal currency, one thing is beyond doubt:
We have reached the tipping point, and the era of smart contracts with commercial value has arrived.
In fact, the only problem at the moment is the time issue, and the main roadblocks have been basically cleared.

When will Ethereum 2.0 finish these 7 stages and be officially released?
When will Chainlink use a trusted execution environment on a large scale? If the cooperation between Intel SGX and Town Crier fails, what alternative plans are there? Will Chainlink communicate with other blockchain teams that plan to use a trusted execution environment (such as Dawn Song's Oasis Labs)?

At present, the main technical problems in the ecosystem have been solved, and now it is only necessary to recruit a group of enthusiastic developers to do the work of “connecting the line”.
Digital currency has changed commercial DNA, and the future is full of possibilities.
The only thing that hinders us now is our own imagination. The future is infinitely imaginative, and the future will be the world of developers. Dapps is already overwhelming. There is no doubt that we have found the ultimate nirvana.
This text was translated from Chinese, open following in Chrome and translate to see all images:
https://bihu.com/article/1242138347

Decentralized Serverless Computing Coming to Cosmos

In a market expected to exceed $198 billion by 2024, the leading cloud providers–Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure–dominate the market with 56% market share, and this figure is expected to increase. This accelerated growth is tied to increased consumer demand for throughput and content, a global surge of smartphones, rapid development of web and mobile applications, and high costs of DevOps for on-premise server management.
Current services are inflexible and come at a high recurring cost with lock-in agreements. Outside of the large incumbent providers, organizations do not have many options for cloud computing. With an estimated 85% of server capacity underutilized and accelerated global demand for cloud computing, there is a critical need for flexibility, cost management, and automation. The cloud needs to evolve to a more distributed and decentralized infrastructure for greater flexibility, efficiency, and security.
In parallel, new innovations such as serverless technology is a paradigm shift in computing, freeing developers from set-up and server management, and enabling them to manage the resources needed to run applications.
As the Cosmos hub continues to grow and attract a diverse set of developers, we see the increasing need for simplicity and flexibility that serverless computing brings and a decentralized infrastructure that supports this growth.
That’s why Akash is bringing serverless computing to Cosmos, and better enabling the builders of today and tomorrow. Akash is the world’s first peer-to-peer supercloud for serverless computing, offering developers an open, permissionless, and secure marketplace for unused compute cycles.
On Akash, anyone with a computer can become a cloud provider by offering their unused compute cycles in a safe and frictionless marketplace.
Through Akash’s platform, developers can easily and securely access cloud compute at 10x lower cost than the current market providers (AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure). The platform achieves these benefits by integrating advanced containerization technology with a unique staking model to accelerate adoption, built on Tendermint and Cosmos.

Akash <3s Cosmos

Tendermint attracted us because of its flexibility as a library with a modular and pragmatic design. We chose to build on Tendermint because of its iteration speed and community momentum. As a Go library, it was a natural fit in our stack.
We’re drawn to innovations that enable us to iterate and deploy quickly and without friction, and that enable us to increase efficiency. We made a bet on kubernetes in 2014 and now 80% of the cloud is deployed on kubernetes. We made a bet on Cosmos SDK in 2018 and it’s exciting to see its continued rapid growth and adoption.
Our economic model is built on the foundation laid down by Cosmos. We’ve developed a serverless cloud that is the most interoperable to date. Akash serves as a gateway for developers to leverage and connect with other decentralized services, such as NuCypher for key management, Storj for cloud storage, and Handshake for domain name services, with the least amount of friction possible.
The way it works is simple:

Developers define their needs in a simple contract language called SDL.
They place an order on the marketplace for which the providers bid for workloads, thereby guaranteeing the lowest price possible and this pricing happens using a native token, the AKT.

Once a lease is created, deployments happen automatically and settlement happens using a multi-token mechanism – we accept different tokens for fee settlement. For example, if you use NuCypher with Akash Network, you can pay using Bitcoin and have it swapped for NU without any effort on your end.
For the Cosmos community, we provide a production-ready open-source stack for bare metal. We recently open-sourced Akash Stack, a secure, scalable, and standardized software stack for developing, delivering, and debugging decentralized networks. We are exploring future payment support for stablecoins.

The Akash Token (AKT)

The Akash Token (AKT) performs three main functions, Resolve, Reward, and Reserve:
The AKT token is used to achieve economic security, incentivize early adoption, and normalize exchange rates.
Resolve: For governance, Akash relies on a blockchain where a set of validators vote on proposals. Each proposal is weighed by the proposer’s voting power, which is the total tokens they staked and the tokens bonded to them (stakers can delegate voting power to validators).
Reward: Providers on Akash stake tokens to subsidize operating and capital expenditures. Stakers are rewarded proportional to the number of tokens staked, the length of lockup time, and the overall tokens staked in the system. Lock up times can vary anywhere from one month to one year. Flexibility in lockup encourages stakers that stake for shorter periods (bear markets), in a self-adjusting inflationary system that is designed to optimize for lower price pressure during bear markets.
Reserve: Fees on Akash can be settled using a multitude of currencies, however, the market order book uses Akash Token (AKT) as the reserve currency of the ecosystem. AKT provides a novel settlement option to lock in an exchange rate between AKT and the settlement currency. This way, providers and tenants are protected from the price volatility of AKT expected to result from its low liquidity.

The Journey Ahead

Our current focus is to partner with great validators to secure the Akash Network blockchain and to grow our community of builders and developers.
If you’re a validator, or interested in becoming one, find out how you can earn 56% APR to 176% depending on AKT’s locked up, trade factor and lockup time.
Find Out More About Akash’s Validator Program

An extensive list of blockchain courses, resources and articles to help you get a job working with blockchain.

u/Maximus_no and me spent some time at work collecting and analyzing learning material for blockchain development. The list contains resources for developers, as well as business analysts/consultants looking to learn more about blockchain use-cases and solutions.

Certifications and Courses

IIB Council
Link to course: IIB council : Certified Blockchain Professional
C|BP is an In-Depth, Industry Agnostic, Hands-On Training and Certification Course specifically tailored for Industry Professionals and Developers interested in implementing emerging technologies in the Data-Driven Markets and Digitized Economies.
The IIB Council Certified Blockchain Professional (C|BP) Course was developed to help respective aspiring professionals gain excessive knowledge in Blockchain technology and its implication on businesses.
WHO IS IT FOR:

Professionals

C|BP is developed in line with the latest industry trends to help current and aspiring Professionals evolve in their career by implementing the latest knowledge in blockchain technology. This course will help professionals understand the foundation of Blockchain technology and the opportunities this emerging technology is offering.

Developers

If you are a Developer and you are willing to learn blockchain technology this course is for you. You will learn to build and model Blockchain solutions and Blockchain-based applications for enterprises and businesses in multiple Blockchain Technologies.

Certified Blockchain Business Foundations (CBBF)

This exam is designed for non-technical business professionals who require basic knowledge about Blockchain and how it will be executed within an organization. This exam is NOT appropriate for technology professionals seeking to gain deeper understanding of Blockchain technology implementation or programming.

A person who holds this certification demonstrates their knowledge of:

· What is Blockchain? (What exactly is it?)
· Non-Technical Technology Overview (How does it work?)
· Benefits of Blockchain (Why should anyone consider this?)
· Use Cases (Where and for what apps is it appropriate?)
· Adoption (Who is using it and for what?)
· Future of Blockchain (What is the future?)

Certified Blockchain Solution Architect (CBSA)

A person who holds this certification demonstrates their ability to:

· Architect blockchain solutions
· Work effectively with blockchain engineers and technical leaders
· Choose appropriate blockchain systems for various use cases
· Work effectively with both public and permissioned blockchain systems

This exam will prove that a student completely understands:

· The difference between proof of work, proof of stake, and other proof systems and why they exist
· Why cryptocurrency is needed on certain types of blockchains
· The difference between public, private, and permissioned blockchains
· How blocks are written to the blockchain
· Where cryptography fits into blockchain and the most commonly used systems
· Common use cases for public blockchains
· Common use cases for private & permissioned blockchains
· What is needed to launch your own blockchain
· Common problems & considerations in working with public blockchains
· Awareness of the tech behind common blockchains
· When is mining needed and when it is not
· Byzantine Fault Tolerance
· Consensus among blockchains
· What is hashing
· How addresses, public keys, and private keys work
· What is a smart contract
· Security in blockchain
· Brief history of blockchain
· The programming languages of the most common blockchains
· Common testing and deployment practices for blockchains and blockchain-based apps

Certified Blockchain Developer - Ethereum (CBDE)

A person who holds this certification demonstrates their ability to:

· Plan and prepare production ready applications for the Ethereum blockchain
· Write, test, and deploy secure Solidity smart contracts
· Understand and work with Ethereum fees
· Work within the bounds and limitations of the Ethereum blockchain
· Use the essential tooling and systems needed to work with the Ethereum ecosystem

This exam will prove that a student completely understands how to:

· Implement web3.js
· Write and compile Solidity smart contracts
· Create secure smart contracts
· Deploy smart contracts both the live and test Ethereum networks
· Calculate Ethereum gas costs
· Unit test smart contracts
· Run an Ethereum node on development machines

Princeton: Sixty free lectures from Princeton on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Avg length ~15 mins

Basic course with focus on Bitcoin. After this course, you’ll know everything you need to be able to separate fact from fiction when reading claims about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. You’ll have the conceptual foundations you need to engineer secure software that interacts with the Bitcoin network. And you’ll be able to integrate ideas from Bitcoin in your own projects.

