Name of The Project Guide

A PROJECT REPORT ON
CRYPTOCURRENCY – THE FUTURE
SUBMITTED BY
RAJNISH RAJESHKUMAR SINGH
T.Y.B.M.S [SEMESTER VI]
Name of the Project Guide
Prof. SOUMIK CHATTAPADHYAY
SUBMITTED TO
MSG-SGKM College of Arts, Science & Commerce, Ghatkopar (E)
UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI
ACADEMIC YEAR “2018- 2019”
MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 1

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Mr. RAJNISH RAJESHKUMAR SINGH

Roll No.41653
of BMS (Bachelor of Management Studies) studying in VIth Semester, has
undertaken and completed the project work titled,
during the academic year 2018 - 2019.
The project was completed successfully under the guidance of

Prof. SOUMIK CHATTAPADHYAY
This is bonafide project. The said work and information presented in it is true
and original to the best of our knowledge and belief.
__________________________ ________________________
Signature of Course Coordinator Signature of I /C Principal
__________________________ ________________________
Signature of Project Guide Signature of External Examiner

DECLARATION
I, Mr .RAJNISH RAJESHKUMAR SINGH

of MSG-SGKM College of Arts, Science & Commerce, studying in T.Y.BMS
(SEMESTER VI) hereby declare that I have completed my project, titled
in the academic year 2018 - 2019.
Wherever the information have been taken from any book or other sources the same
have been mentioned in references.
The information submitted herein is true and original to the best of my knowledge.
…..….………………
Student’s Signature
[Roll No.41653 ]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I have a great pleasure in preparing my project report on

I sincerely thank with deep sense of gratitude to Prof. SOUMIK

CHATTAPADHYAY, our guide for his / her kind co-operation for
the fulfilment of this project.
I am highly indebted to our honourable principal who took keen

interest and allowed us to perform this project.
I would like to thank our seniors, librarians who sincerely helped me

getting this information and last but not the least, sincere thanks to
college for a big reason that I am here in front of you presenting this
project.
…..….………………
Student’s Signature
[Roll No. 41653 ]

INDEX
Sr.No. Content PAGE NO.

1. Summary 6
2. Introduction 8
3. History of cryptocurrency 9
4. Architecture of Cryptocurrency 10
5. Blockchain 11
6. Timestapping 14
7. Mining 15
8. GPU price rise 16
9. Economics 17
10. Legality 19
11. Advantages 23
12. Disadvantages 25
13. List of Blockchain companies 27
14. Consequences of banning cryptocurrency in India 31
15. Bitcoin 32
16. Importance of Blockchain data 36
17. Future of Blockchain 38
18. The Cryptocurrency Industry 39
19. Cryptocurrency wallets 45
20. Types of Wallets 47
21. Data Interpretation & analysis 51
22. Conclusion 55
23. Recommendations 58
24. Bibliography 59
25. Annexure 60
SUMMARY

A cryptocurrency (or crypto currency) is a digital asset designed to work as a medium
of exchange that uses strong cryptography to secure financial transactions, control the
creation of additional units, and verify the transfer of assets. Cryptocurrencies
use decentralized control as opposed to centralized digital currency and central
banking systems.
The decentralized control of each cryptocurrency works through distributed

ledger technology, typically a blockchain, that serves as a public financial transaction
database.
Bitcoin, first released as open-source software in 2009, is generally considered the first
decentralized cryptocurrency. Since the release of bitcoin, over 4,000 altcoins (alternative
variants of bitcoin, or other cryptocurrencies) have been created.
Widely seen as a disruption for the traditional banking and financial institutions,
cryptocurrencies have gained significant traction over the last half a decade, at the same time
creating a regulatory nightmare for banking regulators across the globe. At present, there are
around 969 cryptocurrencies in existence across the globe, with a total market capitalisation
close to 116 Billion USD.
Founded as a peer-to-peer electronic payment system, cryptocurrencies enable transfer of

money between parties, without going through a banking system. These digital payment
systems are based on cryptographic proof of the chain of transactions, deriving their name,
Cryptocurrency. These employ cryptographic algorithms and functions to ensure anonymity
(privacy) of the users (who are identified by an alphanumeric public key), security of the
transactions and integrity of the payment systems. “Decentralised Digital Currency” or
“Virtual Currency” is also interchangeably used for a cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency is fundamentally a decentralised digital currency transferred directly between

peers and the transactions are confirmed in a public ledger, accessible to all the users. The
process of maintaining this ledger and validating the transactions, better known as mining, is
carried out in a decentralised manner. The underlying principle of the authenticity of the
present to historical transactions is cryptographic proof, instead of trust; different from how it
happens in the case of traditional banking systems.

OBJECTIVE
The global economy is inevitably moving towards a digital eco-system. From investment to
money transfer, everything is going paperless. The newest and most promising addition to the
digital payment sector is cryptocurrency.
A cryptocurrency is a medium of exchange like normal currencies such as USD,

but designed for the purpose of exchanging digital information. Cryptocurrency is defined by
Investopedia.com as a decentralized “digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for
security making it difficult to counterfeit. Since it is not issued by a central authority,
governments can’t take it away from you.
SCOPE
A country like India which has recently faced demonetization has developed
great affection for cryptocurrencies in the recent past. It has been nearly five years since
bitcoin made its debut in Indian Financial markets. In India, the transactions made through
cryptocurrency are on the rise despite the notifications circulated by the finance ministry.
This makes it clear that the upcoming future of bitcoin in India is dazzling. There are about
1548 cryptocurrencies currently operational in the market available as an alternative to
Bitcoin.
Since bitcoin is not available in the physical form, this virtual currency can be
converted into physical form by listing it on various online exchange platforms. Taxing the
cryptocurrency is another way to legalise this currency. It becomes clear that it is a risky
investment option, but there is no harm in opting for a calculated risk.
LIMITATION
 People are not aware about indepth information on cryptocurrency
 Also , people in India are not aware of investing in cryptocurrency.
 Less data available on internet.
 The questionnaire consists of basic question on cryptocurrency, regarding they know
about companies, blockchain data , mining.

INTRODUCTION
According to Jan Lansky, a cryptocurrency is a system that meets six conditions:
1. The system does not require a central authority, its state is maintained through
distributed consensus.
2. The system keeps an overview of cryptocurrency units and their ownership.
3. The system defines whether new cryptocurrency units can be created. If new
cryptocurrency units can be created, the system defines the circumstances of their
origin and how to determine the ownership of these new units.
4. Ownership of cryptocurrency units can be proved exclusively cryptographically.
5. The system allows transactions to be performed in which ownership of the
cryptographic units is changed. A transaction statement can only be issued by an
entity proving the current ownership of these units.
6. If two different instructions for changing the ownership of the same cryptographic
units are simultaneously entered, the system performs at most one of them.
Altcoin
The term altcoin has various similar definitions. Stephanie Yang of The Wall Street
Journal defined altcoins as "alternative digital currencies," while Paul Vigna, also of The
Wall Street Journal, described altcoins as alternative versions of bitcoin. Aaron Hankins of
the MarketWatch refers to any cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin as altcoins.
Crypto token
A blockchain account can provide functions other than making payments, for example
in decentralized applications or smart contracts. In this case, the units or coins are sometimes
referred to as crypto tokens (or cryptotokens).

HISTORY OF CRYPTOCURRENCY
In 1983, the American cryptographer David Chaum conceived an anonymous

cryptographic electronic money called ecash. Later, in 1995, he implemented it
through Digicash,[9]an early form of cryptographic electronic payments which required user
software in order to withdraw notes from a bank and designate specific encrypted keys before
it can be sent to a recipient. This allowed the digital currency to be untraceable by the issuing
bank, the government, or any third party.
In 1996, the NSA published a paper entitled How to Make a Mint: the Cryptography
of Anonymous Electronic Cash, describing a Cryptocurrency system first publishing it in a
MIT mailing list and later in 1997, in The American Law Review .
In 1998, Wei Dai published a description of "b-money", characterized as an

anonymous, distributed electronic cash system. Shortly thereafter, Nick Szabo described bit
gold. Like bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that would follow it, bit gold (not to be
confused with the later gold-based exchange, BitGold) was described as an electronic
currency system which required users to complete a proof of work function with solutions
being cryptographically put together and published. A currency system based on a reusable
proof of workwas later created by Hal Finney who followed the work of Dai and Szabo.
The first decentralized cryptocurrency, bitcoin, was created in 2009

by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. It used SHA-256, a cryptographic hash
function, as its proof-of-work scheme. In April 2011, Namecoin was created as an attempt at
forming a decentralized DNS, which would make internet censorship very difficult. Soon
after, in October 2011, Litecoin was released. It was the first successful cryptocurrency to
use scrypt as its hash function instead of SHA-256. Another notable
cryptocurrency, Peercoin was the first to use a proof-of-work/proof-of-stake hybrid.
On 6 August 2014, the UK announced its Treasury had been commissioned to do a

study of cryptocurrencies, and what role, if any, they can play in the UK economy. The study
was also to report on whether regulation should be considered.

ARCHITECTURE OF CRYPTOCURRENCY
Decentralized cryptocurrency is produced by the entire cryptocurrency system

collectively, at a rate which is defined when the system is created and which is publicly
known. In centralized banking and economic systems such as the Federal Reserve System,
corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units of fiat
money or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. In case of decentralized
cryptocurrency, companies or governments cannot produce new units, and have not so far
provided backing for other firms, banks or corporate entities which hold asset value measured
in it. The underlying technical system upon which decentralized cryptocurrencies are based
was created by the group or individual known as Satoshi Nakamoto.
As of May 2018, over 1,800 cryptocurrency specifications existed. Within a

cryptocurrency system, the safety, integrity and balance of ledgers is maintained by a
community of mutually distrustful parties referred to as miners: who use their computers to
help validate and timestamp transactions, adding them to the ledger in accordance with a
particular timestamping scheme.
Most cryptocurrencies are designed to gradually decrease production of that

currency, placing a cap on the total amount of that currency that will ever be in
circulation. Compared with ordinary currencies held by financial institutions or kept
as cash on hand, cryptocurrencies can be more difficult for seizure by law enforcement. This
difficulty is derived from leveraging cryptographic technologies.

