cryptocurrenciesAlthough the number of Gen Zs confused about what burning a CD means is rising, some of us who were present for the rise of the internet still remember its darkest days. Unfortunately, those darkest days include dial-up internet, during which the only way to connect to the world wide web was as long as someone else was not on the phone.

Thankfully, we have risen above that as technology marched on and relieved us of the primitive shackles of the late 90s internet. Gone were the days of cleaning mouse tracking balls and chatting on AOL. Now, we carry our computers in our pockets, and social media has become more of a burden than a means of connecting us.

But what was probably the most revolutionary advancement of the 21st century was the high-speed internet. As dial-up slowly became going out of style, many telecommunications companies sold packages of 10GB or 15GBs of internet per household, much like we would purchase minutes on our phones back in the day.

Looking back on it, one has to wonder how we ever survived like that! Indeed, now spending 10GBs of the internet to download and stream a videogame is a common practice, even if it seemed like a luxury not too long ago. Read more about it on this link: https://www.howtogeek.com/664369/does-online-gaming-really-use-a-ton-of-bandwidth/

Be that as it may, the lack of caps on our internet usage has not been a headache for a lot of us for many years. You might not be surprised to learn that we do not even come close to using up enough internet bandwidth from our unlimited packages to slow it down at all! That’s a good thing, right?

Well, it depends on how you look at it. With so much bandwidth leftover and not being used but being paid for, it might seem as if you are wasting money for every second you are not on the internet. Now, we are not saying you should be spending any more time on your computer.

However, we say that those extra gigabytes could be put to good use and even gain you some profit! Curious about what we mean? In that case, keep reading on because we are about to blow your mind with opportunities!

The era of cryptocurrency

Ever since we were kids, our parents taught us that sharing is caring. And current progress in technology certainly seems to follow that school of thought. Cryptocurrencies are currently taking over traditional money at a rapid pace, and instead of banks, they prefer an unstandardized system spread across all of their users.

This requires them to share their computers, specifically their hardware such as the CPU, GPU, or an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). Moreover, users also contribute parts of their internet bandwidth by letting them use their devices and their internet connection to run. Click here to learn more.

But what do these applications do? Well, that is a bit harder to explain, but bear with us – we will try our best! The point of cryptocurrency is to avoid any oversight and influence by the government or the banking system and prevent their impact on its value. Nevertheless, that does not mean that there is no regulation whatsoever.

Namely, as cryptocurrency users perform a transaction, sending each other tokens with unique codes, not unlike the bills with serial numbers we use. Unlike banknotes, however, there is no bank to check if these tokens are legitimate or not used in two different transactions. That’s where you – the miner – come in.

The job of a miner is essentially the one of a bank teller. You verify that the transactions taking place are valid and whether the tokens’ unique codes are being used only once. With enough transactions verified, which is usually around 1 megabyte of them, you complete a block, and you might be eligible for your token!

Sounds simple enough, right? Well, not quite. Another thing you need to deliver to obtain your cryptocurrency reward is Proof of Work. This is confirmation that you have spent enough bandwidth from your devices to validate these transactions.

The name of the proof of work varies depending on the exact cryptocurrency, but its purpose remains the same. With Packcrypt PKT, you attach this to your block to give evidence for completing the transactions’ validation, and then you connect these blocks into a chain. Later on, when the job is checked, they know who to award the payments based on the proof of work.

A couple of final words

At first read, this certainly seems like a lot of work that might not even be worth it for a currency of such fluctuating value. But the thing is: you do not do the job – your computer does! All you need to do is make sure your computer is running and connected to the internet, and the rest takes care of itself!

The creators of cryptocurrencies are well aware that humans are fallible and can’t memorize and check long strings of numbers to verify them one after the other. So, they do not ask you to do it – they want your computer to do it for them, and you end up reaping the rewards for something you put zero effort in!

When you think about it, that unused internet bandwidth will waste, especially when you consider the possibilities of everything that can be done with it! After all, why not use everything to your advantage to build a fund for rainy days?