MIT : BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGIES: BUSINESS INNOVATION AND APPLICATION

· A mid / basic understanding of blockchain technology and its long-term implications for business, coupled with knowledge of its relationship to other emerging technologies such as AI and IoT
· An economic framework for identifying blockchain-based solutions to challenges within your own context, guided by the knowledge of cryptoeconomics expert Christian Catalini
· Recognition of your newfound blockchain knowledge in the form of a certificate of completion from the MIT Sloan School of Management — one of the world’s leading business schools
Orientation Module: Welcome to Your Online Campus
Module 1: An introduction to blockchain technology
Module 2: Bitcoin and the curse of the double-spending problem
Module 3: Costless verification: Blockchain technology and the last mile problem
Module 4: Bootstrapping network effects through blockchain technology and cryptoeconomics
Module 5: Using tokens to design new types of digital platforms
Module 6: The future of blockchain technology, AI, and digital privacy

Oxford Blockchain Strategy Programme

· A mid / basic understanding of what blockchain is and how it works, as well as insights into how it will affect the future of industry and of your organization.
· The ability to make better strategic business decisions by utilizing the Oxford Blockchain Strategic framework, the Oxford Blockchain Regulation framework, the Oxford Blockchain Ecosystem map, and drawing on your knowledge of blockchain and affiliated industries and technologies.
· A certificate of attendance from Oxford Saïd as validation of your newfound blockchain knowledge and skills, as well as access to a global network of like-minded business leaders and innovators.
Module 1: Understanding blockchain
Module 2: The blockchain ecosystem
Module 3: Innovations in value transfer
Module 4: Decentralized apps and smart contracts
Module 5: Transforming enterprise business models
Module 6: Blockchain frontiers

Resources and Articles

Introduction to Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/cloud/library/cl-blockchain-basics-intro-bluemix-trs/
Tomas’s Personal Favourite: 150+ Resources for going from web-dev to blockchain engineer https://github.com/benstew/blockchain-for-software-engineers
Hyperledger Frameworks Hyperledger is widely regarded as the most mature open-source framework for building private & permissioned blockchains.
Tutorials: https://www.hyperledger.org/resources/training
R3 Corda Open-source developer frameworks for building private, permissioned blockchains. A little better than Hyperledger on features like privacy and secure channels. Used mostly in financial applications.
Ethereum, Solidity, dApps and Smart-Contracts
Ethereum & Solidity Course (favourite): https://www.udemy.com/ethereum-and-solidity-the-complete-developers-guide/
An Introduction to Ethereum’s Token Standards: https://medium.com/coinmonks/anatomy-of-an-erc-an-exhaustive-survey-8bc1a323b541
How To Create Your First ERC20 Token: https://medium.com/bitfwd/how-to-do-an-ico-on-ethereum-in-less-than-20-minutes-a0062219374
Ethereum Developer Tools [Comprehensive List]: https://github.com/ConsenSys/ethereum-developer-tools-list/blob/masteREADME.md
CryptoZombies – Learn to code dApps through game-development: https://cryptozombies.io/
Intro to Ethereum Development: https://hackernoon.com/ethereum-development-walkthrough-part-1-smart-contracts-b3979e6e573e
Notes from Consensys Academy Participant (free): https://github.com/ScottWorks/ConsenSys-Academy-Notes
AWS Ethereum Templates: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/get-started-with-blockchain-using-the-new-aws-blockchain-templates/
Create dApps with better user-experience: https://blog.hellobloom.io/how-to-make-a-user-friendly-ethereum-dapp-5a7e5ea6df22
Solidity YouTube Course: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaWes1eWQ9TbzA695gl_PtA
[UX &UI] Designing a decentralized profile dApp: https://uxdesign.cc/designing-a-decentralized-profile-dapp-ab12ead4ab56
Scaling Solutions on Ethereum: https://media.consensys.net/the-state-of-scaling-ethereum-b4d095dbafae
Different Platforms for dApps and Smart-Contracts
While Ethereum is the most mature dApp framework with both the best developer tools, resources and community, there are other public blockchain platforms. Third generation blockchains are trying to solve Ethereum’s scaling and performance issues. Here is an overview of dApp platforms that can be worth looking into:
NEO - https://neo.org/ The second most mature dApp platform. NEO has better scalability and performance than Ethereum and has 1’000 TPS to ETH’s 15 by utilizing a dBFT consensus algorithm. While better infrastructure, NEO does not have the maturity of Ethereum’s developer tools, documentation and community.
A writeup on why a company chose to develop on NEO and not Ethereum: https://medium.com/orbismesh/why-we-chose-neo-over-ethereum-37fc9208ffa0
Cardano - https://www.cardano.org/en/home/ While still in alpha with a long and ambitious roadmap ahead of it, Cardano is one of the most anticipated dApp platforms out there. IOHK, the research and engineering company that maintains Cardano, has listed a lot of great resources and scientific papers that is worth looking into.
An Intro to Cardano: https://hackernoon.com/cardano-ethereum-and-neo-killer-or-overhyped-and-overpriced-8fcd5f8abcdf
IOHK Scientific Papers - https://iohk.io/research/papers/
Stellar - https://www.stellar.org/ If moving value fast from one party to another by using smart-contracts is the goal, Stellar Lumens is your platform. Initially as an open-source fork from Ripple, Stellar has become one of the mature frameworks for financial applications. Stellar’s focus lies in interoperability with legacy financial systems and cheap/fast value transfer. It’s smart-contract capability is rather limited in comparison to Ethereum and HyperLedger, so take that in consideration.
Ripple – www.ripple.com Ripple and its close cousin, Stellar, is two of the most well-known cryptocurrencies and DLT frameworks meant for the financial sector. Ripple enables instant settlement between banks for international transactions.

