Blockchain, Bitcoin and You

Temple Melville

• Publisher: Leamington Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781914090141
• eBook ISBN: 9781914090424
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: E-Commerce
• Index: Economics

Blockchain and Bitcoin have become household names. BLOCKCHAIN, BITCOIN AND YOU explains the technical concepts that make up the blockchain and what they mean for the future of personal finance, as well as their role in business-relevant applications. Scotcoin's CEO Temple Melville lifts the complex key principles of blockchain technology out of the preserve of academia and tech and delivers it to a new audience ? the people. Find out what the blockchain is; why it is needed and the problems it solves; why there is so much excitement about the blockchain and its potential; major components and their purpose; major application scenarios ? and what it means for you. "This book is a treasure trove of information for anyone with a curiosity about this new technology and what it means for them in their day to day lives, it helpfully explains the intricacies of blockchain technology in a refreshingly user-friendly and entertaining way." Stephen Ingledew, Chief Executive of Fintech Scotland

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APPENDIX 1

Information on Scotcoin

Scotcoin is a digital currency in Scotland and beyond. Started by Derek Nisbet in 2013, Scotcoin languished after the Scottish Independence Referendum was lost in 2014. Beginning in 2015, David Low and Temple Melville, Glasgow businessmen, bought the IP and coin from Nisbet and proceeded to broaden and expand the depth and knowledge of the coin

Scotcoin is now one of the longest lived country crypto currencies. Scotcoin has moved to an ERC20 Ethereum Mainnet token, both verified by Etherscan and code audited with their highest rating by hacken.io. Scotcoin is in the process of moving to its own permissioned blockchain which encompasses KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti Money Laundering) to comply with all present and potential future regulations, as well as superior ERC protocols. There are several thousand holders of Scotcoin and the currency has holders in more than 50 countries worldwide. Scotcoin intends to occupy the social good works ecosystem and their plans are well advanced to do this.

Quite separately, The Scotcoin Project CIC is the charitable and educational arm of Scotcoin. Its task is to distribute Scotcoin to the people of Scotland; inform Scotland’s people about their new digital currency; educate the public, businesses and agencies about Scotcoin, 84cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. The Scotcoin Project will ensure Scotcoin is widely accepted in all areas of commerce and society in Scotland and beyond; incentivise and stimulate local trading initiatives; occupy the Charitable and Giving spaces and assist charities generally.

In addition, Scotcoin has a successful MeetUp group that meets bi-monthly around the country. A number of initiatives in the Charity Ecosector have already been undertaken, in particular with Social Bite, Eatup Charity, Bobath Scotland and others.

An advisory board is now in place which includes Ed Crozier, former president of the Scottish Rugby Union.

The number of holders of Scotcoin has increased from about 500 when the present management took over to around 3,500 now, and this number continues to grow. In addition, the very first property to be sold for crypto currency in Scotland was effected using Scotcoin in 2017

“A FLAT Glasgow's south side is the first property in the country to be bought with digital currency, rather than Sterling.

A Corby businessman, Peter McGowan, last week purchased the two-bedroom apartment in Bridge Street for 10 million Scotcoin, the equivalent of £60,000.

McGowan bought the flat from Glasgow businessman David Low, who owns Scotcoin’s intellectual property

Both invested in Scotcoin shortly after the currency’s launch in 2014. 85

“Peter wanted a flat and I wanted more Scotcoin,” Low said of the sale, “so we’re both happy.”

Source: Glasgow Herald, 20th August 2017

Some time ago, Scotcoin realised that regulation would come to the crypto world, and so the Project have been working to produce a new blockchain onto which the existing coin can be migrated. To comply with laws that will shortly be enacted, this blockchain will be KYC and AML compliant.

The new ERC20 coin is now in existence and available for existing holders to migrate to, and new members to buy. The five founding principles for the new blockchain are:

1. An efficient and cost effective migration process,

2. A robust blockchain solution,

3. Un-issued surplus coin creation (for reward and future distribution),

4. Access to an efficient secondary market or markets and

5. Crucially, a reliable and durable delivery partner with likely longevity.

By opting for the ERC20 protocol and the Ethereum blockchain, Scotcoin have been able to achieve all five principles

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APPENDIX 2

Different forms of validation for Blockchains

Proof of Work

A Proof-of-Work (PoW) system (or protocol, or function) is a measure to deter denial of service attacks and other service abuses such as spam on a network by requiring some work from the service requester, usually meaning processing time by a computer. The concept was invented by Cynthia Dwork and Moni Naor as presented in a 1993 journal article. The term "Proof of Work" or PoW was first coined and formalized in a 1999 paper by Markus Jakobsson and Ari Juels.

A key feature of these schemes is their asymmetry: the work must be moderately hard (but feasible) on the requester side but easy to check for the service provider.

