The bitcoin network is a peer-to-peer payment network that operates on a cryptographic protocol. Users send and receive bitcoins, the units of currency, by broadcasting digitally signed messages to the network using bitcoin cryptocurrency wallet software. Transactions are recorded into a distributed, replicated public database known as the blockchain, with consensus achieved by a proof-of-work system called mining. Satoshi Nakamoto, the designer of bitcoin claimed that design and coding of bitcoin began in 2007. The project was released in 2009 as open source software. The network requires the minimal structure to share transactions. An ad hoc decentralized network of volunteers is sufficient. Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will. Upon reconnection, a node downloads and verifies new blocks from other nodes to complete its local copy of the blockchain. A bitcoin is defined by a sequence of digitally signed transactions that began with the bitcoin's creation, as a block reward. The owner of a bitcoin transfers it by digitally signing it over to the next owner using a bitcoin transaction, much like endorsing a traditional bank check. A payee can examine each previous transaction to verify the chain of ownership. Unlike traditional check endorsements, bitcoin transactions are irreversible, which eliminates the risk of chargeback fraud. Although it is possible to handle bitcoins individually, it would be unwieldy to require a separate transaction for every bitcoin in a transaction. Transactions are therefore allowed to contain multiple inputs and outputs, allowing bitcoins to be split and combined. Common transactions will have either a single input from a larger previous transaction or multiple inputs combining smaller amounts, and one or two outputs: one for the payment, and one returning the change, if any, to the sender. Any difference between the total input and output amounts of a transaction goes to miners as a transaction fee. In 2013, Mark Gimein estimated electricity consumption to be about 40.9 megawatts (982 megawatt-hours a day). In 2014, Hass McCook estimated 80.7 megawatts (80,666 kW). As of 2015, The Economist estimated that even if all miners used modern facilities, the combined electricity consumption would be 166.7 megawatts (1.46 terawatt-hours per year). To lower the costs, bitcoin miners have set up in places like Iceland where geothermal energy is cheap and cooling Arctic air is free. Chinese bitcoin miners are known to use hydroelectric power in Tibet to reduce electricity costs. Various potential attacks on the bitcoin network and its use as a payment system, real or theoretical, have been considered. The bitcoin protocol includes several features that protect it against some of those attacks, such as unauthorized spending, double spending, forging bitcoins, and tampering with the blockchain. Other attacks, such as theft of private keys, require due care by users.
Cosmochain is a complementary Company-to-Consumer platform that connects cosmetics product users and content creators to cosmetics product suppliers, including cosmetics companies, OEM/ODM manufacturers, R&D centers, and distributors. Through this platform, the Cosmochain Team aims to solve the aforementioned unmet needs of both companies and customers. All data collected from platform participants are kept confidential in this customer-centered ecosystem. Those who contribute their scarce time and attention toward producing and curating contents for others are compensated with tokens and receive pro-rata ownership of the contents they create. On the other hand, cosmetics product suppliers are able to actualize a wide variety of “on-demand” services on the platform by utilizing API that Cosmochain provides. Two different tokens and one internal virtual index make up the Cosmochain ecosystem: 1) The first token is an externally traded token called Cosmo Coin, 2) The second token as well as an index of contribution to the platform is Cosmo Power, which can be used to make payment within the platform and given out as rewards for activities, and 3) The one virtual index is called Cosmo Level. Cosmo Level, a reputation index, is designed to prevent abuse of power within the platform and can only be accumulated by actual activities and contribution. Having been assigned distinct roles within the Cosmochain platform, these three entities construct a healthy ecosystem. ● The success of the Cosmochain platform lies in the active participation of users – where customers create reliable data after trying out various cosmetics products and sharing the experience with one another on the platform. As a result, Cosmochain has designed its own transparent and fair reward system based on Steemit’s incentive model. ● The Cosmochain platform connects this user-created data to interested company participants and distributes the payment made by the company to customers as reward for use of the information. Through this reward system, Cosmochain aims to address two structural issues of social media-based platforms: 1) risk of inflation following the necessity of a long-term and great quantity of token issuance to grow the community, and 2) risk of decreasing attractiveness of contribution rewards after the inflation rate has been stabilized. ● In addition, the Cosmochain platform aims to realize an upgraded tokenization model that brings the power back to its users by redistributing the following: (i) the right to display ads in a user’s viewing space, (ii) the right to access a personally curated Marketplace, and (iii) the right to share personal data to partake in a study or survey. Simply speaking, the Cosmochain platform will go beyond simply allowing users to share onedimensional personal information. As such, Cosmochain serves the purpose of revolutionizing the cosmetics industry’s ecosystem by redistributing ownership and management authority of personal cosmetics data and contents to those in need, and through operations of transparent rewarding system for the redistribution of data.