Consensus Algorithms

[Proof of Work] - very short, cuz it's well-known.
[1] Bitcoin - to generate a new block miner must generate hash of the new block header that is in line with given requirements.
Others: Ethereum, Litecoin etc.
[Hybrid of PoW and PoS]
[2] Decred - hybrid of “proof of work” and “proof of stake”. Blocks are created about every 5 minutes. Nodes in the network looking for a solution with a known difficulty to create a block (PoW). Once the solution is found it is broadcast to the network. The network then verifies the solution. Stakeholders who have locked some DCR in return for a ticket* now have the chance to vote on the block (PoS). 5 tickets are chosen pseudo-randomly from the ticket pool and if at least 3 of 5 vote ‘yes’ the block is permanently added to the blockchain. Both miners and voters are compensated with DCR : PoS - 30% and PoW - 60% of about 30 new Decred issued with a block. * 1 ticket = ability to cast 1 vote. Stakeholders must wait an average of 28 days (8,192 blocks) to vote their tickets.
[Proof of Stake]
[3] Nxt - The more tokens are held by account, the greater chance that account will earn the right to generate a block. The total reward received as a result of block generation is the sum of the transaction fees located within the block. Three values are key to determining which account is eligible to generate a block, which account earns the right to generate a block, and which block is taken to be the authoritative one in times of conflict: base target value, target value and cumulative difficulty. Each block on the chain has a generation signature parameter. To participate in the block's forging process, an active account digitally signs the generation signature of the previous block with its own public key. This creates a 64-byte signature, which is then hashed using SHA256. The first 8 bytes of the resulting hash are converted to a number, referred to as the account hit. The hit is compared to the current target value(active balance). If the computed hit is lower than the target, then the next block can be generated.
[4] Peercoin (chain-based proof of stake) - coin age parameter. Hybrid PoW and PoS algorithm. The longer your Peercoins have been stationary in your account (to a maximum of 90 days), the more power (coin age) they have to mint a block. The act of minting a block requires the consumption of coin age value, and the network determines consensus by selecting the chain with the largest total consumed coin age. Reward - minting + 1% yearly.
[5] Reddcoin (Proof of stake Velocity) - quite similar to Peercoin, difference: not linear coin-aging function (new coins gain weight quickly, and old coins gain weight increasingly slowly) to encourage Nodes Activity. Node with most coin age weight have a bigger chance to create block. To create block Node should calculate right hash. Block reward - interest on the weighted age of coins/ 5% annual interest in PoSV phase.
[6] Ethereum (Casper) - uses modified BFT consensus. Blocks will be created using PoW. In the Casper Phase 1 implementation for Ethereum, the “proposal mechanism" is the existing proof of work chain, modified to have a greatly reduced block reward. Blocks will be validated by set of Validators. Block is finalised when 2/3 of validators voted for it (not the number of validators is counted, but their deposit size). Block creator rewarded with Block Reward + Transaction FEES.
[7] Lisk (Delegated Proof-of-stake) - Lisk stakeholders vote with vote transaction (the weight of the vote depends on the amount of Lisk the stakeholder possess) and choose 101 Delegates, who create all blocks in the blockchain. One delegate creates 1 block within 1 round (1 round contains 101 blocks) -> At the beginning of each round, each delegate is assigned a slot indicating their position in the block generation process -> Delegate includes up to 25 transactions into the block, signs it and broadcasts it to the network -> As >51% of available peers agreed that this block is acceptable to be created (Broadhash consensus), a new block is added to the blockchain. *Any account may become a delegate, but only accounts with the required stake (no info how much) are allowed to generate blocks. Block reward - minted Lisks and transaction fees (fees for all 101 blocks are collected firstly and then are divided between delegates). Blocks appears every 10 sec.
[8] Cardano (Ouroboros Proof of Stake) - Blocks(slots) are created by Slot Leaders. Slot Leaders for N Epoch are chosen during n-1 Epoch. Slot Leaders are elected from the group of ADA stakeholders who have enough stake. Election process consist of 3 phases: Commitment phase: each elector generates a random value (secret), signs it and commit as message to network (other electors) saved in to block. -> Reveal phase: Each elector sends special value to open a commitment, all this values (opening) are put into the block. -> Recovery phase: each elector verifies that commitments and openings match and extracts the secrets and forms a SEED (randomly generated bytes string based on secrets). All electors get the same SEED. -> Follow the Satoshi algorithm : Elector who have coin which corresponded to SEED become a SLOT LEADER and get a right to create a block. Slot Leader is rewarded with minted ADA and transactions Fee.
[9] Tezos (Proof Of Stake) - generic and self-amending crypto-ledger. At the beginning of each cycle (2048 blocks), a random seed is derived from numbers that block miners chose and committed to in the penultimate cycle, and revealed in the last. -> Using this random seed, a follow the coin strategy (similar to Follow The Satoshi) is used to allocate mining rights and signing rights to stakeholders for the next cycle*. -> Blocks are mined by a random stakeholder (the miner) and includes multiple signatures of the previous block provided by random stakeholders (the signers). Mining and signing both offer a small reward but also require making a one cycle safety deposit to be forfeited in the event of a double mining or double signing.
· the more coins (rolls) you have - the more your chance to be a minesigner.
[10] Tendermint (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) - A proposal is signed and published by the designated proposer at each round. The proposer is chosen by a deterministic and non-choking round robin selection algorithm that selects proposers in proportion to their voting power. The proposer create the block, that should be validated by >2/3 of Validators, as follow: Propose -> Prevote -> Precommit -> Commit. Proposer rewarded with Transaction FEES.
[11] Tron (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) - This blockhain is still on development stage. Consensus algorithm = PoS + BFT (similar to Tendermint): PoS algorithm chooses a node as Proposer, this node has the power to generate a block. -> Proposer broadcasts a block that it want to release. -> Block enters the Prevote stage. It takes >2/3 of nodes' confirmations to enter the next stage. -> As the block is prevoted, it enters Precommit stage and needs >2/3 of node's confirmation to go further. -> As >2/3 of nodes have precommited the block it's commited to the blockchain with height +1. New blocks appears every 15 sec.
[12] NEO (Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance) - Consensus nodes* are elected by NEO holders -> The Speaker is identified (based on algorithm) -> He broadcasts proposal to create block -> Each Delegate (other consensus nodes) validates proposal -> Each Delegate sends response to other Delegates -> Delegate reaches consensus after receiving 2/3 positive responses -> Each Delegate signs the block and publishes it-> Each Delegate receives a full block. Block reward 6 GAS distributed proportionally in accordance with the NEO holding ratio among NEO holders. Speaker rewarded with transaction fees (mostly 0). * Stake 1000 GAS to nominate yourself for Bookkeeping(Consensus Node)
[13] EOS (Delegated Proof of Stake) - those who hold tokens on a blockchain adopting the EOS.IO software may select* block producers through a continuous approval voting system and anyone may choose to participate in block production and will be given an opportunity to produce blocks proportional to the total votes they have received relative to all other producers. At the start of each round 21 unique block producers are chosen. The top 20 by total approval are automatically chosen every round and the last producer is chosen proportional to their number of votes relative to other producers. Block should be confirmed by 2/3 or more of elected Block producers. Block Producer rewarded with Block rewards. *the more EOS tokens a stakeholder owns, the greater their voting power
[The XRP Ledger Consensus Process]
[14] Ripple - Each node receives transaction from external applications -> Each Node forms public list of all valid (not included into last ledger (=block)) transactions aka (Candidate Set) -> Nodes merge its candidate set with UNLs(Unique Node List) candidate sets and vote on the veracity of all transactions (1st round of consensus) -> all transactions that received at least 50% votes are passed on the next round (many rounds may take place) -> final round of consensus requires that min 80% of Nodes UNL agreeing on transactions. It means that at least 80% of Validating nodes should have same Candidate SET of transactions -> after that each Validating node computes a new ledger (=block) with all transactions (with 80% UNL agreement) and calculate ledger hash, signs and broadcasts -> All Validating nodes compare their ledgers hash -> Nodes of the network recognize a ledger instance as validated when a 80% of the peers have signed and broadcast the same validation hash. -> Process repeats. Ledger creation process lasts 5 sec(?). Each transaction includes transaction fee (min 0,00001 XRP) which is destroyed. No block rewards.
[The Stellar consensus protocol]
[15] Stellar (Federated Byzantine Agreement) - quite similar to Ripple. Key difference - quorum slice.
[Proof of Burn]
[16] Slimcoin - to get the right to write blocks Node should “burn” amount of coins. The more coins Node “burns” more chances it has to create blocks (for long period) -> Nodes address gets a score called Effective Burnt Coins that determines chance to find blocks. Block creator rewarded with block rewards.
[Proof of Importance]
[17] NEM - Only accounts that have min 10k vested coins are eligible to harvest (create a block). Accounts with higher importance scores have higher probabilities of harvesting a block. The higher amount of vested coins, the higher the account’s Importance score. And the higher amount of transactions that satisfy following conditions: - transactions sum min 1k coins, - transactions made within last 30 days, - recipient have 10k vested coins too, - the higher account’s Important score. Harvester is rewarded with fees for the transactions in the block. A new block is created approx. every 65 sec.
[Proof of Devotion]
[18] Nebulas (Proof of Devotion + BFT) - quite similar to POI, the PoD selects the accounts with high influence. All accounts are ranked according to their liquidity and propagation (Nebulas Rank) -> Top-ranked accounts are selected -> Chosen accounts pay deposit and are qualified as the blocks Validators* -> Algorithm pseudo-randomly chooses block Proposer -> After a new block is proposed, Validators Set (each Validator is charged a deposit) participate in a round of BFT-Style voting to verify block (1. Prepare stage -> 2. Commit Stage. Validators should have > 2/3 of total deposits to validate Block) -> Block is added. Block rewards : each Validator rewarded with 1 NAS. *Validators Set is dynamic, changes in Set may occur after Epoch change.
[IOTA Algorithm]
[19] IOTA - uses DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) instead of blockchain (TANGLE equal to Ledger). Graph consist of transactions (not blocks). To issue a new transaction Node must approve 2 random other Transactions (not confirmed). Each transaction should be validate n(?) times. By validating PAST(2) transactions whole Network achieves Consensus. in Order to issue transaction Node: 1. Sign transaction with private key 2. choose two other Transactions to validate based on MCMC(Markov chain Monte Carlo) algorithm, check if 2 transactions are valid (node will never approve conflicting transactions) 3. make some PoW(similar to HashCash). -> New Transaction broadcasted to Network. Node don’t receive reward or fee.
[PBFT + PoW]
[20] Yobicash - uses PBFT and also PoW. Nodes reach consensus on transactions by querying other nodes. A node asks its peers about the state of a transaction: if it is known or not, and if it is a doublespending transaction or not. As follow : Node receives new transaction -> Checks if valid -> queries all known nodes for missing transactions (check if already in DAG ) -> queries 2/3 nodes for doublepsending and possibility -> if everything is ok add to DAG. Reward - nodes receive transaction fees + minting coins.
[Proof of Space/Proof of Capacity]
[21] Filecoin (Power Fault Tolerance) - the probability that the network elects a miner(Leader) to create a new block (it is referred to as the voting power of the miner) is proportional to storage currently in use in relation to the rest of the network. Each node has Power - storage in use verified with Proof of Spacetime by nodes. Leaders extend the chain by creating a block and propagating it to the network. There can be an empty block (when no leader). A block is committed if the majority of the participants add their weight on the chain where the block belongs to, by extending the chain or by signing blocks. Block creator rewarded with Block reward + transaction fees.
[Proof of Elapsed Time (POET)]
[22] Hyperledger Sawtooth - Goal - to solve BFT Validating Nodes limitation. Works only with intel’s SGX. PoET uses a random leader election model or a lottery based election model based on SGX, where the protocol randomly selects the next leader to finalize the block. Every validator requests a wait time from an enclave (a trusted function). -> The validator with the shortest wait time for a particular transaction block is elected the leader. -> The BlockPublisher is responsible for creating candidate blocks to extend the current chain. He takes direction from the consensus algorithm for when to create a block and when to publish a block. He creates, Finalizes, Signs Block and broadcast it -> Block Validators check block -> Block is created on top of blockchain.
[23] Byteball (Delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance) - only verified nodes are allowed to be Validation nodes (list of requirements https://github.com/byteball/byteball-witness). Users choose in transaction set of 12 Validating nodes. Validating nodes(Witnesses) receive transaction fees.
[24] Nano - uses DAG, PoW (HashCash). Nano uses a block-lattice structure. Each account has its own blockchain (account-chain) equivalent to the account’s transaction/balance history. To add transaction user should make some HashCash PoW -> When user creates transaction Send Block appears on his blockchain and Receive block appears on Recipients blockchain. -> Peers in View receive Block -> Peers verify block (Double spending and check if already in the ledger) -> Peers achieve consensus and add block. In case of Fork (when 2 or more signed blocks reference the same previous block): Nano network resolves forks via a balance-weighted voting system where representative nodes vote for the block they observe, as >50% of weighted votes received, consensus achieved and block is retained in the Node’s ledger (block that lose the vote is discarded).
[25] Holochain - uses distributed hash table (DHT). Instead of trying to manage global consensus for every change to a huge blockchain ledger, every participant has their own signed hash chain. In case of multi-party transaction, it is signed to each party's chain. Each party signs the exact same transaction with links to each of their previous chain entries. After data is signed to local chains, it is shared to a DHT where every neighbor node validate it. Any consensus algorithms can be built on top of Holochain.
[26] Komodo ('Delegated' Delayed Proof of Work (dPoW)) - end-to-end blockchain solutions. DPoW consensus mechanism does not recognize The Longest Chain Rule to resolve a conflict in the network, instead the dPoW looks to backups it inserted previously into the chosen PoW blockchain. The process of inserting backups of Komodo transactions into a secure PoW is “notarization.” Notarisation is performed by the elected Notary nodes. Roughly every ten minutes, the Notary nodes perform a special block hash mined on the Komodo blockchain and take note of the overall Komodo blockchain “height”. The notary nodes process this specifc block so that their signatures are cryptographically included within the content of the notarized data. There are sixty-four “Notary nodes” elected by a stake-weighted vote, where ownership of KMD represents stake in the election. They are a special type of blockchain miner, having certain features in their underlying code that enable them to maintain an effective and cost-efcient blockchain and they periodically receives the privilege to mine a block on “easy difculty.”
Source: https://www.reddit.com/CryptoTechnology/comments/7znnq8/my_brief_observation_of_most_common_consensus/
Whitepapers Worth Looking Into:
IOTA -http://iotatoken.com/IOTA_Whitepaper.pdf
NANO -https://nano.org/en/whitepaper
Bitcoin -https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Ethereum: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper
Ethereum Plasma (Omise-GO) -https://plasma.io/plasma.pdf
Cardano - https://eprint.iacr.org/2016/889.pdf

