Huawei P30 - Rebooting Issue and How to Fix it

What to do if Huawei P30 keeps rebooting randomly

What to do if Huawei P30 keeps rebooting randomly | troubleshoot random reboot issue
If you’re looking for a way to troubleshoot a Huawei P30 that keeps rebooting randomly, this article should help. Be sure to follow the troubleshooting steps below.


#1: Perform soft reset - Huawei P30 keeps rebooting randomly fix 
In our years of using several Huawei flagships, there’s been very little incident of our devices experiencing this problem. But if your current P30 keeps rebooting randomly and you have no idea why, the very first thing that you want to do is to ensure that you restart it. You can do that performing a soft reset. This is basically a simulation of the effects of pulling out the battery since you are unable to physically do that. Restarting a device can sometimes do wonders. Try to do a forced reboot by pressing and holding the Power key for 10 to 15 seconds. If your phone works, it should reboot and you should feel a vibration and see the Huawei logo. In case you do not feel the vibration and the screen is still blank, then simply press and hold the Power Key for more time until you see the device restart itself.

If nothing changes after attempting to reboot the device a few times, you can abandon this troubleshooting and proceed to the next ones below.


#2: Clear cache partition - Huawei P30 keeps rebooting randomly fix 
At times, an Android device can encounter all sorts of bugs due to a bad system cache, which is located in the cache partition. This cache is important as the system uses it to load apps quickly. Sometimes, this cache may get corrupted or outdated and if this occurs, troubles may appear. In most cases, the effect will be slow performance issues but in some, a device may be forced to reboot randomly as well. In order to ensure that your phone has good system cache, you can wipe the cache partition where it’s kept. If you haven’t tried it yet, clearing the cache partition on your device must be done at this point. Here’s how to do it:

With your phone turned off, press and hold both the Volume Up and Power buttons simultaneously for at least 10 seconds.
Let go of the buttons when the Honor logo appears.
Shortly after seeing the logo, the EMUI screen shows up with the recovery mode options.
Press the Volume Down button to scroll to and highlight Wipe cache partition option.
Then press the Power button to confirm selection.
Use the Volume buttons to scroll to and highlight the next options and Power button to confirm selection.


#3: Recalibrate battery and OS - Huawei P30 keeps rebooting randomly fix 
Sometimes, an Android device may reboot on its own if the battery and OS are buggy. Power management system is a complex software environment and sometimes, a glitch may affect the OS in reading battery levels. This can sometimes lead to random reboot troubles. To ensure that this does not happen, especially to a new phone, you want to recalibrate the battery and Operating System. Here’s how it’s done:

Drain the battery completely. This means using your device until it powers down by its own and the battery level reads 0%.
Charge the phone until it reaches 100%. Be sure to use original charging equipment for your device and let it charge up completely. Do not unplug your device for at least two more hours and also don’t use it while charging.
After the elapsed time, unplug your device.
Restart the device.
Use your phone until it completely runs out of power again.
Repeat steps 1-5.


#4: Check for overheating - Huawei P30 keeps rebooting randomly fix 
Though the Huawei P30 sports such powerful hardware, it still can freeze or lag for a number of reasons. One of such possible reasons why it may be rebooting on its own right now can be due to overheating. Overheating can be a result of a software glitch, bad hardware, or both. When a system is overheated, it may not work as intended as the system may slow down due to heat, or because of built-in safeguards to protect itself. Because electronics don’t do well with too much heat, manufacturers design phones to slow down or to turn themselves off when inside temperature has reached a certain level. Sometimes, this sudden slow down may appear as sudden unresponsiveness, freezing, or lagging. If you noticed that your Huawei device has frozen or became unresponsive and it’s becoming uncomfortably warm, it may have overheated. What you want to do in this case to stop the overheating immediately by turning it off. Allow your device to cool off for at least 30 minutes to an hour. After that, use it again and see what happens.

Even powerful phones like Huawei P30 may overheat if used for heavy tasks for a long time. If you’ve been streaming graphics-heavy videos, or playing games for hours at a stretch, your device may be overheating because of that. Allow it to cool down for an hour before you use it again. If Huawei P30 still keeps freezing even when it’s not overheating though, there may be other reasons for it. Continue with the rest of the troubleshooting below.


#5: Update software and apps - Huawei P30 keeps rebooting randomly fix 
Keeping the Operating System and apps up-to-date is an underrated solution for most people. What most Android users don’t realize though is that some problems are not fixable on their end. Some of these apps may have roots deep within the software so only a coding modification can fix them. It is for this reason that you should always install updates for both Android and apps if they are available.


