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Financial Cryptography
Financial cryptography is the use of cryptography in applications in which financial loss could result from subversion of the message system. Financial cryptography is distinguished from traditional cryptography in that for most of recorded history, cryptography has been used almost entirely for military and diplomatic purposes. Financial cryptography includes the mechanisms and algorithms necessary for the protection of financial transfers, in addition to the creation of new forms of money. Proof of work and various auction protocols fall under the umbrella of Financial cryptography. Hashcash is being used to limit spam. Financial cryptography has been seen to have a very broad scope of application. Ian Grigg sees financial cryptography in seven layers, being the combination of seven distinct disciplines: cryptography, software engineering, rights, accounting, governance, value, and financial applications. Business failures can often be traced to the absence of one or more of thes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptography
Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More generally, cryptography is about constructing and analyzing protocols that prevent third parties or the public from reading private messages. Modern cryptography exists at the intersection of the disciplines of mathematics, computer science, information security, electrical engineering, digital signal processing, physics, and others. Core concepts related to information security ( data confidentiality, data integrity, authentication, and non-repudiation) are also central to cryptography. Practical applications of cryptography include electronic commerce, chip-based payment cards, digital currencies, computer passwords, and military communications. Cryptography prior to the modern age was effectively synonymo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders. The company operates as a payment processor for online vendors, auction sites and many other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. Established in 1998 as Confinity, PayPal went public through an IPO in 2002. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay later that year, valued at $1.5 billion. In 2015 eBay spun off PayPal to its shareholders, and PayPal became an independent company again. The company was ranked 143rd on the 2022 Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue. History Early history PayPal was originally established by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek in December 1998 as Confinity, a company that developed security software for hand-held de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smart Contracts
A smart contract is a computer program or a transaction protocol that is intended to automatically execute, control or document events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement. The objectives of smart contracts are the reduction of need for trusted intermediators, arbitration costs, and fraud losses, as well as the reduction of malicious and accidental exceptions. Smart contracts are commonly associated with cryptocurrencies, and the smart contracts introduced by Ethereum are generally considered a fundamental building block for decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFT applications. Vending machines are mentioned as the oldest piece of technology equivalent to smart contract implementation. The original Ethereum white paper by Vitalik Buterin in 2014 describes the Bitcoin protocol as a weak version of the smart contract concept as originally defined by Nick Szabo, and proposed a stronger version based on the Solidity language, which is Turing complete. Si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Payment System
A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, instruments, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that make its exchange possible.Biago Bossone and Massimo Cirasino, "The Oversight of the Payment Systems: A Framework for the Development and Governance of Payment Systems in Emerging Economies"The World Bank, July 2001, p.7 A common type of payment system, called an operational network, links bank accounts and provides for monetary exchange using bank deposits. Some payment systems also include credit mechanisms, which are essentially a different aspect of payment. Payment systems are used in lieu of tendering cash in domestic and international transactions. This consists of a major service provided by banks and other financial institutions. Traditional payment systems include negotiable instruments such as drafts (e.g., cheques) and documentary credits such as letters of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hardware Security Module
A hardware security module (HSM) is a physical computing device that safeguards and manages secrets (most importantly digital keys), performs encryption and decryption functions for digital signatures, strong authentication and other cryptographic functions. These modules traditionally come in the form of a plug-in card or an external device that attaches directly to a computer or network server. A hardware security module contains one or more secure cryptoprocessor chips. Design HSMs may have features that provide tamper evidence such as visible signs of tampering or logging and alerting, or tamper resistance which makes tampering difficult without making the HSM inoperable, or tamper responsiveness such as deleting keys upon tamper detection. Each module contains one or more secure cryptoprocessor chips to prevent tampering and bus probing, or a combination of chips in a module that is protected by the tamper evident, tamper resistant, or tamper responsive packaging. A vast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Point-of-sale
The point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice for the customer (which may be a cash register printout), and indicates the options for the customer to make payment. It is also the point at which a customer makes a payment to the merchant in exchange for goods or after provision of a service. After receiving payment, the merchant may issue a receipt for the transaction, which is usually printed but can also be dispensed with or sent electronically. To calculate the amount owed by a customer, the merchant may use various devices such as weighing scales, barcode scanners, and cash registers (or the more advanced "POS cash registers", which are sometimes also called "POS systems"). To make a payment, payment terminals, touch screens, and other hardware and software options are available. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monero (cryptocurrency)