Proposed method to email crypto-coins directly.

Below are some ideas I have been working on to allow direct off-blockchain transfer of Bitcoin Private Keys while preventing Double-Spend and Counterfeiting . There is a reference to tamper-proof Physical Bitcoin as DA BOMB- Directly Available Bitcoin On Metal Banknotes. These Physical Bitcoins and their digitally encrypted representations are the basis for off-blockchain exchange of value. Off-Blockchain exchanges are completely private and as fast as sending an email.

FAST BITCOIN

DA BOMB bitcoin pools
Bitcoin Cash blockchain data storage

Daily settlement between corporations, instant settlement on trading or funded shopping channels, physical bitcoin possession for investors .
Each platform which offers FAST BITCOIN will purchase a large amount of DA BOMB to power their digital envelope re-sale network. All networks will be compatible and fungible assets composed of.
When a customer places an order for DA BOMB I load a certain amount of BTC in various denominations onto a selection of bitcoin wallets, which are then manufactured as physical bitcoin.
This amount of BTC is the amount this customer can spend on the FAST BITCOIN network.
The Bitcoin the customer spends never moves on the BTC Blockchain.
The envelope containing the customer’s BTC is credited or debited a certain combination of addresses that contain a known amount of BTC, adding up to the exact amount of the transaction.
Transactions can only be made in ROUND NUMBERS of a certain resolution, such as 0.0001 BTC , and the resolution will be finer at a later date to account for the rise of value of BTC in the future.
The contents of a customer’s envelope will be maintained to allow for making change and to account for his spending or funding of his account.
The main issuer of FAST BITCOIN will be Satoshi Bitcoin Incorporated, with other platforms buying enough DA BOMB to issue their own FAST BITCOIN on their own shopping platforms.
Customers can always write to the platform and request that their remaining envelope balance be mailed to their physical address.
The envelope contents are tracked on a separate blockchain, the FAST BITCOIN blockchain.
Customers can use their physical bitcoin like paper money, or break the hologram seal and view the private key to use as regular bitcoin on the bitcoin blockchain.
Only TRUSTED NODES are on the FAST BITCOIN Blockchain. The Network is composed of the corporate members who offer FAST BITCOIN shopping at their websites, and join by invitation only. Large networks can fuel their own branded shopping tokens with FAST BITCOIN after paying a co-branding fee, or simply use FAST BITCOIN without re-branding to their own token name.
Software can equate all prices at a website to the token value of choice on the platform, so that the shopper may make purchases via FAST BITCOIN while referring to prices in stable fiat equivalent tokens, or re-branded token values.
The customer’s purchasing power varies with the price of Bitcoin, but the visible prices remain stable.
The customer may buy a StableCoin (not Tethers) to fund all or part of their account, or switch from BTC to StableCoin at will; or let the system do this for him. BTC going up, funding remains in BTC, BTC going down, Funding switches too StableCoin.
A purely electronic version of FAST BITCOIN will rely on a hardware device to store the private keys offline and always in encrypted form when connected to the internet.
There is object “A” : the FAST BITCOIN Wallet
There is object “B” : the individual private keys
The system works with a combination of Master System Key Encryption and Asymmetrical Key Encryption.
The Hardware device is called a SPLIT WALLET. It is a combination of a HOT WALLET and a COLD WALLET. The two halves of the split wallet can only communicate with each other when the device is unplugged from the device being used to access the Internet.
The Master System Key resides on the Cold Wallet and can’t be viewed without destroying the function of the Hardware Wallet.
To send bitcoin to a person on the network, the hardware wallet takes the addresses needed to add up to the desired amount and encrypts them with the PUBLIC KEY of the receiving device.
The BITCOIN CASH BLOCKCHAIN is used as a KEY SERVER to store the PUBLIC KEY of every device manufactured, linked to its registration number and owner identity. The OWNER IDENTITY is an EMAIL ADDRESS which is [[email protected]_BITCOIN.COM](mailto:[email protected]_bitcoin.com) .
The addresses are encrypted by the SYSTEM MASTER KEY , then by the RECIPIENT PUBLIC KEY and emailed to the above email address.
The whole network is sustained by a peer-to-peer email remailer network. Software on the machine used by the hardware device to connect to the INTERNET is designed to run a peer-to-peer email remailer node.
As well as sending the recipient an email via the re-mailer network, an entry is made on the BITCOIN CASH BLOCKCHAIN containing the double encrypted bitcoin private keys, recipient email address, and transaction identifier . This also contains the device registration number as part of the owner email address.
Thus even if the domain is blocked from sending email the information needed to use the bitcoin is available from the data stored on the BITCOIN CASH BLOCKCHAIN.
The value of Bitcoin Cash does not impact the cost of sending bitcoin, since the transaction sizes to record data on its blockchain are very small.

When FAST BITCOIN is sent to a recipient, he must plug his hardware device into a laptop, phone, or other internet device to download the keys to the device. At this time while the hardware device is still connected to the internet the just received FAST BITCOIN will not yet be available to spend. It will show on the device as STILL ENCRYPTED. The user unplugs the device from the internet and then transfers the amount from the COLD SIDE to the HOT SIDE of his wallet while offline. If he wishes he may leave this amount on the COLD SIDE or transfer up to the entire contents of the SPLIT WALLET to the HOT SIDE to enable immediate spending as soon as connected to the internet.
The COLD SIDE contains the SYSTEM MASTER KEY and decrypts the PRIVATE BITCOIN KEYS in order to enable spending.
The hardware device checks the bitcoin blockchain to verify the amount of bitcoin held by each bitcoin private key, and also checks that the private keys it contains map properly to the public bitcoin keys used to view the balance on the device when it is connected to the internet.

