A beginners guide to Proof-of-Transfer, Stacks blockchain and Stacking.

Bitcoin protocol, the world’s most secured blockchain network and the highest profile cryptocurrency(bitcoin) is where most people first learnt about blockchain technology. I’m certainly one of them, having stumbled upon bitcoin in 2016 and went down the rabbit hold to learn more about the mechanism powering the Bitcoin protocol. Blockchain technology which powers the Bitcoin protocol stretches across multiple domains such as cryptography, computer science, economics, finance and more. What makes the Bitcon protocol the most secured blockchain network is the underlying Proof-of-Work(PoW) consensus algorithm, which have the most nodes(miners) running the network in the industry. Miners compete against each other(by solving mathematical puzzles through computing power) to complete transactions on the Bitcoin network and be rewarded with bitcoin. The complexity of the puzzle increases as 1) users on the network increases, 2) increase in computing power as more miners decides to run the network, 3) and the increase in network load. The hash of each block contains the hash of the previous block, which increases security and prevents any block violation, thus the term blockchain. A quick look at Bitcoin protocol’s 2 main security metrics  1) Total Hashrate and 2) Network Difficulty, shows that they are at an all time high.

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