Explain me like I’m five: What is Cryptocurrency

Blockchain-related topics are extremely hot nowadays and cryptocurrencies is one of those. We decided to launch a series of articles where we will explain in plain language such things as blockchain, cryptocurrency, smart contracts and ICOs.

It can be challenging to explain the cutting edge technologies with simple words but I’ll give it a try as it seems very important to explain something that can completely change someone’s life within the next couple of years: make it easier, smarter, and clearer.

Having made the decision to implement Blockchain to MeetnGreetMe and to issue our own token we feel responsible for all our dear users and MeetnGreeters who are not very into this hi-tech world (the same as all of us just several months ago). So we have launched this series in order to explain it to our users. We’ve already explained Blockchain and smart contracts and now it’s time to explain what cryptocurrency is. So let’s delve into the topic!

So, basically, what is a cryptocurrency?

From the word itself you can see that it has something to do with cryptography and currency.

First, let’s define what normal currencies are. Currencies are a sort of “economic buffer”, they allow people to convert their efforts into something that maintains its value and can be converted back into goods or other services at a later point in time.

For its part, cryptography is the process of converting ordinary plain text into unintelligible text and vice-versa. Modern cryptography deals with confidentiality — information cannot be understood by anyone, integrity — information cannot be altered, and authentication — sender and receiver can confirm each other.