The term blockchain is rapidly emerging, developing, morphing and expanding in context as is this Wikiversity learning resource. We have posted this collection of thoughts and initiated a discussion hoping to find out how the academic treatment and understanding of cryptocurrency and distributed computing may remain open, free, liberated and independent in generic form into the future. Blockchain is an emerging technology, and relates to future studies in that regard.

Bitcoin

The blockchain began as a public ledger that records bitcoin transactions. As a distributed database, a way is needed to independently verify the chain of ownership of any and every bitcoin (amount). The blockchain is a ledger stored on each network node as a copy of the "original" set of transactions. Every ten minutes or so, a new group of accepted transactions, a block, is created, added to the chain, and quickly published to all nodes.

In Wikipedia's article:

This allows bitcoin software to determine when a particular bitcoin amount has been spent, which is necessary in order to prevent double-spending in an environment without central oversight. Whereas a conventional ledger records the transfers of actual bills or promissory notes that exist apart from it, the block chain is the only place that bitcoins can be said to exist in the form of unspent outputs of transactions.[1]

Listen to an audio reading of the original Bitcoin Whitepaper.

Look up research related materials by doing a Bitcoin search on Google Scholar.

Ethereum

From w:Ethereum

The stated purpose of the Ethereum project is to "decentralize the web" by introducing four components as part of its Web 3.0 roadmap: static content publication, dynamic messages, trustless transactions and an integrated user-interface. These are each designed to replace some aspect of the Web experience we currently take for granted, but to do so in a fully decentralised and pseudonymous manner.

It's important to identify and define the blockchain in a liberated way. Bitcoin, by definition can't monopolize the terms. Ethereum adds some features and frills:

The basic unit of the internal currency is called ether, which is divided into smaller units of currency called finney, szabo, shannon, babbage, lovelace, and wei.[1] Each larger unit is equal to 1000 of the next lower unit, so 1000 finney is 1 ether, 1000 szabo is 1 finney, and so on.

The Libre Blockchain

w:Libre ... to be continued

A large cryptocurrency mining rig.

Discussion questions

  • Can a universal basic income be implemented through the use of cryptocurrencies?
  • Can browser scripts be used to maintain a cryptocurrency with the consent of users?
  • Could a cryptocurrency be created that rewards people with crypto coins for learning?

Discussions

Researching Cryptocurrency Tipping to Incentive Creative Common Contributions?

Would researching cryptocurrency tipping to incentive Creative Common contributions be a topic that is acceptable to publish research about onto this wiki? No problem if not. Michael Ten (discuss • contribs) 05:16, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

@Michael Ten: Sure! —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:20, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
See Wikiversity:Research ethics. Be sure to disclose methodology, sources of funding, proposed process for recipients to receive funding, etc. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:05, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Learning projects and resources

Readings

References

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