BLOCKCHAIN
The validity of each cryptocurrency's coins is provided by a blockchain. A

blockchain is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and
secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a hash pointer as a link to a
previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, blockchains are inherently
resistant to modification of the data. It is "an open, distributed ledger that can record
transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way". For use
as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network
collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any
given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks,
which requires collusion of the network majority.
Blockchains are secure by design and are an example of a distributed computing

system with high Byzantine fault tolerance. Decentralized consensus has therefore been
achieved with a blockchain. Blockchains solve the double-spending problem without the need
of a trusted authority or central server, assuming no 51% attack (that has worked against
several cryptocurrencies).
Blockchain is a public ledger, an ordered and time-stamped record of transactions.
This system is used to protect against double spending and modification of previous
transaction records where transactions are recorded and confirmed anonymously.
In common words, it’s a record of events that is shared among many parties (nodes). More
importantly, once information is entered, it cannot be altered. Each full node in the network
independently stores a block chain containing only blocks validated by that node.
When several nodes all have the same blocks in their block chain, they are considered to be in
consensus. The validation rules these nodes follow to maintain consensus are
called “consensus rules.”
Blockchain transforms Internet of Information to Internet of Value:

Blockchain is the promise of completely new Internet, the Internet of Value. Blockchain’s
economic impact is projected to exceed $3 trillion in the next decade.
Internet is going to transform from Internet of Information to Internet of Value.
The ownership of digital assets of any type, say money, deeds, Government records, financial
instruments or art can be securely stored, transacted and tracked.
It is considered revolutionary for its ability to enable the secure movement of assets without
intermediaries. The true value lies in creating consensus and trust between the strangers.
That creates trusted transaction networks between entities that do not know or trust each
other.
India’s Position in Blockchain Technology:
Globally, we are still in an exciting but nascent stage of blockchain’s evolution as it moves
from the protocol stage to infrastructure, before mass consumer interfaces and application
layers.
This is the perfect juncture for a rising power such as India to pay careful attention and
capitalize on the enormous opportunities of this new Internet.
Sectors such as financial services, agriculture, healthcare, real estate and utilities all crucial
for an emerging economy like India can see tremendous benefits from the application of
blockchain technology.
Gains for India: Blockchain is now the fastest-growing skill set demanded on job sites,
with job growth rates at 2,000-6,000% and salaries for blockchain developers 50-100%
higher than regular developer jobs.
The decentralized nature of projects with distributed teams can translate into lakhs of high-
paying jobs from all over the world being available to Indian developers.

With its strong IT ecosystem, India can become a leading blockchain development hub and a
major net beneficiary of global capital inflows.
Solving Indian problems: Decentralized applications on public blockchains can solve myriad
Indian problems, such as eliminating middlemen, providing data security, reducing
corruption and tampering of financial ledgers, and improving the speed of service delivery by
governments and corporations.
India’s global positioning as a technology powerhouse: Different emerging technologies,

such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, and the internet of things will not work in silos but
will converge. That is the space where the next Googles and Amazons of the world will get
created.
Blockchain is a foundational data/transaction layer and missing out on it will hurt India’s
overall tech competitiveness.
Regulation in India: The current debate in India has, unfortunately, focused too heavily on
trading and speculation, looking at cryptocurrencies as an investment tool, rather than
understanding the potential of core blockchain technology and the basic role of
cryptocurrencies as an incentive mechanism to securedecentralized transactions.
There are sufficient global examples of countries that have taken nuanced and cautious steps
in regulating the technology, and are focusing on stopping illegal activity without hurting
innovation.
As core developers/shapers of this technology in India, all citizens should fully cognizant and
sympathetic to government concerns of money laundering, tax evasion, investor protection
and capital flight.

Timestamping
Cryptocurrencies use various timestamping schemes to "prove" the validity of

transactions added to the blockchain ledger without the need for a trusted third party.
The first timestamping scheme invented was the proof-of-work scheme. The most
widely used proof-of-work schemes are based on SHA-256 and scrypt.
Some other hashing algorithms that are used for proof-of-work

include CryptoNight, Blake, SHA-3, and X11.
The proof-of-stake is a method of securing a cryptocurrency network and achieving

distributed consensus through requesting users to show ownership of a certain amount of
currency. It is different from proof-of-work systems that run difficult hashing algorithms to
validate electronic transactions. The scheme is largely dependent on the coin, and there's
currently no standard form of it. Some cryptocurrencies use a combined proof-of-work/proof-
of-stake scheme.

MINING
In cryptocurrency networks, mining is a validation of transactions. For this effort,

successful miners obtain new cryptocurrency as a reward. The reward decreases transaction
fees by creating a complementary incentive to contribute to the processing power of the
network. The rate of generating hashes, which validate any transaction, has been increased by
the use of specialized machines such as FPGAs and ASICsrunning complex hashing
algorithms like SHA-256 and Scrypt. This arms race for cheaper-yet-efficient machines has
been on since the day the first cryptocurrency, bitcoin, was introduced in 2009. With more
people venturing into the world of virtual currency, generating hashes for this validation has
become far more complex over the years, with miners having to invest large sums of money
on employing multiple high performance ASICs. Thus the value of the currency obtained for
finding a hash often does not justify the amount of money spent on setting up the machines,
the cooling facilities to overcome the enormous amount of heat they produce, and the
electricity required to run them.
Some miners pool resources, sharing their processing power over a network to split
the reward equally, according to the amount of work they contributed to the probability of
finding a block. A "share" is awarded to members of the mining pool who present a valid
partial proof-of-work.
As of February 2018, the Chinese Government halted trading of virtual currency,

banned initial coin offerings and shut down mining. Some Chinese miners have since
relocated to Canada. One company is operating data centers for mining operations at
Canadian oil and gas field sites, due to low gas prices. In June 2018, Hydro Quebec proposed
to the provincial government to allocate 500 MW to crypto companies for mining. According
to a February 2018 report from Fortune, Iceland has become a haven for cryptocurrency
miners in part because of its cheap electricity. Prices are contained because nearly all of the
country's energy comes from renewable sources, prompting more mining companies to
consider opening operations in Iceland. The region's energy company says bitcoin mining is
becoming so popular that the country will likely use more electricity to mine coins than
power homes in 2018. In October 2018 Russia was to become home to one of the largest
legal mining operations in the world, located in Siberia.

In March 2018, a town in Upstate New York put an 18-month moratorium on all
cryptocurrency mining in an effort to preserve natural resources and the "character and
direction" of the city.
GPU price rise
An increase in cryptocurrency mining increased the demand of graphics

cards (GPU) in 2017. Popular favorites of cryptocurrency miners such as Nvidia's GTX
1060 and GTX 1070 graphics cards, as well as AMD's RX 570 and RX 580 GPUs, doubled
or tripled in price – or were out of stock. A GTX 1070 Ti which was released at a price of
$450 sold for as much as $1100. Another popular card GTX 1060's 6 GB model was released
at an MSRP of $250, sold for almost $500. RX 570 and RX 580 cards from AMD were out of
stock for almost a year. Miners regularly buy up the entire stock of new GPU's as soon as
they are available.
Nvidia has asked retailers to do what they can when it comes to selling GPUs to
gamers instead of miners. "Gamers come first for Nvidia," said Boris Böhles, PR manager
for Nvidiain the German region.
Wallets
An example paper printable bitcoin wallet consisting of one bitcoin address for
receiving and the corresponding private key for spending
A cryptocurrency wallet stores the public and private "keys" or "addresses" which
can be used to receive or spend the cryptocurrency. With the private key, it is possible to
write in the public ledger, effectively spending the associated cryptocurrency. With the public
key, it is possible for others to send currency to the wallet.
Anonymity
Bitcoin is pseudonymous rather than anonymous in that the cryptocurrency within

a wallet is not tied to people, but rather to one or more specific keys (or
"addresses"). Thereby, bitcoin owners are not identifiable, but all transactions are publicly
available in the blockchain. Still, cryptocurrency exchanges are often required by law to
collect the personal information of their users.

Economics
Cryptocurrencies are used primarily outside existing banking and governmental institutions
and are exchanged over the Internet.
Transaction fees
Transaction fees for cryptocurrency depend mainly on the supply of network capacity at the
time, versus the demand from the currency holder for a faster transaction. The currency
holder can choose a specific transaction fee, while network entities process transactions in
order of highest offered fee to lowest. Cryptocurrency exchanges can simplify the process for
currency holders by offering priority alternatives and thereby determine which fee will likely
cause the transaction to be processed in the requested time.
For ether, transaction fees differ by computational complexity, bandwidth use, and storage
needs, while bitcoin transaction fees differ by transaction size and whether the transaction
uses SegWit. In September 2018, the median transaction fee for ether corresponded to
$0.017, while for bitcoin it corresponded to $0.55.
Exchanges
Cryptocurrency exchanges allow customers to trade cryptocurrencies for other assets, such as
conventional fiat money, or to trade between different digital currencies.
Atomic swaps
Atomic swaps are a mechanism where one cryptocurrency can be exchanged directly for
another cryptocurrency, without the need for a trusted third party such as an exchange.

