17/06/2021
Bitcoinist.com
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PiNexo
Introducing Pi Network – Making Cryptocurrency Accessible to the Masses
Steven Hay by Steven Hay
3 days ago
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In the earliest days of Bitcoin and first-generation cryptocurrencies, anyone could mine coins using any basic computing setup. Until around 2013, all you needed was a standard GPU. However, as the value of Bitcoin rose and more miners entered the space, cryptocurrency mining became ever more competitive, to the point where it now requires specialist hardware dedicated to the task of mining.
These days, crypto mining is no longer accessible to the average person. Bitmain has a de facto monopoly over the supply of mining equipment, and just six mining pools dominate the majority of BTC mining activity, with the top three controlling 50%. Mining activity is often so concentrated that a localized power outage in China can precipitate a market crash.
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As cryptocurrency becomes more institutionalized, mining Bitcoin and other major altcoins will only continue to centralize. However, making cryptocurrencies, and mining in particular, accessible to the masses is the aim of Pi, a blockchain initiative spearheaded by two founders with a Stanford Ph.D. in Computer Science and Social Sciences.
What is Pi?
Pi was conceived with the vision of re-democratizing access to cryptocurrencies and making them accessible for anyone to mine with equipment that’s easily available – a smartphone.
The project achieves this by using a variation of the Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA), devised by the scientists behind the Stellar blockchain. Whereas proof of work and the many variations on proof of stake rely on the idea of one miner or validator becoming the “leader” by proposing a block for consensus, the FBA operates using a different approach
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