DA Bomb

Directly Available Bitcoin On Metal Banknote (Da Bomb)
Bitcoin Metal Wallet Cold Storage on BTC Blockchain. A Crypto-Currency version of money, which may be exchanged for fiat currency.
Other major cryptos such as Ethereum , LiteCoin, and Bitcoin Cash may be substituted for bitcoin without affecting the usefulness of this offering. These versions will come out later, using the same physical format. (hopefully patented)
The design of the card should be modified enough from any existing patents to be patentable itself. The manufacturing, loading and documenting of the card should be done by proprietary and open-source software. This process should be patented as well or be part of the same patent.
These are physical BTC coins, in the form of a metal card the size and shape of a credit card. The Bitcoin Wallet is composed of two sets of engraved alpha-numeric and QR codes highlighted by black ink. One set is public and is on the outside of the card. A pull-tab almost exactly like the kind on a soup can is removed from the front of the card to reveal the inner contents . This is the engraving of the private key which is required to spend the BTC. Viewing it or detecting the exact nature of this code is equivalent to ownership of the associated BTC.
The public key on the outside of the card is used to deposit to or send to the card. In normal operations the card would come loaded with a certain amount of BTC.
The cards will be protected by security features and the quality control process during their manufacture.
The cards will be dipped in a coating of compounds to indicate a unique identity for each card, with short lengths of coloured fibres and paint floating on the surface of the clear lacquer compound and creating a unique visual identity. Each card is photographed and the image file uploaded to a database with the blockchain address and item id from manufacture all associated together.
A label is created and affixed to the outside of the card. On it are the blockchain address, photo of the untampered card, and amount of BTC deposited to card.
The private keys are not retained in file form at the manufacturer’s facility, or recorded in any way.
Before the key is deleted from memory and fully erased from all data storage devices, the photo of the engraving of it is compared to the key via character recognition software. When photo verifies as true then key is deleted from memory. Now the card is tracked by my own “in-house” item id, linked in the database to the blockchain address which displays the public key, and the photo file of the card. The card is photographed twice, the photo of the private key is deleted just after verifying the engraving matches the private key. The photo of the exterior of the card showing the paint lines and fibre positions on the card is kept on file. The offline computer takes the photo of the private key, the online computer takes the photo of the card after dipping.
The card is meant to circumvent the horribly high fees associated with using BTC as a payment method. Possession of the card is deemed to be legally equivalent to the ability to spend the associated BTC available via the private key. The nature of the tamper proof and hack proof aspects of the card manufacture lends credence to the continued value of the card as it is passed through consecutive transactions. The fees which would have been normally paid to enable these transactions on the Blockchain, will now have been saved by the people utilizing the physical Bitcoin cards. The Bitcoin transactions on the Blockchain are enabled by paying fees to “bitcoin miners”, who use large amounts of energy and computing power to solve complicated mathematical problems in order to process transactions and also to earn newly created bitcoins, of which there will only ever be 21,000,000. The fees for bitcoin transactions have become so high that paying for an item with bitcoin wouldn’t make sense for anything under $280 or so; and you had better be rich enough not to care about the $30 to $75 fee to buy just about any size purchase.
Instead of this, cold wallets containing small denominations of BTC can be exchanged via strong encryption and sending password and wallet via different delivery modes; or by physical bitcoin wallets.
At any time one may pull the tab on the metal card and reveal the private key, in order to obtain control of the BTC for use in a different cold wallet, or an online wallet. You will now have to pay transaction fees as per your new wallet details.
There is an instant financial advantage as soon as a group of people trust the value of physical bitcoin in transactions. All the miner fees for each transaction done with physical bitcoin are saved by the group. These transactions are valued in BTC, worth real dollars if exchanged for dollars; but with the dollar value always changing.
Volatility is a fact of life with Bitcoin (BTC), but the market has always trended upwards if you wait long enough. And the value has often nose-dived as well, in an unpredictable manner. A lot of people are holding (or “hodling”) BTC as a very risky and speculative investment, hoping the price will go up.
There is a great demand for bitcoin and that demand is going to increase in the near future.
How will I pay to load the BTC on to the cards? The cards will be loaded on an “on-demand” order process. The cards can be made up to a certain stage, where they have been dipped in tamper-proofing but not yet labeled. Up to this point they can be any denomination (amount) of BTC. When the payment for the order is taken at the online website then the card is loaded, labeled and shipped to the customer.
Besides the metal coin wallets denominated in various amounts of BTC; there will be “piggy-bank” versions of the card available. The BTC is loaded onto the card via the visible wallet public key engraved on the front of the card. The card owner can be paid debts owed to him via the public key. The card owner can send any amount of BTC to this receive address and it will become associated via the blockchain with the private key hidden inside the card. To spend the BTC loaded onto the card he will have to view the private key and send it to the hot wallet he uses online. Technical advice about fees, security, hacking and safety will be available at the company website, as well as many other helpful resources.
The denominated versions of the card are identical to the piggy-bank versions except for the label. The label covers the “receive” address on the denominated versions, as no further deposits to the blockchain are needed. The label on the piggy-bank version doesn’t cover the public key address, has a photo of the card and the manufacturer’s ID number. It also has a link to the Blockchain.info webpage associated with the public key address. Anyone with this address can see how much BTC is associated with the Public Key shown here.
Thus the intact tamper-proof BTC Card can be used with confidence, as the public key can be viewed on the Blockchain by anyone. As long as the amount on the card label matches the amount shown on the Blockchain.info webpage then the card’s private key can be trusted. This renders the card a form of “trust-less” currency equivalent to legal tender in value and usefulness .
The card format and manufacturing process is tested to obtain a hack proof product. The private key is not detectable by examination or any technical means without opening the pull-tab. This is essential to prevent theft and fraud. The card can not be opened, viewed , and sealed again.
A card without a label would be suspect, a card which had been opened and re-sealed obvious. Checking the blockchain address reveals the status of the BTC in question in any event.
The manufacturing process is outlined below:

A small computer runs software offline to generate unique Blockchain Key Pairs (bitcoin addresses). It is used to control a CNC router which engraves the keys onto thick enough metal strip to prevent x-ray detection after folding.
a press folds the strip over and makes the pull tab closure
a shear cuts the strip at end
robot welder heats perimeter of cut strip to weld shut
wallet has been hacked if it is bent or split open in any way
wallet is dipped in lacquer , photographed, BTC loaded and labeled.
BTC metal card is shipped to customer
during the “load” process a computer reads the “receive” address with a camera and automatically adds a transaction amount to send to that address , generating a cue of transactions from a wallet with miner fees adjusted to be very low, just barely confirming after paying the least amount possible. Transactions confirm in one or two days.
For loading customer requested bitcoin card wallets the option to pay higher fees is presented to the customer last time of purchase. This speeds up the loading and delivery process.
a machine prints the label and places it on strip over address.

The engraving is deep enough to be permanent but still not detected while wallet card is in closed position. The alpha-numeric and QR code versions of the keys are engraved and inked.
After the engraving, the private key is deleted from memory of the engraving controlling computer. This computer is never connected to the internet. Only verified software is used on this computer.
A separate computer controls the camera, label maker, and database connection to the internet.

The private key is replaced by an item number linked to the receive address.
a computer program makes a file which goes onto a new thumb drive
this thumb drive is loaded on the offline computer
thumb drive is passed to online computer hosting desktop wallet, set to low miner fees.
file is used to send BTC to wallet addresses

The same file is used to generate the labels.
Addresses are checked for BTC before coin Cards are offered for sale. A second stamp is placed on label when transaction confirms.
Coin is offered for sale at Amazon.com if allowed.
Coins can be exchanged as if fiat currency, with full confidence in BTC amount displayed on seal.
Sale price on Amazon will reflect BTC amount cost when loaded- possibly a great deal if BTC has gone up since loading, or actual cost of production plus 2%, plus miner fee and distribution fee.
Savings could be significant if BTC surges in value after coins are minted. coins are bought at time of minting by purchases of BTC at market price.
“Would you like to buy some free money?”
Demand for product is assured, as the value once for sale at Amazon increases over time. You will not be able to find cheaper bitcoin anywhere, sometimes. A small portion of my stock at Amazon will remain on sale at a very low price when the Bitcoin price rises. I plan on adjusting the price of my stock to reflect the current price of Bitcoin at the time; but not all of it, and not immediately. Every time the price of BTC increases by 10%, I will reset the price of my cards to initial values.
The initial values are the current price of BTC plus 2% , miner fees and distribution costs. As the market price increases after loading the cards, they are more and more of a deal for the customer.
This forms the basis of a great promotional value to sell the metal card coin wallets.
The profit.
Profit is calculated to be 2% of the BTC value when minted. Values from 0.001 BTC to 1 BTC are minted. This generates from $0.18 Cad to $180 CAD per card depending on value. I will focus on minting in the 0.01 to 0.11 BTC range, with profits of $1.80 to $19.80 a card.
customer pays: Cost of BTC when minted
miner fees, distribution fees, 2% over cost fee, Cost of manufacture. I estimate all costs not BTC or profit to be about $11 Cad per card.
Price of card is: BTC cost + 2% + $11.00 .
After purchase the card can be traded for cash, items or value of services. Miner fees are saved by every person after the initial purchaser of the card.
I want to mint around 1000 cards a day. This averages out to $18,000 profit per day.
The plan is to produce only lower value coin wallets until cash reserves are big enough to pay for larger denominations.
Customers can order from the lower denominations in stock or special order cards of any amount that they pay for at the time, shipped after production on demand.
This involves simply loading the customer’s purchase of BTC onto the card address and attaching the label.
As the price of BTC rises then stock available and loaded previously will be a special discount offer until the price resets after a ten percent increase in the BTC market value.
When selling the BTC coin metal cards at Amazon.com :

customer satisfaction assured
charge-back possible upon return unopened and intact, blockchain must show BTC available , BTC must be recovered to separate address
product legitimate and not forged or hacked
sell BTC coins from private website as well
website certified by CA
credit cards accepted
product return possible
Build reliable reputation
sell coins at vending machines
accept coins for cash at vending machines
make coins cheaper and better than BTC ATMs or Localbitcoin.com dealer purchases.
encourage retailers to accept physical coins, to avoid the transaction fees
Physical coins can be checked for valid BTC amounts on Blockchain before being accepted for purchase
Merchant can scan private key to cash conversion Bitcoin wallet “receive” address at a bitcoin exchange to obtain the current value of the BTC in cash without having to worry about the coin being hacked already or of losing money should the price of BTC fall immediately after payment.

