{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-blogpost-tsx","path":"/blog/coins-and-tokens","result":{"pageContext":{"isCreatedByStatefulCreatePages":false,"id":"e1c7e509-c45e-5a81-9d38-c22a68adb712","title":"Coins and tokens - can you spot the difference?","slug":"coins-and-tokens","published":"2020-02-26T00:00:00.000Z","author":"Gemma Doswell","content":"Although the terms are often used interchangeably, crypto coins and crypto tokens are in fact not the same. Both are decentralised and based on blockchain technology, but coins and tokens have different functions. They, therefore, reside in different spaces of the digital finance market.\n\n## So what is Bitcoin?\n\n[Bitcoin](https://www.paybase.io/blog/crypto-intro) was the first and most popularised cryptocurrency. It is a coin - its function is a store of value and it can be used, similar to fiat money, to pay for things. Like Bitcoin, crypto coins all exist on their own individual blockchains and it is on these that all coin transactions can be recorded. More examples of crypto coins are Litecoin, Monero, Stellar and Namecoin.\n\nThe [European Central Bank](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemesen.pdf) described virtual currencies as “digital money in an unregulated environment, issued and controlled by its developers and used as a payment method among members of a specific virtual community.” As on the Bitcoin blockchain, the exchange of crypto coins is maintained and authorised democratically by the network (or [nodes](https://www.paybase.io/blog/crypto-jargon)) on each blockchain.\n\nCoins have all of the six following properties:\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/coin-properties.png)\n\n## Why not just use traditional money?\n\nThere are copious reasons why people opt to use crypto coins. The most obvious is to attempt to make money. Over the past decade, the value of certain high-profile currencies (namely Bitcoin) has fluctuated so much that the value of one unit has gone from fractions of a penny to over £18,000. But investment in crypto coins is only the start.\n\nAnother popular use case is anonymity. Coins like Monero offer near-untraceable, anonymous transactions, boasting resilient security and high levels of privacy - and this has gained it a loyal user-base. Further use cases include security, censorship resistance and international remittances.\n\n## What is a token?\n\nA token is more like an asset. In the same way that Virgin air miles can only be used with Virgin, a crypto token sits on a blockchain (or a [dApp](https://www.paybase.io/blog/crypto-jargon) built on a blockchain) and can only be used to power services within that ecosystem. [CoinTelegraph](https://cointelegraph.com/ico-101/what-is-an-ico-token-and-how-does-it-work) explained, “If it's a fashion startup, one token can be equal to one dress or a yearly license of a software in the case of a hi-tech startup. You even can issue tokens of yourself and a token holder will be able to buy an hour of your work with the token.”\n\nTheoretically, anything in the world can be tokenised. Examples of prominent tokens are Tether, Waves and ERC-20.\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/token-properties.png)\n\n## Where does that leave Ethereum?\n\nJust to be confusing, the Ethereum blockchain combines both coins and tokens.\n\nIt is made up of Ether (ETH) coins and ERC-20 tokens. How could this be? Ether is used to fuel the transactions on the Ethereum blockchain and ERC-20 tokens fuel Ethereum’s main use case.\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/ethereum-exchange.png)\n\nUsing these tokens, the Ethereum blockchain enables developers to build their own decentralised apps. Tokens that are built on the Ethereum blockchain enable developers both to utilise smart contract technology and they also maintain a consistent technical standard for all dApps created.\n\nWant to find out more about the blockchain basics? Take a look at our latest blogs [here](https://www.paybase.io/blog).","excerpt":"Although the terms are often used interchangeably, crypto coins and crypto tokens are in fact not the same. Both are decentralised and based on blockchain technology, but coins and tokens have different functions. They, therefore, reside in different...","cover":{"src":"https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/coins-centred.jpg","alt":"need one"},"link":{"to":"/blog/coins-and-tokens","copy":"Read more"},"tags":["Blockchain","Cryptocurrency","Digital Currency"],"related":[{"id":"830648dc-8787-584e-a2ed-41e641fec742","title":"Crypto: why so cryptic?","slug":"crypto-intro","published":"2020-01-13T00:00:00.000Z","author":"Gemma Doswell","content":"It’s been over a decade since Satoshi Nakamoto released his anonymous whitepaper for Bitcoin. Since then, the cryptocurrency space has been on a fast and furious journey: from the (at the time of writing) £64 million pizza order to the £15,000 BTC bubble to the hundreds of modern and innovative use cases we have today.