ATMs
Bitcoin ATM
Jordan Kelley, founder of Robocoin, launched the first bitcoin ATM in the United States on
20 February 2014. The kiosk installed in Austin, Texas is similar to bank ATMs but has
scanners to read government-issued identification such as a driver's license or a passport to
confirm users' identities.
Initial coin offerings
An initial coin offering (ICO) is a controversial means of raising funds for a new
cryptocurrency venture. An ICO may be used by startups with the intention of avoiding
regulation. However, securities regulators in many jurisdictions, including in the U.S., and
Canada have indicated that if a coin or token is an "investment contract" (e.g., under the
Howey test, i.e., an investment of money with a reasonable expectation of profit based
significantly on the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others), it is a security and is
subject to securities regulation. In an ICO campaign, a percentage of the cryptocurrency
(usually in the form of "tokens") is sold to early backers of the project in exchange for legal
tender or other cryptocurrencies, often bitcoin or ether.
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, four of the 10 biggest proposed initial coin offerings

have used Switzerland as a base, where they are frequently registered as non-profit
foundations. The Swiss regulatory agency FINMA stated that it would take a "balanced
approach" to ICO projects and would allow "legitimate innovators to navigate the regulatory
landscape and so launch their projects in a way consistent with national laws protecting
investors and the integrity of the financial system." In response to numerous requests by
industry representatives, a legislative ICO working group began to issue legal guidelines in

2018, which are intended to remove uncertainty from cryptocurrency offerings and to
establish sustainable business practices.
LEGALITY
The legal status of cryptocurrencies varies substantially from country to country and
is still undefined or changing in many of them. While some countries have explicitly allowed
their use and trade, others have banned or restricted it. According to the Library of Congress,
an "absolute ban" on trading or using cryptocurrencies applies in eight countries: Algeria,
Bolivia, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates. An "implicit
ban" applies in another 15 countries, which include Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Colombia,
the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Iran, Kuwait, Lesotho, Lithuania, Macau, Oman, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia and Taiwan. In the United States and Canada, state and provincial securities
regulators, coordinated through the North American Securities Administrators Association,
are investigating "bitcoin scams" and ICOs in 40 jurisdictions.
Various government agencies, departments, and courts have classified bitcoin

differently. China Central Bank banned the handling of bitcoins by financial institutions
in China in early 2014.
In Russia, though cryptocurrencies are legal, it is illegal to actually purchase goods with any
currency other than the Russian ruble. Regulations and bans that apply to bitcoin probably
extend to similar cryptocurrency systems.
Cryptocurrencies are a potential tool to evade economic sanctions for example

against Russia, Iran, or Venezuela. In April 2018, Russian and Iranian economic
representatives met to discuss how to bypass the global SWIFT system through decentralized
blockchain technology. Russia also secretly supported Venezuela with the creation of

the petro (El Petro), a national cryptocurrency initiated by the Maduro government to obtain
valuable oil revenues by circumventing US sanctions.
In August 2018, the Bank of Thailand announced its plans to create its own cryptocurrency,
the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
Advertising bans
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency advertisements were temporarily banned

on Facebook, Google, Twitter, Bing, Snapchat, LinkedIn and MailChimp. Chinese internet
platforms Baidu, Tencent, and Weibo have also prohibited bitcoin advertisements. The
Japanese platform Line and the Russian platform Yandex have similar prohibitions.
U.S. tax status
On 25 March 2014, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruled that bitcoin will
be treated as property for tax purposes. This means bitcoin will be subject to capital gains tax.
In a paper published by researchers from Oxford and Warwick, it was shown that bitcoin has
some characteristics more like the precious metals market than traditional currencies, hence
in agreement with the IRS decision even if based on different reasons.
The legal concern of an unregulated global economy
As the popularity of and demand for online currencies has increased since the inception of
bitcoin in 2009, so have concerns that such an unregulated person to person global economy
that cryptocurrencies offer may become a threat to society. Concerns abound that altcoins
may become tools for anonymous web criminals.
Cryptocurrency networks display a lack of regulation that has been criticized as enabling
criminals who seek to evade taxes and launder money.
Transactions that occur through the use and exchange of these altcoins are independent from
formal banking systems, and therefore can make tax evasion simpler for individuals. Since
charting taxable income is based upon what a recipient reports to the revenue service, it
becomes extremely difficult to account for transactions made using existing cryptocurrencies,
a mode of exchange that is complex and difficult to track.
Systems of anonymity that most cryptocurrencies offer can also serve as a simpler means to
launder money. Rather than laundering money through an intricate net of financial actors and
offshore bank accounts, laundering money through altcoins can be achieved through
anonymous transactions.

Loss, theft, and fraud
In February 2014 the world's largest bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, declared bankruptcy. The
company stated that it had lost nearly $473 million of their customers' bitcoins likely due to
theft. This was equivalent to approximately 750,000 bitcoins, or about 7% of all the bitcoins
in existence. The price of a bitcoin fell from a high of about $1,160 in December to under
$400 in February.
Two members of the Silk Road Task Force—a multi-agency federal task force that carried
out the U.S. investigation of Silk Road—seized bitcoins for their own use in the course of the
investigation. DEA agent Carl Mark Force IV, who attempted to extort Silk Road
founder Ross Ulbricht ("Dread Pirate Roberts"), pleaded guilty to money
laundering, obstruction of justice, and extortion under color of official right, and was
sentenced to 6.5 years in federal prison. U.S. Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges pleaded
guilty to crimes relating to his diversion of $800,000 worth of bitcoins to his personal account
during the investigation, and also separately pleaded guilty to money laundering in
connection with another cryptocurrency theft; he was sentenced to nearly eight years in
federal prison.
Homero Josh Garza, who founded the cryptocurrency startups GAW Miners and ZenMiner in
2014, acknowledged in a plea agreement that the companies were part of a pyramid scheme,
and pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2015. The U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission separately brought a civil enforcement action against Garza, who was eventually
ordered to pay a judgment of $9.1 million plus $700,000 in interest. The SEC's complaint
stated that Garza, through his companies, had fraudulently sold "investment contracts
representing shares in the profits they claimed would be generated" from mining.
On 21 November 2017, the Tether cryptocurrency announced they were hacked, losing $31
million in USDT from their primary wallet. The company has 'tagged' the stolen currency,
hoping to 'lock' them in the hacker's wallet (making them unspendable). Tether indicates that
it is building a new core for its primary wallet in response to the attack in order to prevent the
stolen coins from being used.
In May 2018, Bitcoin Gold (and two other cryptocurrencies) were hit by a successful 51%
hashing attack by an unknown actor, in which exchanges lost estimated $18m. In June 2018,
Korean exchange Coinrail was hacked, losing US$37 million worth of altcoin. Fear

surrounding the hack was blamed for a $42 billion cryptocurrency market selloff. On 9 July
2018 the exchange Bancor had $23.5 million in cryptocurrency stolen.
The French regulator Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) lists 15 websites of companies
that solicit investment in cryptocurrency without being authorised to do so in France.
Darknet markets
Properties of cryptocurrencies gave them popularity in applications such as a safe haven in

banking crises and means of payment, which also led to the cryptocurrency use in
controversial settings in the form of online black markets, such as Silk Road. The original
Silk Road was shut down in October 2013 and there have been two more versions in use
since then. In the year following the initial shutdown of Silk Road, the number of prominent
dark markets increased from four to twelve, while the amount of drug listings increased from
18,000 to 32,000.
Darknet markets present challenges in regard to legality. Bitcoins and other forms of
cryptocurrency used in dark markets are not clearly or legally classified in almost all parts of
the world. In the U.S., bitcoins are labelled as "virtual assets". This type of ambiguous
classification puts pressure on law enforcement agencies around the world to adapt to the
shifting drug trade of dark markets.

ADVANTAGES
Privacy Protection: The use of pseudonyms conceals the identities, information and details
of the parties to the transaction – perquisites for privacy enthusiasts.
Cost-effectiveness: They have single valuation globally, and the transaction fee is extremely
low, being as low as 1% of the transaction amount. Cryptocurrencies eliminate third party
clearing houses or gateways, cutting down the costs and time delay. All the transactions over
cryptocurrency platforms, whether domestic or international, are equal.
Lower Entry Barriers: Possessing a bank account or a debit/credit card for international
usage requires documented proofs for income, address or identification. Banks or financial
institutions might have their own set of eligibility criteria for these facilities.
Cryptocurrencies lower these entry barriers, they are free to join, high on usability and the
users do not require any disclosure or proof for income, address or identity.
Alternative to Banking Systems and Fiat Currencies: Governments have a tight control
and regulation over banking systems, international money transfers and their national
currencies or monetary policies. Cryptocurrencies offer the user a reliable and secure means
of exchange of money outside the direct control of national or private banking systems.