Card is dipped in clear sealer with paint filaments floating in dip tank. Also small lengths of coloured fibre are floating in the resin coating. The unique pattern formed is photographed and printed on label stored in database with item number. Private key is not stored.
Sell in vending machines in Japan, Airports,New York Subway System, Pizza Hut, etc.
On the Directly Available Bitcoin On Metal Banknote (Da Bomb), the blockchain webpage address of the public key is displayed. To check that BTC are in the account, just go to that page. Unless tampered with, BTC amount will match that shown on label.
Full label is artwork, denomination in BTC, photo and blockchain.info webpage address associated with public key.
This idea is patentable due to the unique packaging of the cold bitcoin wallet in a pull-tab metal card. In this writing read “coin” as “card” as well. The card is evolved out of a sardine can with a pull tab lid closure, with very short sides and pressed flat all around the edge.
The goal is to have a design where the pull tab can easily be removed by an adult. It should be hard for a child to open without being shown how. The card should be only slightly thicker than a regular credit card, and not open while in a leather wallet’s card holder.The pull tab should not open accidentally while being carried in a wallet. The pull tab will be manufactured so that it must be rotated by 180 degrees before opening. A small screwdriver, nail file or fingernail must be placed into a small slot to twist the pull tab into the correct position to open, before this it is restrained by a shallow metal lip on the top of the card.
Research and development are required for this idea to be a success. The manufacturing process, security features and bitcoin loading and labeling must all be tested and verified as hack and tamper-proof. The customer must never receive a hacked or empty or unloaded card after purchase and delivery.
Attempts at fraud by the customer will be obvious. Only Intact cards will be accepted for refund. Product must always ship in perfect condition, as customer can only return intact card for full refund, no opened, missing or tampered with cards will be credited to customer for refund, and this will be part of the agreement with the customer at time of purchase. Before refund the balance of the card must match the denomination on the label.
Notes on manufacturing process:

I want to use a modified can forming machine to make the cards. They range in price from $25,000 to $400,000 .

there is a need to research the pull tab forming process.

the card “lid” must come off easy enough so that the tab will never break off first
the card must be made of very thin metal, but must not have sharp edges, be bent easily, or be readable on the inside while closed and sealed.
the goal is a card that is the same size and shape as any other bank card. The card should not be much thicker than 2mm at the most.
the patent development should focus on the card itself, the way the pull tab is tucked under the top before being twisted into position before pulling open, and second on the loading BTC process.
the process of generating the Private/Public alpha-numeric key pair, conversion to QR codes, engraving ,photographing and verifying codes; must be established in such a way as to prevent errors, fraud and unsaleable cards. no one should ever have the ability or opportunity to obtain the private keys or interfere with the engraving or photo process.
note that in photos of mock-up below: QR code and alpha-numeric public key versions would be covered by the label indicating the amount, and if a “piggy-bank” version no amount would appear on label. Only the public and private keys are engraved on the metal, the label has all the other information on it. Some artwork is engraved inside the card. If card design is not impervious to examination, lead or gold foil layers could be incorporated.

In the above I refer to not recording the private keys and deleting the server records as soon as the cards have been manufactured and checked for accuracy. please note that the recording of the private key for a certain amount of DA BOMB is required to power the FAST BITCOIN encrypted private key network.

thank-you

[META] New to PC Building? - September 2018 Edition

Intro

You've heard from all your gaming friends/family or co-workers that custom PCs are the way to go. Or maybe you've been fed up with your HP, Dell, Acer, Gateway, Lenovo, etc. pre-builts or Macs and want some more quality and value in your next PC purchase. Or maybe you haven't built a PC in a long time and want to get back into the game. Well, here's a good place to start.

Instructions

Make a budget for your PC (e.g., $800, $1000, $1250, $1500, etc.).
Decide what you will use your PC for.
- For gaming, decide what games and at what resolution and FPS you want to play at.
- For productivity, decide what software you'll need and find the recommended specs to use those apps.
- For a bit of both, your PC build should be built on the HIGHEST specs recommended for your applications (e.g., if you only play FortNite and need CPU power for CFD simulations, use specs recommended for CFD).
Here are some rough estimates for builds with entirely NEW parts:
1080p 60FPS ultra-settings modern AAA gaming: ~$1,200
1440p 60FPS high/ultra-settings modern AAA gaming: ~$1,600
1080p 144FPS ultra-settings modern AAA gaming: $2,000
4K 50FPS medium/high-settings modern AAA gaming: > $2,400
It's noted that some compromises (e.g., lower settings and/or resolution) can be made to achieve the same or slightly lower gaming experience within ±15% of the above prices. It's also noted that you can still get higher FPS on older or used PCs by lowering settings and/or resolution AND/OR buying new/used parts to upgrade your system. Make a new topic about it if you're interested.
Also note that AAA gaming is different from e-sport games like CSGO, DOTA2, FortNite, HOTS, LoL, Overwatch, R6S, etc. Those games have lower requirements and can make do with smaller budgets.
Revise your budget AND/OR resolution and FPS until both are compatible. Compare this to the recommended requirements of the most demanding game on your list. For older games, you might be able to lower your budget. For others, you might have to increase your budget.
It helps to watch gaming benchmarks on Youtube. A good example of what you're looking for is something like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eLxSOoSdjY). Take note of the resolution, settings, FPS, and the specs in the video title/description; ask yourself if the better gaming experience is worth increasing your budget OR if you're okay with lower settings and lowering your budget. Note that you won't be able to see FPS higher than 60FPS for Youtube videos; something like this would have to be seen in-person at a computer shop.
Make a build on https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/. If you still have no idea how to put together parts, start here (http://www.logicalincrements.com/) to get an understanding of PC part tiers. If you want more info about part explanations and brief buying tips, see the next section below.
Click on the Reddit logo button next to Markup, copy and paste the generated text (in markup mode if using new Reddit), and share your build for review!
Consider which retailer to buy your parts from. Here's a table comparing different retailers: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1L8uijxuoJH4mjKCjwkJbCrKprCiU8CtM15mvOXxzV1s/edit?usp=sharing
Buy your parts! Use PCPP above to send you e-mail alerts on price drops or subscribe to /bapcsalescanada for deals.
You can get parts from the following PC retailers in alphabetical order:
After procuring your parts, it's time to build. Use a good Youtube tutorial like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhX0fOUYd8Q) that teach BAPC fundamentals, but always refer to your product manuals or other Youtube tutorials for part-specific instructions like CPU mounting, radiator mounting, CMOS resetting, etc. If it everything still seems overwhelming, you can always pay a computer shop or a friend/family member to build it for you.
It might also be smart to look up some first-time building mistakes to avoid:
Share your experience with us.
If you have any other questions, use the search bar first. If it's not there, make a topic.

BAPC News (Last Updated - 2018/09/20)

CPU

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-9000-series-cpu-faq,37743.html
Intel 9000 CPUs (Coffee Lake Refresh) will be coming out in Q4. With the exception of i9 (8-core, 12 threads) flagship CPUs, the i3, i5, and i7 lineups are almost identical to their Intel 8000 (Coffee Lake) series, but slightly clocked faster. If you are wondering if you should upgrade to the newer CPU on the same tier (e.g., i5-8400 to i5-9400), I don't recommend that you do as you will only see marginal performance increases.

Mobo

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13135/more-details-on-intels-z390-chipset-exposed
Z370s will now be phased out for Z390s boards, which will natively support Intel 9000 CPUs (preferably i5-9600K, i7-9700K, and i9-9900K).

GPU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDrpsv0QIR0
RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti benchmarks are out; they provide ~10 and ~20 frames better than the 1080 Ti and also feature ray tracing (superior lighting and shadow effects) which is featured in only ~30 games so far (i.e., not supported a lot); effectively, they provide +25% more performance for +70% increased cost. My recommendation is NOT to buy them unless you need it for work or have lots of disposable income. GTX 1000 Pascal series are still relevant in today's gaming specs.

Part Explanations

CPU

The calculator part. More GHz is analogous to fast fingers number crunching in the calculator. More cores is analogous to having more calculators. More threads is analogous to having more filing clerks piling more work for the calculator to do. Microarchitectures (core design) is analogous to how the internal circuit inside the calculator is designed (e.g., AMD FX series are slower than Intel equivalents even with higher OC'd GHz speeds because the core design is subpar). All three are important in determining CPU speed.
In general, higher GHz is more important for gaming now whereas # cores and threads are more important for multitasking like streaming, video editing, and advanced scientific/engineering computations. Core designs from both AMD and Intel in their most recent products are very good now, but something to keep in mind.

Overclocking

The basic concept of overclocking (OCing) is to feed your CPU more power through voltage and hoping it does calculations faster. Whether your parts are good overclockers depends on the manufacturing process of your specific part and slight variations in materials and manufacturing process will result in different overclocking capability ("silicon lottery"). The downside to this is that you can void your warranties because doing this will produce excess heat that will decrease the lifespan of your parts AND that there is a trial-and-error process to finding OC settings that are stable. Unstable OC settings result in computer freezes or random shut-offs from excess heat. OCing will give you extra performance often for free or by investing in a CPU cooler to control your temperatures so that the excess heat will not decrease your parts' lifespans as much. If you don't know how to OC, don't do it.

Current Products

Intel CPUs have higher GHz than AMD CPUs, which make them better for gaming purposes. However, AMD Ryzen CPUs have more cores and threads than their Intel equivalents. The new parts are AMD Ryzen 3, 5, or 7 2000 series or Intel i3, i5, or i7 8000 series (Coffee Lake). Everything else is outdated.
If you want to overclock on an AMD system, know that you can get some moderate OC on a B350/B450 with all CPUs. X370/X470 mobos usually come with better VRMs meant for OCing 2600X, 2700, and 2700X. If you don't know how to OC, know that the -X AMD CPUs have the ability to OC themselves automatically without manually settings. For Intel systems, you cannot OC unless the CPU is an unlocked -K chip (e.g., i3-8350K, i5-8600K, i7-8700K, etc.) AND the motherboard is a Z370 mobo. In general, it is not worth getting a Z370 mobo UNLESS you are getting an i5-8600K and i7-8700K.

CPU and Mobo Compatibility

Note about Ryzen 2000 CPUs on B350 mobos: yes, you CAN pair them up since they use the same socket. You might get an error message on PCPP that says that they might not be compatible. Call the retailer and ask if the mobo you're planning on buying has a "Ryzen 2000 Series Ready" sticker on the box. This SHOULD NOT be a problem with any mobos manufactured after February 2018.
Note about Intel 9000 CPUs on B360 / Z370 mobos: same as above with Ryzen 2000 CPUs on B350 or X370 boards.

