A Collective Investment Scheme is a way of investing money with other people to participate in a wider range of investments than may be feasable for a individual investor and to share the costs of doing so. Generic Information – Structure Constitution and Terminology Collective investment schemes may be formed under company law, by legal trust or by statute. The nature…
Strong cryptography or cryptographically strong are general terms applied cryptographic systems or components that are considered highly resistant to cryptanalysis. Demonstrating the resistance of any cryptographic scheme to attack is a complex matter, requiring extensive testing and reviews, preferably in a public forum. Good algorithms and protocols are required, and good system design and implementation is needed as well. For instance,…
A cryptocurrency wallet is a digital wallet which holds the private keys of your cryptocurrency. There are over a thousand cryptocurrencies, but the first and best known is bitcoin. Some wallets support multiple cryptocurrencies. The cryptocurrency itself is not ‘in’ the wallet. In the case of bitcoin a copy of the total amount of that cryptocurrency is decentrally stored and maintained in…
Private equity is a broad term that refers to any type of equity investment in an asset in which the equity is not freely tradable on a public stock market. Categories of private equity investment include leveraged buyouts, venture capital, growth capital, angel investing, mezzanine capital and others. Private equity firms Private equity broadly refers to investments by funds organized to aquire securities that are not publicly…
A bond or debenture is a debt instrument that obligates the issuer to pay to the bondholder the principal plus interest. Thus, a bond is essentially an I.O.U. issued by a private or governmental corporation — that corporation “borrows” the face amount of the bond from its buyer, pays interest on that debt while it is outstanding, and then “redeems” the bond…
A Proof-of-work (“POW”) system (or protocol, or function) is an economic measure to deter denial of service attacks and other service abuses such as spams on a network by requiring some work from the service requester, usually meaning processing time by a computer. A key feature of these schemes is their dissymmetry: the work must be moderately hard (hard but feasible)…
Bitcoin provides a number of solutions to the problem of creating a decentralized currency and payment network. Key among them is the use of a block chain to achieve consensus and to solve the double-spending problem. The network timestamps transactions by including them blocks that form an ongoing chain called the block chain. Such blocks cannot be changed without…
Exchange-traded funds (or ETFs) are a type of mutual fund. Essentially, ETFs are mutual funds that trade on the stock market. As such, they offer features of a mutual fund in a stock-like instrument. Just like mutual funds, ETFs represent a collection of underlying securities or stocks. Typically, ETFs try to replicate an index such as the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Russell 2000, MSCI EAFE, and so on….
Cryptanalysis (from the Greek kryptós and analýein, “to loosen” or “to untie”) is the study of methods for reading encrypted information without knowing the secret key. In non-technical language, this is the practice of codebreaking or cracking the code, although these phrases also have a specialised technical meaning (see code). “Cryptanalysis” is also used to refer to any attempt to circumvent the security of other types of cryptographic algorithms and protocols in…
A stock, also referred to as a share, is commonly a share of ownership in a corporation. History The first company that issued shares is considered to be the Stora Kopparberg, in the 13th century. Ownership The owners and financial backers of a company may want additional capital to invest in new projects within the company. If they were to sell…