#6: Check for rogue apps - Huawei P30 keeps rebooting randomly fix 
Sometimes, a third party app may cause problems or interfere with the Operating System. Having network troubles due to a bad app is not unheard of in Huawei devices. Restart the phone to safe mode and see if that’s the case. In safe mode, no third party app should be able to run. So, if wifi works normally on safe mode, you can bet a bad third party app is to blame. Here’s how to boot it to safe mode:

Power off the device.
Power it back on.
Once you see the Huawei animation on the screen press and hold Volume Down button.
You can see safe mode at the bottom left corner once the device finishes booting.
Now that the device has started on safe mode, charge it and see if there’s a difference.
Don’t forget: safe mode blocks third party apps but it won’t tell you which of them is the real cause. If you think that there’s a rogue third party app in the system, you must identify it. Here’s what you need to do exactly:

Boot to safe mode.
Check for the problem.
Once you’ve confirmed that a third party app is to blame, you can start uninstalling apps individually. We suggest that you begin with the most recent ones you added.
After you uninstall an app, restart the phone to normal mode and check for the problem.
If your Huawei P30 is still problematic, repeat steps 1-4.


#7: Hard reset your device - Huawei P30 keeps rebooting randomly fix 
If your Huawei P30 still keeps rebooting randomly at this point, you should not hesitate to restore its software settings to their factory defaults. By wiping the phone via factory reset, you will know if the cause of the problem is software-related or not. If there’s an issue with Android, factory reset will likely help.

There are two methods to perform a factory reset on your Huawei P30. You want to do the first one first if there’s no problem going under Settings menu.

Method 1: Hard reset on Huawei P30 via Settings
Wiping your phone with factory reset will automatically erase information from your device’s internal storage. The software environment on your device is basically returned to its original form, just like when it left the factory. This means that everything you added to the device like files, photos, videos, and apps will all be deleted. If you don’t want to lose irreplaceable data, make sure to create a backup ahead of time.

There can be many different reasons why a user may want to factory reset a device. If your situation calls for a Hard reset on Huawei P30  and you are able to access your device’s settings menu, then this first method is for you. It’s easier to do compared to the second one below so this is a go-to method for you.

To perform a Hard reset on Huawei P30 via Settings:
Create a backup of your personal data.
Turn on the device.
Tap Settings.
Tap System.
Choose Reset.
Tap Reset all settings.
Tap Reset all settings.
Confirm the action by tapping on Reset all settings.
Wait for factory reset to finish.
Method 2: Hard reset on Huawei P30 via Recovery Mode

This method is useful in one particular situation: when Settings menu is not accessible. There may be a variety of reasons why Settings menu may become unreachable. In some cases, the device may have simply frozen or unresponsive. At other times, it can be due to a problem that you are currently trying to troubleshoot. In any case, you must do Hard reset on Huawei P30 via Recovery Mode when the situation forces you to. We still recommend that you use the first method as your primary option for convenience reasons. Effects-wise, the two methods don’t have any difference at all. The device will be completely sanitized and all user data deleted after doing any of them.

To perform a Hard reset on Huawei P30 via Recovery Mode:
Create a backup of your personal data.
Turn off the mobile by pressing the Power key for a few moments.
Press and hold Volume Up and Power buttons for a couple of seconds.
When Recovery Mode appears let go of all keys​​​​​​.
Now choose “wipe data/factory reset”. Use Volume buttons to navigate and the Power key to accept it.
Confirm the operation by typing in “yes” and select “wipe data/factory reset”.
When you see the Google Verification info confirm the operation by selecting “wipe data/factory reset”.
Finally choose “reboot system now” by using the Power key.

#8: Get help from Huawei - Huawei P30 keeps rebooting randomly fix 
Although it’s rare for Huawei devices, this problem is not unheard of. If your device continues to randomly reboot after a factory reset, you can assume that there’s a deeper reason for it. Unfortunately, there’s really no other way for an average user to know the extent of the problem. You’ll have to let a technician check the device. Contact your Huawei Service Center so you can schedule an appointment.

RIESGOS ASOCIADOS A LAS REDES WI-FI PÚBLICAS

RIESGOS ASOCIADOS A LAS REDES WI-FI PÚBLICAS:

CUÁLES SON Y CÓMO PREVENIRLOS

La llegada del Wi-Fi a los lugares públicos marcó un antes y un después en el día a día de los usuarios interconectados, ya que nos permitió aprovechar el servicio de Internet cuando nos sentamos en algún café, ya sea que tengamos que pedir la contraseña o que directamente esté abierta para cualquiera que desee conectarse.