CPU Cooler (Air / Liquid)

Air or liquid cooling for your CPU. This is mostly optional unless heavy OCing on AMD Ryzen CPUs and/or on Intel -K and i7-8700 CPUs.
For more information about air and liquid cooling comparisons, see here:

Motherboard/mobo

Part that lets all the parts talk to each other. Comes in different sizes from small to big: mITX, mATX, ATX, and eATX. For most people, mATX is cost-effective and does the job perfectly. If you need more features like extra USB slots, go for an ATX. mITX is for those who want a really small form factor and are willing to pay a premium for it. eATX mobos are like ATX mobos except that they have more features and are bigger - meant for super PC enthusiasts who need the features.

AMD Ryzen CPUs: go for X470s for Ryzen 7 and B450s for everything else. B350s will also work as a sub for B450 mobos and the same can be said for X370s for X470s, but they are being phased out and may require a BIOS update to support the Ryzen 2000 CPUs if it doesn't have a "Ryzen 2000 Series Ready" sticker on the box.
Intel Coffee Lake CPUs: go for Z370s for unlocked -K CPUs and B360s for everything else.

If you are NOT OCing, pick whatever is cheap and meets your specs. I recommend ASUS or MSI because they have RMA centres in Canada in case it breaks whereas other parts are outside of Canada like in the US. If you are OCing, then you need to look at the quality of the VRMs because those will greatly influence the stability and lifespan of your parts.

Memory/RAM

Part that keeps Windows and your software active. Currently runs on the DDR4 platform for new builds. Go for dual channel whenever possible. Here's a breakdown of how much RAM you need:

2x4GB = 8GB is the minimum recommended
2x8GB = 16GB recommended for gaming
2x16GB+ for workstations

AMD Ryzen CPUs get extra FPS for faster RAM speeds (ideally 3200MHz) in gaming when paired with powerful video cards like the GTX 1070. Intel Coffee Lake CPUs use up a max of 2667MHz for B360 mobos. Higher end Z370 mobos can support 4000 - 4333MHz RAM depending on the mobo, so make sure you shop carefully!
It's noted that RAM prices are highly inflated because of the smartphone industry and possibly artificial supply shortages. For more information: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/263031-ram-prices-roof-stuck-way

Storage

Part that store your files in the form of SSDs and HDDs.

Solid State Drives (SSDs)

SSDs are incredibly quick, but are expensive per TB; they are good for booting up Windows and for reducing loading times for gaming. For an old OEM pre-built, upgrading the PC with an SSD is the single greatest speed booster you can do to your system. For most people, you want to make sure the SSD you get is NOT DRAM-less as these SSDs do not last as long as their DRAM counterparts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybIXsrLCgdM). It is also noted that the bigger the capacity of the SSD, the faster they are. SSDs come in four forms:

2.5" SATA III
M.2 SATA
M.2 NVME PCI-e
U.2 PCI-e

The 2.5" SATA form is cheaper, but it is the old format with speeds up to 550MB/s. M.2 SATA SSDs have the same transfer speeds as 2.5" SATA SSDs since they use the SATA interface, but connect directly to the mobo without a cable. It's better for cable management to get an M.2 SATA SSD over a 2.5" SATA III SSD. M.2 PCI-e SSDs are the newest SSD format and transfer up to 4GB/s depending on the PCI-e lanes they use (e.g., 1x, 2x, 4x, etc.). They're great for moving large files (e.g., 4K video production). For more info about U.2 drives, see this post (https://www.reddit.com/bapccanada/comments/8jxfqs/meta_new_to_pc_building_may_2018_edition/dzqj5ks/). Currently more common for enterprise builds, but could see some usage in consumer builds.

Hard Disk Drives (HDDs)

HDDs are slow with transfer speeds of ~100MB/s, but are cheap per TB compared to SSDs. We are now at SATA III speeds, which have a max theoretical transfer rate of 600MB/s. They also come in 5400RPM and 7200RPM forms. 5400RPM uses slightly less power and are cheaper, but aren't as fast at dealing with a large number of small files as 7200RPM HDDs. When dealing with a small number of large files, they have roughly equivalent performance. It is noted that even a 10,000RPM HDD will still be slower than an average 2.5" SATA III SSD.

Others

SSHDs are hybrids of SSDs and HDDs. Although they seem like a good combination, it's much better in all cases to get a dedicated SSD and a dedicated HDD instead. This is because the $/speed better for SSDs and the $/TB is better for HDDs. The same can be said for Intel Optane. They both have their uses, but for most users, aren't worth it.

Overall

I recommend a 2.5" or M.2 SATA ≥ 250GB DRAM SSD and a 1TB or 2TB 7200RPM HDD configuration for most users for a balance of speed and storage capacity.

Video Card/GPU

Part that runs complex calculations in games and outputs to your monitor and is usually the most expensive part of the budget. The GPU you pick is dictated by the gaming resolution and FPS you want to play at.
In general, all video cards of the same product name have almost the same non-OC'd performance (e.g., Asus Dual-GTX1060-06G has the same performance as the EVGA 06G-P4-6163-KR SC GAMING). The different sizes and # fans DO affect GPU OCing capability, however. The most important thing here is to get an open-air video card, NOT a blower video card (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0domMRFG1Rw). The blower card is meant for upgrading pre-builts where case airflow is limited.
~~For cost-performance, go for the NVIDIA GTX cards because of the cryptomining industry that has inflated AMD RX cards.~~ Bitcoin has taken a -20% hit since January's $10,000+ as of recently, but the cryptomining industry is still ongoing. Luckily, this means prices have nearly corrected itself to original MSRP in 2016.
In general:

1080p 60FPS high-settings modern AAA gaming: GTX 1060 6GB = RX580
1440p 60FPS high/ultra-settings modern AAA gaming: GTX 1070 / 1070 Ti = Vega 56
1080p 144FPS high/ultra-settings modern AAA gaming: GTX 1070 Ti / 1080 = Vega 64
4K 60FPS medium/high-settings modern AAA gaming: GTX 1080 Ti

Note that if your monitor has FreeSync technology, get an AMD card. If your monitor has G-Sync, get a NVIDIA card. Both technologies allow for smooth FPS gameplay. If you don't have either, it doesn't really matter which brand you get.
For AMD RX cards, visit https://www.pcworld.com/article/3197885/components-graphics/every-amd-radeon-rx-graphics-card-you-can-buy-for-pc-gaming.html

New NVIDIA GeForce RTX Series

New NVIDIA 2000 RTX series have been recently announced and will be carried in stores in Q3 and Q4. Until all of the products have been fully vetted and reviewed, we cannot recommend those yet as I cannot say if they are worth what NVIDIA has marketed them as. But they will be faster than their previous equivalents and will require more wattage to use. The 2070, 2080, and 2080 Ti will feature ray tracing, which is a new feature seen in modern CG movies that greatly enhances lighting and shadow effects. At this time, < 30 games will use ray tracing (https://www.pcgamer.com/21-games-will-support-nvidias-real-time-ray-tracing-here-are-demos-of-tomb-raider-and-control/). It's also noted that the 2080 Ti is the Titan XP equivalent, which is why it's so expensive. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irs8jyEmmPQ) The community's general recommendation is NOT to pre-order them until we see some reviews and benchmarks from reviewers first.
Looks like a couple of benchmarks are out. While keeping other parts equal the following results were obtained(https://videocardz.com/77983/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2080-ti-and-rtx-2080-official-performance-unveiled). So the 2080 and 2080 Ti are better than last generation's 1080 Ti by ~10 and ~20 frames respectively.

Case

Part that houses your parts and protects them from its environment. Should often be the last part you choose because the selection is big enough to be compatible with any build you choose as long as the case is equal to or bigger than the mobo form factor.
Things to consider: aesthetics, case airflow, cable management, material, cooling options (radiators or # of fan spaces), # fans included, # drive bays, toolless installation, power supply shroud, GPU clearance length, window if applicable (e.g., acrylic, tempered glass), etc.
It is recommended to watch or read case reviews on Youtube to get an idea of a case's performance in your setup.

Power Supply/PSU

Part that runs your PC from the wall socket. Never go with an non-reputable/cheap brand out on these parts as low-quality parts could damage your other parts. Recommended branded PSUs are Corsair, EVGA, Seasonic, and Thermaltake, generally. For a tier list, see here (https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/631048-psu-tier-list-updated/).

Wattage

Wattage depends on the video card chosen, if you plan to OC, and/or if you plan to upgrade to a more powerful PSU in the future. Here's a rule of thumb for non-OC wattages that meet NVIDIA's recommendations:

1050 Ti: 300W
1060 3GB/6GB: 400W
1070 / 1070 Ti: 500W
1080: 500W
1080 Ti: 600W

There are also PSU wattage calculators that you can use to estimate your wattage. How much wattage you used is based on your PC parts, how much OCing you're doing, your peripherals (e.g., gaming mouse and keyboard), and how long you plan to leave your computer running, etc. It is noted that these calculators use conservative estimates, so use the outputted wattage as a baseline of how much you need. Here are the calculators (thanks, VitaminDeity).

Outervision: https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator
be quiet! PSU Calculator: https://www.bequiet.com/en/psucalculator
EVGA Power Meter: https://www.evga.com/power-mete
NewEgg PSU Calculator: https://images10.newegg.com/BizIntell/tool/psucalc/index.html
PCPP Wattage Estimator

Pick ONE calculator to use and use the recommended wattage, NOT recommended product, as a baseline of what wattage you need for your build. Note that Cooler Master and Seasonic use the exact calculator as Outervision. For more details about wattage, here are some reference videos:

Modularity

You might also see some info about modularity (non-modular, semi-modular, or fully-modular). These describe if the cables will come connected to the PSU or can be separated of your own choosing. Non-modular PSUs have ALL of the cable connections attached to the PSU with no option to remove unneeded cables. Semi-modular PSUs have separate cables for HDDs/SSDs and PCI-e connectors, but will have CPU and mobo cables attached. Modular PSUs have all of their cables separate from each other, allowing you to fully control over cable management. It is noted that with decent cooling and airflow in your case, cable management has little effect on your temperatures (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDCMMf-_ASE).