Proof of Stake

Proof of stake (PoS) is a type of consensus algorithm by which a cryptocurrency blockchain network aims to achieve distributed consensus. In PoS-based cryptocurrencies the creator of the next block is chosen via various combinations of random selection and wealth or age (i.e.,the stake). In contrast, the algorithm of proof-of-work-based cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin uses mining; that is, the solving of computationally intensive puzzles to validate transactions and create new blocks. 88

Kafka

Kafka is, in essence, a message handling system that uses the popular Publish-Subscribe model. Consumers subscribe to a Topic to receive new messages, that are published by the Producer. These topics, when they get bigger, are split into partitions, and Kafka guarantees that all messages inside a partition are sequentially ordered.

PoET

Sawtooth, like Fabric, is a permissioned blockchain network technology. The network is called permissioned because prospective participants must identify themselves to the network, and the network can decide whether to let them participate. Once in the network, participants share a view of the blockchain ledger. The network uses a consensus algorithm to make sure all participants see identical ledgers.

Consensus algorithms come in different forms. For example, Bitcoin uses a proof-of-work system. Members of the Bitcoin network compete to solve a cryptographic puzzle that identifies the solver as the new leader — the authoritative party for the new block on the blockchain. It’s essentially a lottery for choosing who is responsible for adding the new block. Proof-of-stake is another lottery system, except the lottery is based on ownership of coin in the system. The more coin a participant owns, the more likely they are to be chosen as the leader for a new block.

In addition to lottery-like systems, there are also other kinds of consensus algorithms. For example, permissioned 89blockchain networks like Sawtooth and Fabric can also use traditional Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) algorithms, which are often based on voting.

Sawtooth and Fabric are both designed to allow users to choose the consensus algorithm for their blockchain network. But there can be many variations; for example there is a lottery-like algorithm used with Hyperledger Sawtooth called proof-of-elapsed-time. (PoET)

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APPENDIX 3

How to set up a Scotcoin Ethereum Wallet

You will need an Ethereum wallet to receive your new ScotcoinV3 tokens. If you already have a hardware Ethereum wallet please provide details of your wallet address for credit when buying Scotcoin. Your tokens will be credited to this address.

If you do not have an Ethereum wallet you will have to open one and provide us with your wallet address. The following information may be helpful but if you are unsure on how to open a wallet you should seek professional advice.

How to open an Ethereum wallet

There are various ways to create an Ethereum wallet and the most straightforward is Metamask. Metamask integrates directly with your browser and they have a very good two minute video showing the entire process titled: Getting Started with MetaMask, which you can serach for and find on YouTube.

Metamask is currently not available on Apple devices as it is on a limited trial. Once that trial is over it is possible Metamask will work very well on Apple devices. It works well with Firefox, Chrome and Brave.

There are also similar videos on the Scotcoin YouTube channel, and embedded at the Scotcoin website.

MyEtherWallet is one of the first Ethereum wallet 92projects and is another trusted solution. Refer to their knowledge base at myetherwallet.com and decide if you want to use their website, phone app or extension.

Whatever solution you choose, your wallet must be ERC20 compatible (as the two recommended wallets above are).

For the avoidance of doubt, please be aware that it is your responsibility to ensure you provide Scotcoin with your correct wallet address as tokens sent to a wrong address provided by you cannot be resent.

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APPENDIX 4

Famous Quotes on Digital Economy

"Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme" - Banks

"Internet will never scale" - Newspapers

"Uber isn't sustainable" - Taxis

"Airbnb won't work" - Hotels

"The swarm is headed towards us" – Satoshi Nakamoto, when WikiLeaks started accepting Bitcoin donation

"Bitcoin will do to banks what email did to the postal industry”– Rick Falkvinge, Founder of the Swedish pirate party

“I think the internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government. The one thing that’s missing but that w...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• A brief history of digital currency
• Overview of traditional banking
• Bitcoin and Blockchain relationship
• Blockchain Basics
• Other uses of Blockchain technology
• What Next for Digital Currency
• Security
• Dictionary of Terms
• Resources
• Conclusion
• 1: Information on Scotcoin
• 2: Different forms of validation for Blockchains
• 3: How to set up a Scotcoin Ethereum Wallet
• 4: Famous Quotes on Digital Economy
• 5: The Howey Test
• 6: Bitcoin block sizes, problems and history
• 7: What is 'halving' in Bitcoin and other cryptos?
• 8: Blockchain Q&A
• 9: Tax and Regulation of Crypto Assets in the UK
• 10: Useful information
• 11: Digital Asset Exchanges Explained
• 12: What Is A Ponzi Scheme & Why Bitcoin Is Not One
• 13: The Blockchain Economy: A beginner’s guide to institutional cryptoeconomics
• 14: Philosophical Teachings of Bitcoin
• 15: NFTs
• 16: Decentralised Finance
• Copyright