Open Source Methodology and Public Participation: A majority of the cryptocurrencies
are based on open source methodology, their software source code is publicly available for
review, further development, enhancement and scrutiny. The ecosystem of cryptocurrencies
is primarily participation based, as software development, bug reporting and fixing, testing
etc. are driven by the wider user base, rather than a closed set of individuals or an institution.
Immunity to Government led Financial Retribution: Governments have the authority and
means to freeze or seize a bank account, but it is infeasible to do so in the case of
cryptocurrencies. For citizens in repressive countries, where governments can easily freeze or
seize the bank accounts, cryptocurrencies are immune to any such seizure by the state.
Associated concerns:
 Despite these numerous advantages and user friendly processes, cryptocurrencies

have their own set of associated risks in the form of volatility in valuation, lack of
liquidity, security and many more.
 Cryptocurrencies are being denounced in many countries because of their use in grey
and black markets. There are two sets of interconnected risks; one being to the growth
and expansion of these platforms in the uncertain policy environment, and the other
being the risks these platforms pose to the users and the security of the state.
 They also have the potential use for Illicit Trade and Criminal Activities and can be
used for Terror Financing.
 They also have the Potential for Tax Evasion.
Regulation of these currencies:
The acceptability of cryptocurrencies as a legal instrument currently varies from country to

country; while some are in the process of formulating laws and measures, others are yet to
respond to this disruptive change. The burgeoning use of cryptocurrencies in terror financing,

ransomwares, illicit drugs or arms trade and cybercrime has also raised red flags among the
security and law enforcement agencies. They may well have the potential to displace the
existing financial systems which enable electronic flow of money across different political
boundaries.
The Reserve Bank of India has been keeping a tab on the increasing use of cryptocurrencies
and it had issued an advisory in this regard in 2013, cautioning users, holders and traders of
virtual currencies to its potential financial, legal and security related risks. The Ministry of
Finance also held a public consultation on regulating virtual currencies in May 2017.
DISADVANTAGES
Much time has been spent lauding blockchain and cryptocurrencies in this series. However,
cryptocurrencies suffer from several drawbacks that have led many (such as famed investor
Warrant Buffet) to refer to them as a the next “bubble”. As such, it is important to identify and to
understand the drawbacks and obstacles that may refrain mainstream adoption of these
technologies.
Drawback #1: Scalability
Probably the biggest concerns with cryptocurrencies are the problems with scaling that are posed.
While the number of digital coins and adoption is increasing rapidly, it is still dwarfed by the
number of transactions that payment giant, VISA, processes each day. Additionally, the speed of a
transaction is another important metric that cryptocurrencies cannot compete with on the same
level as players like VISA and Mastercard until the infrastructure delivering these technologies is
massively scaled. Such an evolution is complex and difficult to do seamlessly. However, some
have already proposed several solutions, including lightning networks, sharding, and staking as
options to overcome the scalability issue.

Drawback #2: Cybersecurity issues
As a digital technology, cryptocurrencies will be subject to cybersecurity breaches, and may fall
into the hands of hackers. We have already seen evidence of this, with multiple ICOs getting
breached and costing investors hundreds of millions of dollars this summer alone (one of these
attacks by itself resulted in the loss of $473 million). Mitigating this will require continuous
upkeep of security infrastructure, but we are already seeing many players dealing with this
directly, and using enhanced cybersecurity measures that go beyond those used in the traditional
banking industries.
Drawback #3: Price volatility and lack of inherent value
Price volatility, tied to a lack in inherent value, is a major problem, and one of the specifics that
Buffet referred to specifically a few weeks ago when he characterized the cryptocurrency
ecosystem as a bubble. It is an important concern, but one which can be overcome by linking the
cryptocurrency value directly to tangible and intangible assets (as we have seen some new players
do with diamonds or energy derivatives). Increased adoption should also increase consumer
confidence and decrease this volatility.
Drawback #4: Regulations
Buffet also touched on this problem in his recent talk:
“It doesn’t make sense. This thing is not regulated. It’s not under control. It’s not under the
supervision [of] any…United States Federal Reserve or any other central bank. I don’t believe in
this whole thing at all. I think it’s going to implode.”
Even if we perfect the technology and get rid of all the problems listed above, until the technology
is adopted by federal governments and regulated, there will be increased risk in investing in this
technology.
Other concerns with the technology are mostly logistical in nature. For example, changing
protocols, which becomes necessary when the tech is being improved, can take quite a long time
and interrupt the normal flow of operations.

The takeaway:
With all the potential barriers to mass adoption, it is logical that experienced investors like Warren
Buffet choose to err on the safe side of this technology. And yet, we know that cryptocurrencies
(and the blockchain technology) will be here to stay. They offer too many of the advantages that
consumers seek in a currency today; decentralization, transparency, and flexibility being chief
among these. Expanding the discussion to everything that blockchain can accomplish across
numerous industries doubly reinforces this point.
LIST OF BLOCKCHAIN COMPANIES
Qtum
As Ethereum and Bitcoin work hard to iron out their individual issues concerning
governance, economics and security, Qtum continually refines their Proof of Stake platform.
By incorporating the best parts of both Bitcoin and Ethereum, Qtum is a secure smart contract
solutions representing what could eventually be a next phase of blockchain.
The company recently released its x86 virtual machine, which will propel its value
proposition over Ethereum by welcoming developers who code in any language. It has also
encoded segwit by default, opening up interoperability with the Lightning Network (a cross-
blockchain efficiency protocol).
Qtum plans to launch QtumX in 2019, which will help major corporations take advantage of
optimized smart contract automation, effectively welcoming the “mainstream” to blockchain.

In a recent integration with Amazon, QTUM is providing a smart contract development
platform on AWS marketplace. AWS users and developers will now have the ability to
develop and launch smart contracts via an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) efficiently, and
cost-effectively.
TRON
At a time when new, disruptive platforms like Netflix are draining the dollars out of their
respective industries, TRON aims to take it a step further.
Instead of a centralized entity that chooses what content to host and how users can consume
it, TRON puts this responsibility in the hands of the people. What results is a decentralized
marketplace where people can host, store and consume user content on their own terms and
free of middlemen.
TRON takes action when it comes to developing itself, which was evidenced recently by its
purchase of BitTorrent, and the launch of Project Atlasmaking it one of the largest
decentralized networks in the world.
As TRX is increasingly tied into the content ecosystem, people switch to the tokenized and
tailored content subscription model instead of today’s buffet-style alternative.
Aelf
Aelf is building a scalable blockchain and decentralized cloud computing network. It wants to
make blockchains more workable in the real world by increasing the number of transactions
per second (TPS) that they can handle.
While major blockchains like Ethereum and Bitcoin struggle to manage double-figures TPS,
Aelf has proven that it can handle 15,000. This is done by splitting each single node into two
clusters, spread over multiple computers.
The goal is to make blockchains more feasible for businesses and enterprises that work with
large volumes of data, bringing the technology into the mainstream.
Veridium

Another industry said to be positively affected by blockchain is the environment and
sustainability. Veridium is an environmental blockchain company, producing sustainability
solutions for Fortune 500 companies and collaborating with IBM.
Using a set of proprietary protocols developed by EcoSmart Labs, this project has created a
tokenized carbon offset solution, to bring new liquidity to environmental trading markets and
create simplified carbon accounting for enterprise users. The protocols also offset the carbon
emissions associated with the digital token itself, thereby mitigating the growing concern
over the carbon emissions associated with the blockchain industry.
Caspian
As cryptocurrency remains the top blockchain idea to gain adoption with retail users, and
crypto assets mature, it becomes necessary to use more complex tools.
For ambitious crypto investors, companies like Caspian have created a dashboard that allows
one to build and control their own fund, including asset allocation and re-balancing tools,
order execution management and connectivity with all major exchanges. Its crypto fund
management suite is already in use, and partnered with Coinbase to deliver their solution to
the masses.
Caspian is an evolved cryptocurrency trade and risk management interface, like a universal
remote commanding various exchanges, trades and assets in a portfolio.
Devery
Devery is an open-source protocol for blockchain-based verification of goods and

services. Coming out of JD.com’s accelerator, Devery removes the need for trust by
leveraging unique, verifiable identifiers for products and services that are immutably stored
on the blockchain.
By providing open-source toolsets, users can integrate the Devery protocol that can be used
to build application-level verification services.

The inherent transparency of the underlying blockchain provides authentication and
provenance, that facilitates a competitive market of third-party verification services - for
specialty commercial markets such as ecommerce or luxury counterfeiting.
MediBloc
Some of the industries blockchain was always counted on to disrupt, is the health industry.
This project tackles the problem of centralized electronic health record data storage, by
transferring data sovereignty back to the individual.
MediBloc is a decentralized, open-source healthcare data platform, designed to give full

ownership of personal data to patients with permissioned access control - and an opportunity
to monetize its data. As part of its ecosystem, participants such as medical institutions,
research organizations, insurers and healthcare providers can find a secure and transparent
exchange of data.
MediBloc intends to shift the medical data paradigm to a patient-centric approach, by

building a medical information economic ecosystem with consumers at its core, and ability
for medical services to be built on top of the platform.
Cardstack
Blockchain exists in thousands of different shapes and sizes, and each platform or application
built on blockchain is capable of something unique. The interoperability of all these disparate
blockchains is an ever-present question facing the usefulness of blockchain, and while some
have tried to connect blockchains, Cardstack suggests a different approach.

Its system represents individual dApps or platforms as cards, and users can create custom
business flows or services for themselves, by stacking different “cards” on top of one another
or in a certain order.
This open source framework is catching fire with developers who recognize its potential to
scale blockchain for the mass market. The media is abuzz with rumors of new “Super dApps”
spurred by the existence of platforms like Cardstack, which create the idea of “software
orchestration”. Such a concept has a pertinent place in blockchain’s future and is likely to
gain momentum in the coming years.
CEEK
Virtual reality (VR) is always a hot field. Some projects offer a universal, secure and
transparent currency for the world of virtual reality. The VR industry is seriously growing,
and CEEK is such company that wants to use blockchain and crypto tokens to allow flexible
interactions and transactions - in a virtual universe.
It has an existing VR infrastructure, including virtual venues where users can attend sports
events, watch live music concerts, sit in classrooms and so on.
Its token offers secure transactions and the ability for users to own virtual items. The platform
uses proof of stake and voting to give users a level of control and choice over what happens
in the virtual world.
CONSEQUENCES OF BANNING CRYPTOCURRENCY IN INDIA
1. Ban has never been a solution to any problem. Instead, a ban can result in brain-drain. If
investors are not allowed to make transactions in bitcoin, they might shift to other
countries like US and Canada where the use of cryptocurrencies is permissible.
2. Money- minded people will never mend their ways. Instead, they would find some
loopholes in the system which will eventually lead to an increase in cryptocurrencies
through illegal means.
The government should make its stand clear since banning a promising technology might
mean that India has to suffer backlog in a technique in which the whole world is continually

improving. Realizing the importance of bitcoin, Marc Kenigsberg aptly said “Blockchain is
the tech. Bitcoin is merely the first mainstream manifestation of its potential.”
BITCOIN
The term bitcoin was coined in the year 2008, by a person who went by the pseudonym of
Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin is basically a virtual currency or a decentralized cryptocurrency,
which started off just as an unimportant form of virtual currency, but soon gathered
momentum and was transformed into a more mainstream form of currency in the successive
years. What sets this cryptocurrency apart and what caught the attention of the whole world
was something called as the blockchain technology.