80+ Efficiency Ratings

As for ratings (80+, 80+ bronze, 80+ gold, 80+ platinum), these are the efficiencies of your PSU. Please see here for more information. If you look purely on electricity costs, the 80+ gold PSUs will be more expensive than 80+ bronze PSUs for the average Canadian user until a breakeven point of 6 years (assuming 8 hours/day usage), but often the better performance, longer warranty periods, durable build quality, and extra features like fanless cooling is worth the extra premium. In general, the rule of thumb is 80+ bronze for entry-level office PCs and 80+ gold for mid-tier or higher gaming/workstation builds. If the price difference between a 80+ bronze PSU and 80+ gold PSU is < 20%, get the 80+ gold PSU!

Warranties

Warranties should also be looked at when shopping for PSUs. In general, longer warranties also have better PSU build quality. In general, for 80+ bronze and gold PSU units from reputable brands:

3 years: EVGA BT / B1 / BQ, Corsair CS / CX / CX-M
5 years: EVGA B3 / BQ / G5 / GQ, Seasonic M12II EVO / S12II, Corsair CX-M
7 years: EVGA G2 / G3, Seasonic Focus Gold, Corsair SF / TX
10 years: EVGA G1 / G1+ / G2 / G3, Seasonic Focus Plus Gold, Corsair RMi / RMx

Any discrepancies are based on varied wattages (i.e., higher wattages have longer warranties) or updated warranty periods. Please refer to the specific product's warranty page for the correct information. For EVGA PSUs, see here (https://www.evga.com/support/warranty/power-supplies/). For Seasonic PSUs, see here (https://seasonic.com/support#period). For Corsair PSUs, see here (https://www.corsair.com/ca/en/warranty).
For all other PSU inquiries, look up the following review sites for the PSUs you're interested in buying:

jonnyGURU reviews (http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews)
AnandTech (https://www.anandtech.com/tag/psus)
Tom's Hardware (https://www.tomshardware.com/t/power-supplies/)
HardOCP (https://www.hardocp.com/reviews/psu_power_supplies/)
HardwareSecrets (https://www.hardwaresecrets.com/category/powe)

These guys are engineering experts who take apart PSUs, analyze the quality of each product, and provide an evaluation of the product. Another great website is http://www.orionpsudb.com/, which shows which PSUs are manufactured by different OEMs.

Operating System (OS)

Windows 10

The most common OS. You can download the ISO here (https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10). For instructions on how to install the ISO from a USB drive, see here (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/install-windows-from-a-usb-flash-drive) or watch a video here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLfnuE1unS8). For most users, go with the 64-bit version.
If you purchase a Windows 10 retail key (i.e., you buy it from a retailer or from Microsoft directly), keep in mind that you are able to transfer it between builds. So if you're building another PC for the 2nd, 3rd, etc. time, you can reuse the key for those builds PROVIDED that you deactivate your key before installing it on your new PC. These keys are ~$120.
However, if you have an OEM key (e.g., pre-builts), that key is tied specifically to your mobo. If you ever decide to upgrade your mobo on that pre-built PC, you might have to buy a new Windows 10 license. For more information, see this post (https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/feature/windows/windows-10-oem-or-retail-3665849/). The cheaper Windows 10 keys you can find on Kinguin are OEM keys; activating and deactivating these keys may require phoning an automated Microsoft activation line. Most of these keys are legitimate and cost ~$35, although Microsoft does not intend for home users to obtain this version of it. Buyer beware.
The last type of key is a volume licensing key. They are licensed in large volumes to corporate or commercial usage. You can find lots of these keys on eBay for ~$10, but if the IT department who manages these keys audit who is using these keys or if the number of activations have exceeded the number allotted on that one key, Microsoft could block that key and invalidate your license. Buyer beware.
For more information on differentiating between all three types of keys, see this page (https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/49586-determine-if-windows-license-type-oem-retail-volume.html).
If money is tight, you can get Windows 10 from Microsoft and use a trial version of it indefinitely. However, there will be a watermark in the bottom-right of your screen until you activate your Windows key.

MacOS

If you're interested in using MacOS, look into Hackintosh builds. This will allow you to run MacOS to run on PC parts, saving you lots of money. These builds are pretty picky about part compatibility, so you might run into some headaches trying to go through with this. For more information, see the following links:

Linux

If you're interested in a free open-source OS, see the following links:

For more information, go to /linux, /linuxquestions, and /linux4noobs.

Peripherals

Monitors

/Monitors/

Keyboards and Mice

Overall

Please note that the cost-performance builds will change daily because PC part prices change often! Some builds will have excellent cost-performance one day and then have terrible cost-performance the next. If you want to optimize cost-performance, it is your responsibility to do this if you go down this route!
Also, DO NOT PM me with PC build requests! It is in your best interests to make your own topic so you can get multiple suggestions and input from the community rather than just my own. Thanks again.

Sample Builds

Here are some sample builds that are reliable, but may not be cost-optimized builds. These builds were created on September 9, 2018; feel free to "edit this part list" and create your own builds.

1080p 50FPS low/medium-settings modern AAA gaming: $700 AMD | $800 Intel
1080p 60FPS medium/high-settings modern AAA gaming: $1050 AMD | $1050 Intel
1440p 60FPS high/ultra-settings modern AAA gaming: $1500 AMD | $1500 Intel
1080p 120+FPS high/ultra-settings modern AAA gaming: $1650 AMD | $1800 Intel
4K 60FPS medium/high-settings modern AAA gaming: $2350 AMD | $2400 Intel

Contributors

Thanks to:

red286 for countless corrections
VitaminDeity for PSU revamping
Simple_Tech_Tips for PSU efficiency curves
L00nyT00ny for first-time PC building mistakes

Housekeeping

2019/09/22

Organized news into own section
Formatting clean-up (still lots to do)
Added core design excerpt in CPU section
Added AMD GPU equivalents to NVIDIA ones

2019/09/18
Updates:

Added Intel 9000 excerpt
Added Z390 phasing out Z370s
Added RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti benchmarks

2019/09/09
Updates:

Added more subsections
Added overclocking section
Updated B450s instead of B350s for AMD systems
Fixed storage section. Thanks, red286!
Added my view on new RTX GPUs
Updated sample builds to include both AMD and Intel builds

Sorry for the lack of updates. I recently got a new job where I work 12 hours/day for 7 days at a time out of the city. What little spare time I have is spent on grad school and the gym instead of gaming. So I've been pretty behind on the news and some might not be up-to-date as my standards would have been with less commitments. If I've made any mistakes, please understand it might take a while for me to correct them. Thank you!

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How much would a Bitcoin node handling 1GB blocks cost today? I did some back-on-the-envelope calculations.

Storage

Bandwidth

CPU/Memory

Electricity

Conclusion

Looking for a new GPU that lasts as long as the AMD R9 290X has, supporting my motherboard

Build Help/Ready:

03-29 14:04 - 'Should blockchain projects really be decentralized?' (self.Bitcoin) by /u/Blockchain_Topbuzz removed from /r/Bitcoin within 371-381min

In recent days, the FCOIN crisis has received the most attention.

Giving back to the community = Escaping with money?

Why do people still believe in decentralization?

100 Reasons to Buy Bitcoin

Establishing a smart contract commercial scenario: Chainlink, Zk-Snarks and sharding technology work together to make the ultimate killer

Decentralized Serverless Computing Coming to Cosmos

Akash <3s Cosmos

The Akash Token (AKT)

The Journey Ahead

An extensive list of blockchain courses, resources and articles to help you get a job working with blockchain.

Certifications and Courses

Professionals

Developers

Certified Blockchain Business Foundations (CBBF)

A person who holds this certification demonstrates their knowledge of:

Certified Blockchain Solution Architect (CBSA)

A person who holds this certification demonstrates their ability to:

This exam will prove that a student completely understands:

Certified Blockchain Developer - Ethereum (CBDE)

A person who holds this certification demonstrates their ability to:

This exam will prove that a student completely understands how to:

Princeton: Sixty free lectures from Princeton on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Avg length ~15 mins

MIT : BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGIES: BUSINESS INNOVATION AND APPLICATION

Oxford Blockchain Strategy Programme

Resources and Articles

Consensus Algorithms

Proposed method to email crypto-coins directly.

[META] New to PC Building? - September 2018 Edition

Intro

Instructions

BAPC News (Last Updated - 2018/09/20)

CPU

Mobo

GPU

Part Explanations

CPU

Overclocking

Current Products

CPU and Mobo Compatibility

CPU Cooler (Air / Liquid)

Motherboard/mobo

Memory/RAM

Storage

Solid State Drives (SSDs)

Hard Disk Drives (HDDs)

Others

Overall

Video Card/GPU

New NVIDIA GeForce RTX Series

Case

Power Supply/PSU

Wattage

Modularity

80+ Efficiency Ratings

Warranties

Operating System (OS)

Windows 10

MacOS

Linux

Peripherals

Monitors

Keyboards and Mice

Overall

Sample Builds

Links

Contributors

Housekeeping

USB Bitcoin Miner - The Power of 1000's Computers - YouTube