Cryptocurrency[1] (also translated as cryptographic currency, cryptocurrency) is a transaction medium that uses cryptographic principles to ensure transaction security and control the creation of transaction units. [2]
Just as ordinary paper money requires anti-counterfeiting design, the anti-counterfeiting of cryptocurrency is to use digital currency and virtual currency to use cryptography and digital hashing and bind to smart contracts. Bitcoin became the world's first decentralized cryptocurrency in 2009, and since then the term cryptocurrency has mostly referred to this type of design. [3] Since then, several similar cryptocurrencies have been created, which are usually called altcoins. [4][5][6] Cryptocurrency is based on a decentralized consensus mechanism[7], in contrast to the banking and financial system that relies on a centralized regulatory system. [8]

The decentralized nature comes from the blockchain technology that uses a distributed ledger.