This blockchain technology refers to a digital ledger, but it is quite unlike any sort of digital
ledger that has existed. Here the record of the various transactions which are carried out in
bitcoin is maintained in such a way, that there is a great amount of transparency and
accountability between the parties involved. The information of the transactions is then
distributed among a certain number of computers, all of which are participants of the
transaction and no one else but them. Thus this rules out any requirement of a third party,
which generally would have acted as the intermediary.
The blockchain technology can very well go on to disrupt the way banks have been essaying
the role of an intermediary for centuries now. This is because it will totally do away with the
need for any kind of intermediary. A number of financial technology or Fintech start-ups
today have come up and begun using this blockchain technology and are trying to apply it to
many more fields than just that of banking or bitcoins.
Now coming to the most important question. Is investing in Bitcoin a good investment? Well
the fact that our country has still not legalized it as a mainstream currency, it seems prudent

to apply certain amounts of caution. At the same time, because this field is entirely new but,
at the same time can actually give results, like in the case of one lucky Norwegian man who
overnight became richer by 5,54,30,625.00 Indian Rupees, because of his long-ago
investment in Bitcoins. There is quite a craze of investing in and trading in bitcoins as well as
bitcoin mining, in order to multiply assests.
Bitcoin trading is not quite synonymous with the general trading of stocks that takes place,
neither is bitcoin mining the same as data mining. With the rising risk of frauds and instances
of bitcoins being a bad investment, it is up to the discretion of the investor as to how much
risk he/she is willing to take and how much he/she is willing to lose if not all in order to play
this game of digital stash.
Blockchain Revolution: Prosperity in the Era of the Internet
The blockchain is more than technology empowered by Bitcoin, on the contrary, there are
many Blockchains, and it is not only limited to financial services companies. Many research
firms have termed Blockchain as the next big revolution, most of them wanting to merge
Blockchain with the Internet of things.
What is Internet of Things (IOT)? To put it very broadly, the internet of things can be
considered as the third wave of development on the internet. It is an odd set of information,
interaction, transaction, which is supplemented to the internet, with the help of devices which

are armed with data sensing, analysing and communication abilities, with the use of internet
protocols. It basically bridges physical and digital realities through automation, which aids in
the improvement of businesses and people’s lives.
So the internet of things applications is distributed in nature, and Blockchain is a distributed

ledger technology, hence it is only customary that they will play a part in the way devices
communicate with each other directly.
Blockchain technology is designed on the basis, where through applications and transactions,
interactions can be done. On the meeting of specific conditions, smart contacts are
automatically carried out. These conditions could be anything ranging from goods to
environmental conditions or any other smart applications that support specific internet of
things (IOT) processes.
Therefore, by this theory the Blockchain technology can, not only merely support, but also
improve the agreement with IOT, further adding to the compliance with IOT features, and
help in managing the cost effectiveness.
How will this bring about a Revolution in Our lives?……
Perhaps on the onset of the next decade, almost most of our daily live devices will be online
and integrated with the internet of things, connecting us, taking responsibility for all our
actions, monitoring and recording most of it, like our health with the doctors, our transactions
with our banks, the development of our businesses, managing groceries etc. Sensitive data

will be online, and we will need to find a way to communicate and transact this data securely
through peer-to-peer interactions. The ‘internet of things’ will need a ledger of ‘everything’.
If transactions are done automatically between devises, they won’t be able to use your credit
card, they will need a new format for new business models for it.
Imagine if we have autonomous cars in the future, they will need to connect with your device,
in this case a phone, to search, transact and communicate and pay for your transport, hence
your phone will need a more secure way to make payments and transactions around sensitive
data and value, and the only way to manage that is the distributed ledger technology that
Blockchain offers.
Now imagine applying this technology for electronic voting, where your vote is not only
confirmed, but private to you and you can also confirm the counting of it, this will
revolutionise traditional electronic voting, replace it by voting on Blockchains.
Wishful thinking……? not really, it is established, this can be achieved. However, as always
it is in a nascent stage and yet has to overcome a few challenges like assured security in
technology, practical and operational challenges, and lastly legal and compliance issues,
managing new complexities.
IMPORTANCE OF BLOCKCHAIN DATA
Blockchain is considered as one of the most noteworthy developments in the field of

technology over the recent years. Blockchain definitely has the ability to change the way we
view big data. Blockchain promises to offer security and data quality, as a primary advantage
over many others that are yet to be explored, while taking stalk about the impact Blockchain
has on big data. Currently, Blockchain is synonymous to Bitcoin and other similar
cryptocurrencies, however, to put it simply, Blockchain as a technology, has the competence
to handle and store any kind of information that can be digitized.
Blockchain is essentially a distributed database system, which acts as an ‘open ledger’ that
stores and manages any transactions. Each recorded transaction is called a ‘Block’ which
gives information like the time of the transaction, along with the link to the previous block,
hence information once fed into the Blockchain cannot be changed. The technology also

becomes secure simply by design, as each transaction is recorded over multiple distributed
database systems. So the information becomes immortal in time till the system exists, where
any alterations are not possible. For that reason, it is considered that Blockchain is
immutable.
Big Data Challenges
Due to the rise in storage options like cloud computing, it has become easier for companies to
store colossal amounts of data which is collected and received from many sources like the
internet, corporate systems, online unstructured sources etc…, however storing data does not
assure you that the data is correct. Due to genuine human errors, or intentionally data can be
tampered. It is no surprise then that executives have trust issues with the quality of data.
Blockchain and Big Data
Blockchain is always associated with bitcoin in conversations, hence its connection with big
data might seem vague. Technically Blockchain is simply a database but with features like,
Decentralisation as it is not owned by one entity but has shared control, it is Immutable and
has a trail of previous link in the block, lastly it has Native Assets and open exchanges in the
network.
Blockchain thus takes care of the three most common challenges of big data, Authenticity,
Restricted Access which maintain control and quality of data, Monetisation.
If Blockchain is viewed as a simple database, then it can find application in almost any line of
business and not only in finance, as it is currently being applied. A good example would be
that of Walmart, which is using Blockchain technology to increase food safety, by offering
the traceability from its origin to the consumer. Blockchains have great utility when we talk
about private data, in the UK talks are already in process with NHS, where they intend to use
Blockchain to safely store patient data. This data could be used in the future for research
purposes with the knowledge that it is verifiable and authentic.
With Blockchain there is a possibility of Real Time Analytics. Real time fraud detection is a
wishful reality for most banking institutions. Blockchain offers a record of every single
transaction in their database, hence it serves the opportunity for companies to look for real
time patterns if need be.

So far it looks like the benefits and outcomes of Blockchain technology, can be integrated
positively across industries. A more evolved database in Blockchain will be the required,
perhaps a one that has query knowledge. Therefore, companies that wish to apply big data
and Blockchain are finding new tools such as BigChainDB which has added features required
for enterprise development.
FUTURE OF BLOCKCHAIN
You must have heard about the new and emerging forms of currency in the economy today,
which is more popularly known as a cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is one of the types of
cryptocurrency which has become extremely famous among the rich and famous as well as
those involved in the finance industry today. This cryptocurrency has brought in a whirlwind
of a revolution in the industry of finance mainly due to the fact that it has introduced a
payment system which does not really need any firm or individual or bank to function as an
intermediary.
This peer to peer payment system makes use of a technology called as blockchain
technology, where the identity and transaction details of both the parties are effectively
protected. It is believed that blockchain technology has a great future, especially in the

financial industry owing to its mechanisms of storing legitimate information in such a way
that it can be traced thoroughly. There are many experts in the industry who claim that
bitcoin would soon do to the field of finance, the exact same thing that was done by email for
communication around the globe.
Banks although are extremely apprehensive about dealing with blockchain as there aren’t
many countries which have still not accepted bitcoin as a legal tender due to its many
liabilities, but there are great chances of rapid adoption of this technology in the near future.
This technology has immense potential especially when it comes to reducing the cyber risks
by offering various types of identity authentication methods, which would be offered through
a visible leger.
The future would definitely see blockchain technology being brought in to the mainstream all
thanks to electronic ledgers, which would do the job of numbering, maintaining as well as
indexing all of the records and communicating the information that is stored in all of them.
Smart devices can also make great use of blockchain technology in the future. For instance, a
refrigerator can do a lot more than just storing food. It could track its own warranty, call for
its delivery of the various food items that are required by the household and so on.
Did you know that blockchain can do a lot more than just restricting itself to finance? There
is a great application of blockchain in the sphere of crime, wherein its software can be so
developed so as to enable the speedy catching of criminals and reducing the amount of
money spent on catching them on a regular basis as well.
There is a huge potential in this technology to new opportunities for employment in the
industry as well as increasing the ability of professionals to innovate a lot more. It has an
immense potential to transform the world into a much smaller place as it goes on to increase
the speed and the efficiency of the transactional activity. The future of blockchain
encompasses even the governments of the countries worldwide.
THE CRYPTOCURRENCY INDUSTRY
THE CRYPTOCURRENCY INDUSTRY EMERGENCE OF A BUSINESS ECOSYSTEM

A multtude of projects and companies have emerged to provide products and services that
facilitate the use of cryptocurrency for mainstream users and build the infrastructure for
applicatons running on top of public blockchains. A cryptocurrency ecosystem, composed of

a diverse set of actors, builds interfaces between public blockchains, traditonal fnance and
various economic sectors. The existence of these services adds signifcant value to
cryptocurrencies as they provide the means for public blockchains and their natve currencies
to be used beyond in the broader economy.
CRYPTOCURRENCY INDUSTRY SECTORS While the cryptocurrency industry is

composed of many important actors and groups, this study limits the analysis to what we
believe are the four key cryptocurrency industry sectors today: exchanges, wallets, payments
companies, and mining . Industry sectors Primary functon Exchanges Purchase, sale and
trading of cryptocurrency Wallets Storage of cryptocurrency Payments Facilitatng payments
using cryptocurrency Mining Securing the global ledger ('blockchain') generally by computng
large amounts of hashes to fnd a valid block that gets added to the blockchain 22 23 Setng the
Scene Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking .
Wallets provide a means to securely store cryptocurrencies by handling key management.