Pero si tan solo nos detuviéramos unos minutos para pensar en qué tan seguras son estas conexiones, rápidamente encontraríamos varios motivos para dar una respuesta negativa. Si al visitar un lugar público no dejamos nuestras pertenencias en cualquier sitio, porque conocemos los riesgos de hacerlo, ¿por qué lo haríamos con la información almacenada en nuestros dispositivos?

A continuación, te mostramos cuáles son algunos de los riesgos los que nos exponemos al utilizar redes Wi-Fi públicas.

SER VÍCTIMA DE UN ATAQUE “MAN IN THE MIDDLE”

Como su nombre lo indica, los de ataques “Man in the Middle”, que traducido sería “hombre en el medio”, asociados a conexiones a redes Wi-Fi públicas suelen estar relacionados con la presencia de un intermediario entre la víctima y el sitio que ésta visita, pudiendo el cibercriminal acceder a los datos mientras viajan.

No solo se trata de ataques altamente efectivos, sino que, además, también motivo de su efectividad, son muy difíciles de detectar, dado que la información es interceptada a mitad de camino cuando viaja entre el dispositivo de usuario y el router, sin que sea percibido.

ROBO DE DATOS PERSONALES, INFORMACIÓN CONFIDENCIAL Y/O CREDENCIALES

Por supuesto, si la red Wi-Fi a la que te conectas no es lo suficientemente segura, los datos que guardas en tu computadora o teléfono (archivos personales o contraseñas) pueden quedar expuestos al robo. ¿Cómo? Por ejemplo, si un criminal se aprovecha de la falta de mecanismos de seguridad en una red Wi-Fí pública podría interceptar el tráfico mediante un ataque Man in the Middle. Esto podría tener consecuencias aún peores si te conectas a esta red desde tu equipo de trabajo, donde probablemente haya información confidencial.

CUIDADO AL REALIZAR UNA TRANSACCIÓN EN LÍNEA

Puedes pensar que no es necesario decirlo, pero son muchos los usuarios que siguen realizando compras y transferencias online o ingresando a Homebanking conectados a la red Wi-Fi de algún café, hotel o aeropuerto. Sin importar desde qué dispositivos te conectes, el uso de una red pública siempre representará un riesgo para realizar cualquier acción que involucre algún dato privado, porque como vimos anteriormente, no sabemos si alguien está interceptando el tráfico.

FALSOS PUNTOS DE ACCESO SE PRESENTAN COMO REDES SIN CLAVE

Cada vez es más común encontrarnos con redes Wi-Fi en lugares públicos sin ningún tipo de seguridad. Si se trata de un café, por ejemplo, es normal ver que el nombre del lugar figura también como nombre una red y que ésta no tuviera clave alguna.

En estos casos, es importante tener presente dos cosas:

1.    No es recomendable conectarse a redes sin clave, si vas a hacerlo es aconsejable consultar cuál es el nombre de la red de ese lugar para comprobar que efectivamente sea el que ves en tu pantalla.

2.    Un atacante aproveche estas conexiones para clonarlas (montando una red con el mismo nombre) para utilizarla como un señuelo a la espera de que los usuarios se conecten y enlacen sus dispositivos a la antena del atacante. Si esto ocurre, todos los paquetes de conexión que entren y salgan pasarán por el equipo atacante, quien podrá ver y modificar todo a voluntad.

ROUTER VULNERADO

Sí, así como los computadores y smartphones pueden infectarse, también existen vulnerabilidades presentes en otros dispositivos conectados, como los routers. Tal vez el ataque se trate de un simple secuestro del ancho de banda, o podría incluso escalar hasta convertir a los dispositivos infectados en partes de una botnet. La realidad es que, sin una mínima protección básica, como la modificación de la contraseña predeterminada, el router puede convertirse en la puerta de entrada para que un atacante logre acceder a cualquier dispositivo que esté conectado a él.

Las compañías fabricantes suelen lanzar parches de seguridad para las vulnerabilidades que se detecten en los routers, muchos usuarios no realizan las actualizaciones correspondientes, lo que ha llevado a masivas campañas de cryptojacking y cientos de miles de usuarios afectados. Ahora, ¿podemos estar seguros que estos parches fueron aplicados en el router de un lugar que visitamos?

ENTONCES, CÓMO CONECTARSE A REDES WI-FI PÚBLICAS DE MANERA SEGURA?