\n\nThe industry’s potential for disruption is unquestionable, but whilst the asset remains unregulated, widespread understanding of crypto is low.\n\nAt Paybase, we pride ourselves on supporting cryptocurrency businesses and making their fiat transactions smooth and secure. We believe that education is an important step towards opening the industry for more mainstream use so, let’s start from the beginning - what is crypto, how does it work and what’s all the fuss about?\n\n## First things first…\n\nBefore we get into the gritty details, here is a quick glance at the journey of cryptocurrency from 2008 to today.\n\n![crypto-history](/blog/crypto/1.svg)\n\n## What is crypto\n\nCryptocurrencies are digital currencies. In the simplest terms, they are similar to traditional (fiat) currencies like pounds, euros or dollars but they exist only digitally and are not backed by government. They are instead decentralised. Fiat money is furthermore characterised by central banks defining monetary policy whereas crypto typically has a predefined monetary policy that is enforced by the network. The first and most famous digital currency was Bitcoin (BTC). At the time of writing, 1 BTC is worth £6403.57.\n\nOne of the main differences between cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies is that crypto (for the most part) is decentralised. This is part of the reason that regulation has been an obstacle - government issues and controls the production of fiat but cryptocurrency was intended to be more democratic. It is therefore managed and secured as such by an open network of computers on each blockchain.\n\nThe value of cryptocurrency, as with most currencies, is based on supply and demand. This is part of the reason for its volatility. Bitcoin, in particular, is often characterised by its value fluctuations. [Investopedia](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/052014/why-bitcoins-value-so-volatile.asp) explained, “Bitcoin is capable of volatility in the form of 10x changes in price versus the U.S. dollar, in a relatively short period of time.” There are two main causes for this:\n\n- There is a finite number of bitcoins\n\n- Geopolitical events and headlines that cause panic or hype\n\n## Popular digital currencies\n\nTo date, there are over 2000 cryptocurrencies and tokens. Not all of these are live but it demonstrates the fast growth of the industry in just over a decade.\n\nCurrently, the top digital currencies are:\n\n![crypto-table](/blog/crypto/2.svg)\n\n## How is crypto produced?\n\nTo create a cryptocurrency (as opposed to a token - which we will cover later in this blog series), you need to build a blockchain on which the crypto can be recorded. Blockchain technology was created to support cryptocurrency transactions. The first blockchain was the Bitcoin blockchain which was created by the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. We’ll briefly explain how the Bitcoin blockchain works below but be aware that there are many many blockchains all built with different mechanics (e.g. [Ripple](https://www.ripple.com/xrp/) or [Ethereum](https://www.ethereum.org/)).\n\nBitcoins can either be bought from a seller or mined - and this is where it gets complicated. Cryptocurrency mining [“is the process of validating other people’s transactions with a computer and then adding them to the long, public list of all transactions known as the blockchain.”](https://www.coinbase.com/learn/what-is-cryptocurrency-mining) Anyone can be a miner. As a bounty for validating transactions, miners are rewarded with newly-created crypto; however, mining is no small feat.