The payments sector is composed of companies that provide a wide range of services to
facilitate cryptocurrency payments. Finally, the mining sector is responsible for confrming
transactons and securing the global record of all transactons (the 'blockchain'). Each of these
sectors has its own working taxonomy that subdivides actors and actvites into more refned
categories to account for the diversity of services within each industry sector. These
taxonomies are presented at the beginning of each of the report sectons. While we have
organised this report in a way that suggests distnct industry sectors, it should be noted that the
lines between sectors are increasingly blurred. Some companies provide a platorm featuring
products and services across multple industry sectors, whereas others are operatng in multple
industry segments using diferent brands. In fact, 19% of cryptocurrency companies that
partcipated in the study provide services that span two industry sectors, 11% are actve in
three industry sectors, and some enttes operate across all four industry sectors. A growing
number of companies in the industry can thus be considered universal cryptocurrency
platorms given the diverse range of products and services they ofer to their customers. It can
be observed that wallets are progressively integratng exchange services within the wallet
interface as a means to load the wallet, while exchanges ofen also provide a means to
securely store newly acquired cryptocurrency within their platorm. Similarly, payment
companies increasingly ofer fullyfedged money transfer platorms that enable the storage and
transfer of cryptocurrencies, and ofen include an integrated currency exchange service. As a

result, putng cryptocurrency companies into fxed categories can represent a challenging task
in some cases.
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE CRYPTOCURRENCY INDUSTRY
The sample covers cryptocurrency companies, organisatons and individuals across 38

countries. The United States leads with 32 study partcipants, closely followed by China
where 29 partcipants are based . Afer a signifcant gap, the United Kingdom comes third with
16 partcipants, followed by Canada where 7 partcipants are based. In terms of regional
distributon, most study partcipants come from the Asia-Pacifc region (36%). Europe and
North America follow with 29% and 27%, respectvely. Only a small proporton of study
partcipants are based in Latn America (6%) as well as Africa and the Middle East (2%). The
lines between the diferent cryptocurrency industry sectors are increasingly blurred and a
growing number of cryptocurrency companies can be characterised as ‘universal’ platorms
Setng the Scene 25 Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study At least 1,876 people work
full-tme in the cryptocurrency industry . North American cryptocurrency companies have the
highest median number of employees . Cryptocurrency companies based in AsiaPacifc and
North America have the highest number of employees EMPLOYEES Combining the
partcipatng enttes of all industry sectors reviewed in this report (with the excepton of miners,
for which no employee data was collected), the lower bound of the total number of people
employed in the cryptocurrency industry can be established at 1,876 employees. Signifcant
diferences between regions can be observed . Most full-tme employees of the cryptocurrency
industry are employed by companies based in Asia-Pacifc, followed closely by North
America (and more specifcally the US). With a considerable gap follows Europe, while the
total number of people working for cryptocurrency frms based in Latn America and
especially Africa and the Middle East are comparatvely low. However, it should be noted that
many companies have ofces in several regions and not all employees work in the region
where the employer is based. Companies surveyed have 21 full-tme employees on average,
but the existence of several large companies with considerable headcount makes it useful to
also examine the median number of employees, which is nine. It shows that study partcipants
based in North America have the highest median number of employees (12), whereas
partcipants from Africa and the Middle East as well as from Europe have the lowest (seven).
Asia-Pacifc North America Latn America Europe Asia-Pacifc North America Latn America
Europe Africa and Middle East Africa and Middle East Total Number of Employees Median
Number of Employees by Company 26 USE CASES AND ACTIVITY USE CASES As

discussed in more detail in appendix A, the use cases for cryptocurrencies can be grouped
into four major categories:
Speculatve digital asset/investment Medium of exchange Payment rail Non-monetary use

cases Some evidence exists that as of today the main use case for cryptocurrencies is
speculaton. A 2016 joint report from Coinbase and ARK Invest estmates that 54% of
Coinbase users use bitcoin strictly as an investment. Global bitcoin trading volumes have
been signifcantly higher than network transacton volumes, a fgure that is even higher for
most other cryptocurrencies. However, it must also be noted that a rising number of
cryptocurrency transactons are not performed ‘on-chain’ (i.e., directly on the blockchain
network), but ‘ofchain’ via internal accountng systems operated by centralised exchanges,
wallets and payment companies. These of-chain transactons do not appear on a public ledger.
Estmates of the use of cryptocurrency for payments has varied signifcantly across diferent
sources. For example, a 2016 report from the Boston Federal Reserve has estmated that 75%
of US consumer who own cryptocurrencies have used them for payments within a 12 month
period, while the Coinbase/ARK Invest report indicates that 46% of Coinbase users use
bitcoin as a ‘transactonal medium’ (defned as making at least one payment per year).
While a growing number of merchants worldwide are acceptng cryptocurrency as a payment

method, it appears that cryptocurrencies are not primarily being used as a medium of
exchange for daily purchases.
This is due to several factors, including price volatlity and the lack of a ‘closed loop’
cryptocurrency economy, in which people or businesses would get paid in cryptocurrency
and then use cryptocurrency as a primary payment method for everyday expenses. As will be
discussed in more detail in the Payments secton, a considerable number of companies have
emerged that use cryptocurrency networks primarily as a ‘payment rail’ to make fast and
cheap cross-border payments. However, following the recent surge in bitcoin transacton fees,
some are reconsidering this strategy and shifing transactons towards private blockchain-based
solutons. Ripple’s payment network is being used by large fnancial insttutons, with 15 of the
world’s largest banks working with Ripple’s global consensus ledger. Finally, Ethereum has
established itself as a major blockchain system for non-monetary applicatons, with nearly 400
Setng the Scene 27 Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study projects building on its
decentralised computng platorm.

Ethereum is also increasingly being used as a platorm for launching new cryptocurrencies
that are powering applicatons built on Ethereum (dApp tokens). Non-monetary use of Bitcoin
has also increased. For example, the use of the OP_RETURN feature in the bitcoin scriptng
language (frequently used for embedding metadata in bitcoin transactons, for enabling e.g.,
tme-stamping services and overlay networks) has increased roughly 100x since January 2015.
USERS Estmatng both the number of cryptocurrency holders and users is a difcult
endeavour as individuals can use multple wallets from several providers at the same tme.
Moreover, one single user can have multple wallets and exchange accounts for diferent
cryptocurrencies and thus be counted multple tmes. In additon, many individuals are using
centralised wallet, exchange or payment platorms that pool funds together into a limited
number of large wallets or addresses, which further complicates the picture. According to the
earlier referenced 2016 report from the Boston Federal Reserve, 0.87% of US consumers are
estmated to have owned cryptocurrency in 2015, which amounts to around 2.8 million people
in the US alone.
Based on calculatons using their own user data, Coinbase and ARK Research estmate that in
2016 around 10 million people around the world have owned bitcoin. Using data obtained
from study partcipants and assuming that an individual holds on average two wallets, we
estmate that currently there are between 2.9 million and 5.8 million unique users actvely
using a cryptocurrency wallet.This fgure has signifcantly increased since 2013 . It is
important to note that our estmate of the total number of actve wallets does not include users
whose exchange accounts serve as their de facto wallet to store cryptocurrency, nor users
from payment service providers or other platorms that enable the storage of cryptocurrency.
In other words, the total number of actve cryptocurrency users is likely considerably higher
than our estmate of unique actve wallet users.
KEY FACTS ABOUT CRYPTOCURRENCY
Services/Operatons Security
• Of all industry sectors covered in this study, the exchange sector has the highest number of
operatng enttes and employs the most people

• 52% of small exchanges hold a formal government license compared to only 35% of large
exchanges
• 73% of small exchanges have one or two cryptocurrencies listed, while 72% of large
exchanges provide trading support for two or more cryptocurrencies: bitcoin is supported by
all exchanges, followed by ether (43%) and litecoin (35%)
• A handful of large exchanges and four natonal currencies (USD, EUR, JPY and CNY)
dominate global cryptocurrency trading volumes
• Study partcipants reported cryptocurrency trading in 42 diferent natonal currencies
• 53% of exchanges support natonal currencies other than the fve global reserve currencies
(USD, CNY, EUR, GBP, JPY)
• Exchange services/actvites fall into three categories - order-book exchanges, brokerage

services and trading platorms: 72% of small exchanges specialise in one type of exchange
actvity (brokerage services being the most widely ofered), while the same percentage of large
exchanges are providing multple exchange actvites
• 73% of exchanges take custody of user funds, 23% let users control keys
• On average, security headcount corresponds to 13% of total employees, and 17% of budget
is spent on security; small exchanges have slightly higher fgures than large exchanges
• 80% of large exchanges and 69% of small exchanges use external security providers; large
exchanges use a larger number of external security providers than small exchanges
• Optonal two-factor authentcaton (2FA) is ofered for customers by a majority of exchanges

and required for employees for most operatons; small exchanges tend to use 2FA less than
large exchanges
• Exchanges use a variety of internal security measures; diferences in approaches are

observed between small and large exchanges
• Only 53% of small custodial exchanges have a writen policy outlining what happens to
customer funds in the event of a security breach resultng in the loss of customer funds,
compared to 78% of large custodial exchanges
• 79% of exchanges provide regular security training programs to their staf