MANTÉN TU SOLUCIÓN DE SEGURIDAD ACTUALIZADA (ANTIVIRUS / ROUTER / FIREWALL ) Y TU SISTEMA OPERATIVO (MICROSOFT, LINUX, OS)

Demás está decir que tener un antivirus instalado en tus dispositivos, tanto laptops como móviles, es el primer paso para estar seguro. Asegúrate de tener siempre la última versión del producto descargada, garantizando así que todas sus funcionalidades estén al día y listas para evitar el ingreso de aplicaciones potencialmente no deseadas.

Nunca deben de estar instalados dos o mas antivirus y similares programas que hagan conflicto. Si en caso pasara, uno desactiva al otro y viceversa. Al realizar las exploraciones automáticas consumirán muchos recursos y el equipo sufrirá una merma en su rendimiento.

Además de el antivirus, recuerda mantener siempre actualizado tu Sistema Operativo y las aplicaciones del sistema, aplicando los parches de seguridad que lanzan los fabricantes y protegiendo, entonces sí, tu laptop y dispositivo móvil.

CUIDA LAS ACCIONES QUE REALIZAS DESDE ESTAS CONEXIONES

Si decides conectarte a una red Wi-Fi pública, es aconsejable usar Internet para visitar sitios que no requieran credenciales ni información personal, como portales o diarios. Además, podrías querer deshabilitar todos los servicios de homebanking, cuentas de correo electrónico, redes sociales y demás aplicaciones que requieran usuario y contraseña para establecer la conexión.

Si efectivamente te encuentras fuera del alcance de una red de confianza y necesitas acceder a servicios como el Homebanking o el correo, considera utilizar tus datos móviles si es que tienes esa posibilidad. Si se trata del equipo que utilizas para trabajar, hacer uso de una VPN y mantener tu información cifrada.

INGRESA A SITIOS WEB QUE UTILICEN PROTOCOLO HTTPS

El protocolo HTTPS garantiza que la información transmitida entre la computadora del usuario y el sitio web sea cifrada en su transmisión. Motivo suficiente para utilizarlo, ¿verdad?

Y dado que en dispositivos móviles y/o tablets ejecutamos prácticamente las mismas acciones que desde cualquier computador de escritorio o laptop, es importante conocer si al ingresar a un sitio web éste utiliza el protocolo seguro de navegación.

CONFIGURA TU DISPOSITIVO PARA QUE PREGUNTE ANTES DE CONECTARSE

Para evitar que la conexión sea automática y evitar posibles riesgos, recuerda configurar tu dispositivo para que te pregunte si quieres conectarte a la red del sitio en el que estás cada vez que lo visites.

Una vez que cuentes con tu solución de seguridad instalada, tu Sistema Operativo actualizado, tus servicios críticos deshabilitados y que hayas consultado con el lugar si su red es la que dice ser (…menudo trabajo), estarás en condiciones de decidir si efectivamente quieres establecer esa conexión.

UTILIZA DOBLE FACTOR DE AUTENTICACIÓN

Por supuesto, nunca está de más tener una capa extra de seguridad como la que aporta el doble factor de autenticación. La mayoría de los servicios que utilizamos día a día cuentan con la posibilidad de configurar el ingreso al sitio para que luego de colocar la contraseña debas confirmar que eres tú al ingresar un código adicional que será enviado a tu teléfono a través de un SMS, un correo, una app o una llamada.

La tecnología inalámbrica facilita y agiliza nuestra vida cotidiana, pero lamentablemente su popularidad viene acompañada de riesgos, a los que hay que estar atento para ser capaces de prevenirlos, aplicando las medidas de seguridad adecuadas, protegiendo nuestra información y garantizando nuestro disfrute de la tecnología de la manera más segura.

6 BAD HABITS THAT ARE DESTROYING YOUR PC

6 BAD HABITS THAT ARE DESTROYING YOUR PC

1.    LEAVING YOUR LAPTOP ON A PLUSH SURFACE (AND OTHER OVERHEATING PROBLEMS)

Heat is your computer’s mortal enemy. If your computer gets too hot, it can reduce the lifespan of the hardware inside, like your processor, fans, and battery not to mention make your computer loud and sizzling to the touch. For desktop computers, the solution is pretty simple:

Just clean out the dust once in a while with some compressed air and keep it out of any small cabinets. You want air to flow freely through your computer, not to get trapped in a tight space. You can also prevent dust by keeping your computer off the ground and putting filters on your intake fans. Laptops, on the other hand, require a bit more care.