\n\nMining requires a huge amount of time, knowledge and computing power. Finance resource, [The Balance](https://www.thebalance.com/how-much-power-does-the-bitcoin-network-use-391280) reported that Bitcoin mining alone takes up 1% of the entire world’s energy consumption! There are five main steps to Bitcoin mining:\n\n![crypto-mining](/blog/crypto/3.svg)\n\n## Crypto at Paybase\n\nAt Paybase, we offer an end-to-end payments solution to cryptocurrency businesses, enabling smooth, speedy and secure fiat-crypto interoperability as well as full regulatory cover. We recognise the industry’s disruptive potential and have embraced what it has to offer. If you are a cryptocurrency business or exchange looking for a payments provider, [get in touch](https://paybase.io/#get-in-touch) today to find out how we can help you grow your business. Or if you want to know more about Paybase, scroll below to sign up to our mailing list for the latest industry news, events and Paybase updates.","excerpt":"It’s been over a decade since Satoshi Nakamoto released his anonymous whitepaper for Bitcoin. Since then, the cryptocurrency space has been on a fast and furious journey: from the (at the time of writing) £64 million pizza order to the £15,000 BTC bu...","cover":{"src":"https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/coins.jpg","alt":"need one"},"link":{"to":"/blog/crypto-intro","copy":"Read more"},"tags":["Blockchain","Cryptocurrency","Digital Currency"]},{"id":"96dc3538-bc6b-5a28-ae10-745ca3ee004b","title":"The A to Z of crypto jargon","slug":"crypto-jargon","published":"2020-01-31T00:00:00.000Z","author":"Gemma Doswell","content":"FUD, HODL, dApps and more - what does it all mean? There’s a lot of jargon in the cryptocurrency industry, and it’s difficult to make head and tail of it all. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of terms, early pioneers of the crypto industry and acronyms that will help you begin to make your way through the confusion.\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/crypto-jargon.png)","excerpt":"FUD, HODL, dApps and more - what does it all mean? There’s a lot of jargon in the cryptocurrency industry, and it’s difficult to make head and tail of it all. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of terms, early pioneers of the crypto industry and acr...","cover":{"src":"https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/spelling-blocks.jpg","alt":"need one"},"link":{"to":"/blog/crypto-jargon","copy":"Read more"},"tags":["Cryptocurrency","Digital Currency","Payments"]},{"id":"ab52ac81-b0c2-5f8a-afe2-ff24583881eb","title":"#EachForEqual","slug":"international-womens-day","published":"2020-03-06T00:00:00.000Z","author":"Gemma Doswell","content":"On Sunday 8th March, we’ll be celebrating International Women’s Day, a day that celebrates women’s (aplenty) achievements, raises awareness about gender inequality and encourages us to take action against bias. So of course, at Paybase, it’s something that we firmly stand behind.\n\nThe theme this year is #EachforEqual - because an equal world is an enabled world. In the context of tech, this is especially important. [PWC](https://www.pwc.co.uk/who-we-are/women-in-technology/time-to-close-the-gender-gap.html) found in 2017 that just 3% of women said that a career in technology was their first choice and that 78% of students were unable to name a famous woman working in technology. In 2018, [Tech Nation](https://technation.io/insights/diversity-and-inclusion-in-uk-tech-companies/) found that just 22% of tech directors were women and an even lower 19% of tech workers were female despite the statistic of female workers in the UK being 49%.\n\nBut [\"we can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women's achievements.\"](https://www.internationalwomensday.com/Theme) For those of us working in tech, in particular those of us in leadership roles, we can endeavour to create a culture of diversity and to champion equality within the workspaces that we inhabit.\n\n## What can be done?\n\n[In 2018](https://www.wisecampaign.org.uk/statistics/core-stem-graduates-2018/), the portion of female graduates in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) was just 9%. A [UCAS](https://www.stemwomen.co.uk/blog/2019/09/women-in-stem-percentages-of-women-in-stem-statistics) study furthermore found that specifically in computer science, engineering and technology, the fields \"show the largest gender imbalances from current students, to graduates and the workforce figures\". The figures decrease as the candidates progress through each stage, demonstrating that retention is also a problem in the STEM space.\n\nTo address this, three steps that can be taken are:\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/iwd-steps.png)\n\n## The women of Paybase\n\nAt Paybase, we’re proud to maintain a good gender balance in our senior management team, confronting head-on the traditional lack of women in leadership roles in the FinTech space. We asked some of our team about why a gender balance at work was important to them and how they thought it could impact overall experience.