Trustless
By CoinGecko | Updated on Mar 03, 2020
A defining aspect of cryptocurrencies is that is it now possible to complete a monetary transaction without need to assume trust in a third party. In traditional finance, a monetary transaction on the internet requires trust in a facilitator such as central banks, commecial banks, agents, or financial service provider without the universal access to audit their ability to faciliate the transaction. Sending money online is more akin to writing a cheque than paying in cash as the issue of decentralization without double spending remains unsolved until the emergence of bitcoin.
When a party makes a transaction with cryptocurrencies, they can verify publically and mathematically that a transaction has been completed. This is in contrast to taking the "transaction completed" notification from a facilitator at face value.
Related Terms
Unspent Transaction Output
(abbv. "UTXO") Coins that are unspent in the wallet. UTXO virtually represents the cryptocurrency one own in the wallet.
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)
Describes the technology that enables distributed ledger.
Interoperability
Interoperability refers to the property of product/systems that are able to work with products/systems that are different without any restrictions.
UTC Time
"Universal Time Coordinated", can be used interchangably with Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
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