• 92% of exchanges use cold-storage systems; on average 87% of funds are kept in cold
storage
• Mult-signature architecture is supported by 86% of large exchanges and 76% of small

exchanges
• Frequency of formal security audits varies considerably between exchanges; large

exchanges tend to perform them on a more regular basis
• 60% of large exchanges have external partes performing their formal security audits, while
65% of small exchanges perform them internally
. • 33% of custodial exchanges have a proof-of-reserve component as part of their formal

security audit
CRYPTOCURRENCY WALLETS
DEFINITION
A wallet generally is a sofware program that is used to securely store, send and receive
cryptocurrencies through the management of private and public cryptographic keys.1 Wallets
also provide a user interface to track the balance of cryptocurrency holdings and automate

certain functons, such as estmatng what fee to pay to achieve a desired transacton confrmaton
tme. LANDSCAPE Each cryptocurrency has a reference implementaton that includes basic
wallet functonality (e.g., Bitcoin Core for Bitcoin, Mist browser for Ethereum). However, for
a variety of reasons the reference implementaton wallet is simply not practcal for many users.
As a result, a multtude of wallet providers have emerged in recent years to facilitate the
storage of cryptocurrencies and make wallets easier to use.
These wallets range from open-source projects run by volunteer developers to ones created
by venture capitalbacked registered corporatons. 34% 15% 8% 8% 8% 27% US UK Germany
Switzerland China .Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study Majority of Wallets are
Provided by Registered Corporatons The following fgures are based on a dataset of 26
wallets that partcipated in our wallet survey. We defne a wallet provider as any volunteer
project or company that provides a standalone wallet that anyone can use.
The wallet functonality is clearly separated from other commercial oferings and explicitly
branded as such. Based on the total number of wallet providers meetng this defniton, we
estmate that the sample in this study represents over 90% of the total cryptocurrency wallet
sector. Almost half of all wallet providers are located in the United States and the United
Kingdom . If we break down origin by world region, Europe is leading with 42% of wallet
providers, followed by North America with 39% and AsiaPacifc with 19%. Registered
corporatons with limited liability represent 85% of wallet providers, and 15% are open-
source/volunteer projects. For the rest of this secton, we will refer to wallets provided by
registered corporatons as ‘incorporated wallets’. There are a total 418 full-tme employees
working at incorporated wallets, with an average of 19 employees per wallet provider.
However, more than a quarter of incorporated wallet providers have less than three
employees, and 69% have less than 11 full-tme employees, which suggests that the average
wallet provider is a relatvely small company (Figure 37). Only 22% of surveyed wallets have
more than 20 full-tme employees. It should be noted that some wallet providers are also actve
in other cryptocurrency industry sectors and that the exact number of employees working
full-tme on the wallet service cannot be established. Incorporated wallets employ 418 people,
with an average of 19 employees per wallet provider .

WALLET TYPES
In contrast with exchanges, the majority of wallets do not control access to user keys: 73% of
surveyed wallets do not take custody of user funds but let the user control private keys .
Moreover, 12% of wallets ofer users the possibility to choose whether they want to control
their private keys themselves – at the risk of losing them and not being able to recover their
funds – or to let the wallet service provider handle key management. Only 15% of wallets

take full custody of user funds. We do not observe major diferences between small and large
wallet providers. 32% of surveyed wallets are ‘closed source’, which means the wallet source
code is not freely available for outside developers to inspect for vulnerabilites. All custodial
wallets (services that control private keys and have access to user funds) are closed source.
An interestng observaton is that 11% of self-hosted wallets (individual controls private keys,
wallet provider does not have access to user funds) are closed source as well. These fgures
are approximately the same for small and large wallet providers. Over 70% of wallet
providers do not control user funds European and North American wallet users seem to
prefer using local wallets North America The most common wallet format ofered is a
smartphone wallet applicaton
. Many fnd smartphone wallet apps to be one of the most convenient ways to use
cryptocurrencies on a daily basis as the wallet is readily available and easily transportable.
An increasing number of companies specialise in the development of hardware wallets,
which store private keys in a secure hardware device. This development coincides with the
observed increase in the value of cryptocurrencies and the greater incentves for criminals to
target cryptocurrency holders. SUPPORTED CRYPTOCURRENCIES 39% of wallets
providers ofer the ability for users to store more than one cryptocurrency in the same wallet,
and 19% allow users to store more than three cryptocurrencies. The vast majority of wallets
support bitcoin
. Litecoin, ether and dogecoin are the next three most commonly supported cryptocurrencies.
Wallets contnue to support more and more diferent cryptocurrencies: 31% of wallets that
currently only support storing a single cryptocurrency indicate that their current roadmap
includes ofering support for more cryptocurrencies. 78% of mult-cryptocurrency wallets plan
to also add more cryptocurrencies to their current ofering.
REGULATION AND COMPLIANCE
In contrast with exchanges and frms designated as money transfer operators, the compliance
requirements for the cryptocurrency storage functon performed by wallets are less clear. The
fact that wallet providers are ofen operatng globally, which again contrasts with exchanges

and money transfer operators which tend to limit services to partcular jurisdictons, further
muddies the wallet compliance waters. For example, if cryptocurrencies are legally
considered to be ‘money’, does that require companies providing basic cryptocurrency
storage services to be compliant with existng banking regulaton, or does this only apply to
wallet providers that take custody of user funds and/or provide integrated currency exchange
services? LICENSE 24% of incorporated wallets have a formal license from a regulatory
authority, and all of them are wallet providers that ofer natonal-to-cryptocurrency exchange
services
25% of wallets providing centralised natonal-tocryptocurrency exchange services do not

have a government license .
76% of incorporated wallet providers do not have a license . 75% of wallets providing
centralised natonal-to-cryptocurrency exchange services have a license License No license
License No license Wallets Ofering Centralised Natonal-To-Cryptocurrency Exchange
Services Incorporated Wallet Providers 63 Global Cryptocurrency Benchmarking Study
Wallets Providing Centralised Natonal-To-Cryptocurrency Exchange Services % of Wallets
Performing KYC/AML Checks Using the Listed Methods . Large wallets providing
centralised natonal-to-cryptocurrency exchange services have more than 4x higher
compliance headcount and cost than small wallets COMPLIANCE PROGRAMS 78% of
incorporated storage-only wallets do not perform any user compliance, but 80% of wallets
providing currency exchange services do. However, it is important to make a distncton
between the compliance requirements (or lack thereof) for the three types of currency
exchange models used by wallet providers as discussed above. All wallets that provide
centralised natonal-to-cryptocurrency exchange services (i.e., directly executng currency
exchange) have a compliance program. In the case of wallets that integrate a third-party
exchange, the third-party exchange may be responsible for user verifcaton and compliance
requirements, while there is no clear legal framework that applies to wallets with built-in P2P
exchange services as trades are happening directly between users. As a result, these wallets
generally have less compliance programs than wallets providing centralised exchange
services.
COMPLIANCE HEADCOUNT AND COST

There are diferences with regards to the compliance programs of small and large wallets
providing centralised natonal-tocryptocurrency exchange services. Large wallet providers
have more than four tmes the headcount and cost associated with compliance than small
wallets.
All wallets providing centralised natonal-to-cryptocurrency exchange services perform KYC

and AML checks.11 The preferred KYC and AML method are internal checks, which are in
some cases complemented with traditonal thirdparty KYC/AML service providers.
Third-party blockchain analytcs specialists are only used by 17% of wallets performing
KYC/AML checks. All small wallets performing KYC/AML checks only do so internally.
Compliance programs are observed at all wallets ofering centralised natonalto-cryptocurrency
exchange services, and less ofen at wallets with P2P or third-party exchange services Small
wallets Large wallets 4% 5% 18% 23% Average compliance headcount Average compliance
cost .
KYC/AML checks are predominantly performed internally by wallet providers Third-party

blockchain analytcs specialist Traditonal third-party KYC/AML service provider Internally
performed 64 Wallets.
CURRENT REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT
In terms of the percepton of existng regulatons, over 40% of wallet providers indicate they
perceive no existng regulatons specifc to their actvites and that they are not needed, while
only 12% of all wallets see the lack of specifc regulatons as problematc and believe they are
needed (Figure 56). Almost 30% of wallets deem the existng regulatory environment to be
adequate and appropriate. When breaking down the views of wallet service providers on
regulaton by wallet actvity, it turns out that half of wallets that provide natonal currency
exchange services believe that regulaton is adequate, while the percepton of the other half is
divided between ‘excessive’ and ‘not needed’. An interestng observaton is that 50% of large
wallets deem the current regulatory environment excessive and too strict, while 46% of small
wallets perceive no specifc existng regulatons and state that they are not needed. No wallet
provider selected the optons "Cryptocurrencies are illegal in my country" and "Regulaton is
too relaxed". Not a single North American wallet provider thinks that existng regulatons are
adequate and appropriate, but 57% of European wallet services and 20% of Asian-Pacifc
wallets appear to be satsfed with the current level of regulaton . On the opposite end of the

spectrum, 40% of North American wallet services perceive existng regulatons to be excessive
and too strict, a sentment that is only shared by 14% of European providers .
However, also 40% of North American wallets perceive no existng regulatons that
specifcally apply to them (and indicate that they are not needed) – as do 60% of wallets from
Asia-Pacifc (Figure 59). No European wallets perceive a lack of existng regulatons and
advocate for more regulatory clarity, but 20% of both Asian-Pacifc and North American
wallet providers do .
Overall, responses suggest that the majority of wallet providers based in Europe and Asia-
Pacifc are satsfed with the existng regulatory environment (or the lack thereof), but that
North American wallet providers are divided in how they perceive existng regulatons.

