Cryptocurrency Hashing
Each crypto-currency uses its particular algorithm for encryption. It’s that the mining equipment decrypts, ensuring blockchain working, processing transactions, and collecting rewards in the form of a specific cryptocurrency’s coins. Without further ado, let’s immerse ourselves in the world of crypto hash functions.
What Does Hashing Algorithm Means
Cryptocurrency algorithms are a set of specific mechanisms and rules for encrypting a digital currency. Miners use special equipment decode a specific crypto-currency algorithm. That process involves finding a hash.
If the correct hash is found, a new block will be created in the blockchain which will store transaction information, the hash of the previous block, the sum the miner receives, etc.
The decryption process (or coin mining) transforms a set of random data into ordered, systematic information, which is then registered in the blockchain. There are several dozen algorithms for crypto-currency today.
What is a Bitcoin hash and SHA-256
SHA-256 is a stable algorithm for encryption that has become popular due to the Bitcoin code. The SHA abbreviation is the Secure Hash Algorithm, and 256 means that a 256-bit hash is created by the cryptocurrency algorithm , i.e. a 256-bit string. The hash rate for Cryptocurrencies based on SHA-256 is measured in Gigahash units per second (GH / s). Creation of a block takes six to ten minutes.
In 2001 the United States National Security Agency invented the algorithm SHA-256. This is part of algorithm family SHA. Now, it is the only cryptocurrency algorithm from this family that passed the test of resistance to such types of attacks as collision detection and inverse image detection, which has a decisive solution based on this algorithm for the security of cryptocurrencies.
SHA-256 is still commonly used in several other systems , in addition to cryptocurrencies. Security protocols like TLS, SSL, PGP, SSH, based on SHA-256.
In 2009, when only a few people knew Bitcoin, ordinary computers were used for mining which used a central processor to perform calculations. They later started using more potent graphics processors. Yet Bitcoin ‘s success is immense now. The use of ASIC miners, special instruments with high computing power, has become lucrative in economic terms.
Equihash
Equihash is an anonymous algorithm for crypto-currency released in 2016. Zcash was the first crypto-currency to use Equihash as its basis. It takes 150 seconds to build the blocks, and hash is calculated in Megahash per second (MH / s).
This crypto-currency algorithm was developed by researchers at the University of Luxembourg, Alex Biryukov and Dmitry Khovratovich, who are part of the research group CryptoLUX. The architecture was introduced at a full circle in 2016.