Monero (; ISO 4217#Unofficial codes for cryptocurrencies, Abbreviation: XMR) is a decentralized cryptocurrency. It uses a public distributed ledger with privacy-enhancing technologies that obfuscate transactions to achieve anonymity and fungibility. Observers cannot decipher addresses trading monero, transaction amounts, address balances, or transaction histories. The protocol is open source and based on CryptoNote, a concept described in a 2013 white paper authored by Nicolas van Saberhagen. The cryptography community used this concept to design Monero, and deployed its mainnet in 2014. Monero uses ring signatures, zero-knowledge proofs, "stealth addresses", and IP address–obscuring methods to obfuscate transaction details. These features are baked into the protocol, though users can optionally share view keys for third-party auditing. Transactions are validated through a Cryptocurrency mining, miner network running RandomX, a proof-of-work algorithm . The algorithm issues n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Currency
Digital currency (digital money, electronic money or electronic currency) is any currency, money, or money-like asset that is primarily managed, stored or exchanged on digital computer systems, especially over the internet. Types of digital currencies include cryptocurrency, virtual currency and central bank digital currency. Digital currency may be recorded on a distributed database on the internet, a centralized electronic computer database owned by a company or bank, within digital files or even on a stored-value card. Digital currencies exhibit properties similar to traditional currencies, but generally do not have a classical physical form of fiat currency historically that you can directly hold in your hand, like currencies with printed banknotes or minted coins - however they do have a physical form in an unclassical sense coming from the computer to computer and computer to human interactions and the information and processing power of the servers that store and keep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptoeconomics
Cryptoeconomics is an evolving economic paradigm for a cross-disciplinary approach to the study of digital economies and Decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. Cryptoeconomics integrates concepts and principles from traditional economics, cryptography, computer science, and game theory disciplines. Just as traditional economics provides a theoretical foundation for traditional financial (a.k.a., Centralized Finance or CeFi) services, cryptoeconomics provides a theoretical foundation for DeFi services bought and sold via fiat cryptocurrencies, and executed by smart contracts. Definitions and goals The term ''cryptoeconomics'' was coined by the Ethereum community during its formative years (2014-2015), but was initially inspired by the application of economic incentives in the original Bitcoin protocol in 2008. Although the phrase is typically attributed to Vitalik Buterin, the earliest public documented usage is a 2015 talk by Vlad Zamfir entitled "What is Cryptoeconomics?" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blockchain
A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data (generally represented as a Merkle tree, where data nodes are represented by leaves). The timestamp proves that the transaction data existed when the block was created. Since each block contains information about the previous block, they effectively form a ''chain'' (compare linked list data structure), with each additional block linking to the ones before it. Consequently, blockchain transactions are irreversible in that, once they are recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without altering all subsequent blocks. Blockchains are typically managed by a peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer (P2P) computer network for use as a public distributed ledger, where nodes collectively adhere to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bitcoin
Bitcoin ( abbreviation: BTC; sign: ₿) is a decentralized digital currency that can be transferred on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network. Bitcoin transactions are verified by network nodes through cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. The cryptocurrency was invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. The currency began use in 2009, when its implementation was released as open-source software. The word "''bitcoin''" was defined in a white paper published on October 31, 2008. It is a compound of the words ''bit'' and ''coin''. The legality of bitcoin varies by region. Nine countries have fully banned bitcoin use, while a further fifteen have implicitly banned it. A few governments have used bitcoin in some capacity. El Salvador has adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, although use by merchants remains low. Ukraine has accepted cryptocurrency donations to fund the resistance to the 2022 Russ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Automated Teller Machine
An automated teller machine (ATM) or cash machine (in British English) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, funds transfers, balance inquiries or account information inquiries, at any time and without the need for direct interaction with bank staff. ATMs are known by a variety of names, including automatic teller machine (ATM) in the United States (sometimes redundantly as "ATM machine"). In Canada, the term ''automated banking machine'' (ABM) is also used, although ATM is also very commonly used in Canada, with many Canadian organizations using ATM over ABM. In British English, the terms ''cashpoint'', ''cash machine'' and ''hole in the wall'' are most widely used. Other terms include ''any time money'', ''cashline'', ''tyme machine'', ''cash dispenser'', ''cash corner'', ''bankomat'', or ''bancomat''. ATMs that are not operated by a financial i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