\n\nWe spoke to our Product Designer Ella who works closely with the tech team. She said, *\"I think if you are the only woman in a tech team, the amount of emotional labour expected of you can be high. The men (I think subconsciously) can try and seek more emotional support/guidance from you which makes establishing boundaries difficult.\"* She continued, *\"I also feel the level of scrutiny of your work can be higher because you stand out more as a woman in that environment. Even within the best intended teams, it’s hard to remove our own bias.\"*\n\n*\"The personality traits of men and women are vastly different,\"* Head of Growth, Jessy told us. *\"And any organisation benefits from having a bit of both to balance their culture. I’ve generally found the following characteristics to be common in the female colleagues that I’ve worked with*:\n\n* *a stronger tendency to pay attention to detail*\n\n* *a strong ability to multitask*\n\n* *high levels of empathy\"*\n\nFor me (Gemma, Content Manager), I’ve found that a gender mix works better than a single-gendered organisation. I’ve worked with all women and with mostly male-led businesses and both felt like they lacked balance. But a gender balance isn’t the only ingredient to diversity. Ethnicity, sexuality, socio-economics, experience, age etc. are as important - and I really believe that they need to be a conscious concern of the business to be tackled effectively. It is not enough to hope for diversity to occur and to applaud its coincidence; maintaining (or creating) diversity should be a consideration at the forefront of the recruitment process.\n\nOur Office Manager, Lola, also believes that tackling diversity is best executed with a formal function. *\"I think that companies should work towards having a full diversity function. Sheree Atcheson, who works as the Head of Diversity and Inclusion for Monzo, is a great role model for women in tech. She emphasises the importance of understanding all different types of diversity and making them a priority, not only diversity of gender.\"*\n\nOur Head of Compliance Rachel, former Head of Compliance in Banking Services at Starling Bank, agreed. *\"Gender equality/diversity brings with it greater diversity of thought, which is so important to a) increase relevance to your customers, and b) to provide better problem solving through diversity of experiences. We therefore need to make sure that we think not only about gender, but also about race, age, affluence, educational background, etc. Having visible senior women is also crucial to inspiring future female leaders to enter a career in FinTech and to stay in the sector.\"*\n\nWe then spoke to Anna, our CEO. *“I’ve been lucky in my career so far that the roles that led me to Paybase were all unusually female-first (given the traditionally male-led industries). Working in these female-empowered environments has been a significant advantage, especially in terms of dispelling myths and misconceptions about women working in certain positions in male-led industries. Businesses significantly benefit from varied, healthy dialogue; a gender-balanced workforce at all levels of seniority is crucial to this.”*\n\nFinally, we spoke with Ana, one of our tech team. *“I couldn’t agree more with every single one of the points my colleagues made. On being an outnumbered woman in the Tech Team, as Ella pointed out, it can be difficult from a work scrutiny and emotional labour point of view as well as in terms of varying styles of communication.”* She continued, *“Of course, I understand that this because we all grew up in different societies - and each with meticulously designed boxes of what we should and shouldn’t be - but it’s really important that we feel safe to just speak up. At Paybase I feel I am empowered enough to do just that - to speak up and stand by my views without fear of consequences and hopefully empower others regardless of gender, ethnicity or sexuality to do the same”*\n\n## Say hello to our team\n\n![](https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/iwd-group.png)","excerpt":"On Sunday 8th March, we’ll be celebrating International Women’s Day, a day that celebrates women’s (aplenty) achievements, raises awareness about gender inequality and encourages us to take action against bias. So of course, at Paybase, it’s somethin...","cover":{"src":"https://paybase.imgix.net/blog/iwd-power.jpg","alt":"need one"},"link":{"to":"/blog/international-womens-day","copy":"Read more"},"tags":["International Women’s Day","Women in Tech","Diversity"]}]}}}