DATA INTERPRETATION & ANALYSIS
92 % people are aware about cryptocurrency.
75 % people anticipate that yes cryptocurrency in future may be a risky investment and
shall collapse

67.9 % people want cryptocurrency of central banks which is properly regularized and
have government guidelines which would provide a safe investment for
cryptocurrency.C
75% want cryptocurrency in India. While 14.3 % don’t want because of its risky
nature.

Keeping in mind the operational charges fees of cryptocurrency which is comparatively
low , respondents are ready to invest in cryptocurrency in high numbers i.e 75%
Since cryptocurrency is in intangible form and has no validity in India. Respondents

feel that it is the main reason the lowers or diminishes its value.

Respondents feel more safer while investing in cryptocurrency in India . Maybe due to
its high returns people are turning towards cryptocurrency
Since 2016, cryptocurrency has shown downward fall in its price . Respondents have
voted for a more fall in cryptocurrency.

CONCLUSION
Obstacles
Cryptocurrencies such as BitCoin still have numerous significant obstacles to overcome
before they could totally replace current currency systems. The most immediate is the simple
opposition from existing financial institutions, which wield great power and have incentives
to discourage the proliferation of cryptocurrencies . Other large corporations, even when
amenable to the idea of cryptocurrencies, do not currently consider them stable enough to
keep as assets for long periods of time .
In addition to battling the current economic system, cryptocurrencies have some internal
challenges to overcome. Attempting to convert the entire world financial system to the
BitCoin model, for example, could cause such a massive growth in blockchain size that the
distributed ledger model would become impractical [3]. It is also still unclear whether
blockchain technology could be successfully adapted to use cases which require very high
speeds with high volumes (on the order of seconds instead of hours), and would be poorly
suited for any application which required some degree of reversibility . Finally, because of
the substantial energy costs and diminished rewards over time associated with the "mining"
process, users may eventually be forced to bear increasingly high and unreasonable
transaction costs .
Short-term (3-5 years)

Increasing Efficiency in the Financial Industry
Since the 2008 financial crisis, large banks are increasingly feeling pressure to increase
efficiency and cut costs wherever possible .To that end, a May 2016 report from Goldman
Sachs estimates that the financial industry alone could realize up to $6 billion/year in savings
through use of blockchain technology. However, this would not necessarily include
decentralized cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, but may involve the creation of new
proprietary centralized cryptocurrencies (such as the Bank of England’s newly introduced RS
Coin).
The introduction of cryptocurrencies may also lead to increased levels of transparency and
few incidents of fraud. Under current systems, the correct identification of fraud is very
manual-labor intensive and prone to error . However, cryptocurrencies are designed to be
explicitly transparent and automatically detect fraud, greatly alleviating the costs associated
with managing associated systems .

Emerging Markets
Because cryptocurrencies require only an Internet connection, and are not dependent on
established institutions such as banks, they are ideally suited for societies without a well-
developed financial infrastructure . As with how many individuals emerging markets skipped
over landlines and went straight for mobile phones, the same individuals may skip the
overhead of the traditional banking system and engage directly in mobile banking . For these
reasons, we expect cryptocurrencies to become a major influence in emerging markets over
the next 3-5 years .
Long-term (5-10 years)

Financial Market Disruption
Within the cryptocurrency community, one of the most popularized goals is the total
replacement of banks and other centralized financial intermediaries. Although such
institutions may never be fully replaced by a democratized network, their role (and associated
profitability) may steadily diminish with rise of cryptocurrencies, hopefully leading to the
prevention of future financial catastrophes on the scale of the 2008 crisis .
IoT Integration
Although cryptocurrencies have the possibility to replace functions of the existing financial
infrastructure, their greatest potential may be in incorporating with other technologies to
facilitate a true revolution .The blockchain model is ideally suited for Internet of Things (IoT)
transactions, which require both efficient simplicity and robust security . For example,
imagine if every time you needed to fill up a car with gas, your car could pay the gas station
automatically.
Expanding Industries
In addition to revolutionizing the financial system, the blockchain technology of underlying
cryptocurrencies has the potential to expand across nearly any industry that involves large-
scale record-keeping.
Blockchain could be a massive boon to proponents of effective protection of intellectual

property rights, such as with music and film. New companies such as Ascribe are pioneering
methods for creating secure limited copies of digital media, in order to ensure that artists are
properly compensated for their work, instead of being financial damaged by pirates . Other
examples include the growing "Sharing Economy" (including AirBnB) which can use

blockchain to ease identity and reputation management, and "Smart Grid" utility companies
which could use blockchain to introduce efficient microtransactions for energy consumption .
Far Future (10+ years)

In the very far future, global and democratized cryptocurrencies have the potential to replace
government-backed fiat currencies as the primary means of conducting financial transactions.
With that end in mind, Microsoft has also begun facilitating large-scale simulation tests on
behalf of banks and other large corporations interested in understanding the potential
ramifications for such a large-scale shift in the global economy.

RECOMMENDATIONS
 India must lift the ban on cryptocurrency.

 A proper Parliamentary Committee must be formed in the
parliament consisting members from RBI, SEBI &
Economics field.
 A parliamenmtary law must be passed setting guidelines.
This will eliminate the fraud in crytocurrency.
 Also , a regulatory body for cryptocurrency must be formed.
 And also with regards to technology , India must upgrade .
Since cryptocurrency requires large data storage.

BIBLOGRAPHY
 https://blockgeeks.com/guides/what-is-cryptocurrency/
 http://www.moneycontrol.com/cryptocurrency/
 https://cointelegraph.com/tags/cryptocurrencies
 https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cryptocurrency.asp
 https://www.coinmama.com/buy
 https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/bitcoin.html
 https://bitcoin.org/en/

ANNEXURE
 Do you know about cryptocurrency ?

 Whcih companies have you heard relating to cryptocurrency ?
 Do you anticipate a cryptocurrency "CRASH" or "BUBBLE
BURST" ?
 In your opinion , shall sovereign or central banks have their own
cryptocurrency ?
 What is the level of risk in cryptocurrency ?
 Shall cryptocurrency made legal in India?
 Unlike other currencies, cryptocurrency requires much less fees to
operate. Would this increase your interest in using cryptocurrency?
 Cryptocurrency has no tangible form. Does that diminish the value
that you perceive about the currency?
 If cryptocurrency providers created tangible coins (or notes) for
cryptocurrency users with banks and ATMs readily available but
remained non-government regulated, would this increase your
interest in cryptocurrency?
 In your opinion , what is risky ; investing in stock markets or
cryptocurrency ?
 In 5 years , do you think cryptocurrency will be worth more or less
than today?

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A PROJECT REPORT ON

CRYPTOCURRENCY – THE FUTURE

Name of the Project Guide

Prof. SOUMIK CHATTAPADHYAY

MSG-SGKM College of Arts, Science & Commerce, Ghatkopar (E)

ACADEMIC YEAR “2018- 2019”

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 1

This is to certify that Mr. RAJNISH RAJESHKUMAR SINGH

The project was completed successfully under the guidance of

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 2

I, Mr .RAJNISH RAJESHKUMAR SINGH

in the academic year 2018 - 2019.

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 3

I have a great pleasure in preparing my project report on

I sincerely thank with deep sense of gratitude to Prof. SOUMIK

I am highly indebted to our honourable principal who took keen

I would like to thank our seniors, librarians who sincerely helped me

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 4

Sr.No. Content PAGE NO.

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 5

The decentralized control of each cryptocurrency works through distributed

Founded as a peer-to-peer electronic payment system, cryptocurrencies enable transfer of

Cryptocurrency is fundamentally a decentralised digital currency transferred directly between

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 6

A cryptocurrency is a medium of exchange like normal currencies such as USD,

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 7

According to Jan Lansky, a cryptocurrency is a system that meets six conditions:

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 8

In 1983, the American cryptographer David Chaum conceived an anonymous

In 1998, Wei Dai published a description of "b-money", characterized as an

The first decentralized cryptocurrency, bitcoin, was created in 2009

On 6 August 2014, the UK announced its Treasury had been commissioned to do a

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 9

Decentralized cryptocurrency is produced by the entire cryptocurrency system

As of May 2018, over 1,800 cryptocurrency specifications existed. Within a

Most cryptocurrencies are designed to gradually decrease production of that

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 10

The validity of each cryptocurrency's coins is provided by a blockchain. A

Blockchains are secure by design and are an example of a distributed computing

Blockchain is a public ledger, an ordered and time-stamped record of transactions.

Blockchain transforms Internet of Information to Internet of Value:

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 11

Internet is going to transform from Internet of Information to Internet of Value.

India’s Position in Blockchain Technology:

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 12

India’s global positioning as a technology powerhouse: Different emerging technologies,

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 13

Cryptocurrencies use various timestamping schemes to "prove" the validity of

Some other hashing algorithms that are used for proof-of-work

The proof-of-stake is a method of securing a cryptocurrency network and achieving

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 14

In cryptocurrency networks, mining is a validation of transactions. For this effort,

As of February 2018, the Chinese Government halted trading of virtual currency,

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 15

GPU price rise

An increase in cryptocurrency mining increased the demand of graphics

Bitcoin is pseudonymous rather than anonymous in that the cryptocurrency within

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 16

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 17

Initial coin offerings

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, four of the 10 biggest proposed initial coin offerings

MSG SGKM COLLEGE OF ARTS, SCIENCE & COMMERCE Page 18