• Purely digital
• Transaction fees are much smaller because there are no middle men (fees go to miners)
• Decentralized, no central bank or governing authority or regulatory
• “They are not secured by people or by trust, but by math. It is more probable that an asteroid falls on your house than that a bitcoin address is compromised.” What is Cryptocurrency
• Fraud-proof (due to keys and mining and blockchain)
• Mining is how transactions get verified (to prevent forgery). It’s also how new coins get created.
• Mining difficulty increases as miners mine faster
• Rewards are halved every 210,000 blocks. Last coin will be mined in 2140

Cryptocurrency Transactions

• Irreversible
• Anonymous
• Fast and global
• Secure
• Permissionless

Monetary Properties

• Controlled supply

• Each currency has its own network