Their portability leads to a lot of bad habits, like putting them on blankets or other plush surfaces. This blocks airflow underneath (where the rubber feet would raise it off a desk) and potentially through the laptop (when the blanket covers the fan vents). When possible, use your laptop on a flat surface, or at least make sure your lap is free of blankets and other things that can block airflow. Lap desks are a good way to ensure things stay cool.

If your computer gets too hot, it can reduce the lifespan of the hardware inside, like your processor, fans, and battery.

Other than that, the same rules apply to your laptop as your desktop: Don’t leave it in hot places (such as a car on a sunny day) and clean it out with some compressed air once in a while. If you can keep it dust-free, the components will run happily for a long time.

2.    HANDLING YOUR LAPTOP CARELESSLY

While desktops have the luxury of sitting comfortably in your office, laptops are subject to all sorts of abuse. I’ve seen people pick up a laptop by its display, open the hinge from one side with way too much force, and toss a laptop onto the couch from the other side of the room. (Sure, a couch is rather soft, but one day, you’re going to miss and hit the table or floor, and you’ll be sorry.) I’ve even seen people use closed laptops as a coaster for drinks, which makes me grit my teeth in anxiety.

Laptops are meant to be portable, and some can be pretty durable—but the more you abuse them, the more likely you are to damage something. At best, you’ll have to deal with just a worn-out hinge or a crack in the casing. But if your laptop has a traditional spinning hard drive instead of an SSD, tossing or shaking the computer—especially if the drive is active at the time—can cause its head to dislocate or touch the surface of the disk. It isn’t common, but if that happens, you’re going to have a bad day, especially if you haven’t backed up your data. Your laptop is an expensive piece of property: Treat it as such.

3.    CONSTANTLY DISCHARGING YOUR BATTERY

Just because your laptop’s battery starts out with eight hours of battery life doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way forever. Batteries degrade over time—you may get eight hours on a full charge when you first buy a laptop, but after a few years, that could degrade to six or seven hours. There’s no escaping this decline, but if you always run your laptop down to nothing, you may be degrading it faster than necessary. To prolong your battery’s long-term health, it’s best to perform shallow discharges and recharge it frequently. Don’t stress about this, of course—if you’re on a plane and need to work, an occasional discharge won’t kill your battery—but over time, it’s best to err on the side of charging regularly than running it down to empty.

4.    DISREGARDING ELECTRICAL SAFETY

Your PC draws a sizeable amount of power, and it’s susceptible to damage from power surges—small, temporary increases in voltage coming through the power line. These can happen after power outages, after turning on another highpower device in your home, or from an unreliable power grid in your city.

The power supply inside your PC includes some basic surge protection, but you’ll get longer-lasting protection from a dedicated surge protector. Note that this is different from a power strip, which provides multiple outlets without the protection from surges. Be sure to replace a surge protector every three to five years, too, since that protection wears out over time—if yours is old, there’s a good chance it’s offering zero protection.

Keep in mind that a surge protector won’t protect against high-voltage spikes (such as lightning), but it can protect against smaller surges and extend the life of your PC. When you have a few more dollars to spend, you might want to get an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), which contains a battery backup that prevents your computer from shutting down and losing data during a sudden power outage.

Last, laptops require a bit more care because of their portability. A desktop’s power cable can sit stationary for years at a time, but your laptop cable goes with you everywhere—so it’s subject to kinking, hard yanks out of the wall, and other mishandling. This can not only make the cable unreliable but it can also pose a fire hazard, so always pull the charger out of the wall holding the plug, not the cable—and don’t wrap the cable too tightly.

5.    WASTING TIME ON UNNECESSARY MAINTENANCE

Back in the days of Windows XP, when hardware was limited and computers were slow, personal computer maintenance may have made a difference. But these days, deleting unused and temporary files is unlikely to give you a noticeable speed boost. Many “PC cleaning” utilities are scams meant to scare you into buying their product—and the free, less-scammy ones are still unnecessary most of the time.

Furthermore, certain types of “maintenance” may actually be harmful. Registry cleaners provide almost no benefit, and if they delete a registry entry that you actually need, they can actually cause problems. Similarly, the new “privacy” apps that claim to stop Windows 10 from “spying” on you can break certain features without you knowing why. The internet is full of people confused about why something stopped working only to find that it’s the fault of one of these tools. You’re better off going through Windows 10’s settings, learning what they do, and tweaking them yourself.

But if you still want to clean up your hard drive, use Windows’ built-in Disk Cleanup utility and delete any movies, music, and other files you aren’t using.

And if your computer is running unbearably slow, try removing startup programs or resetting your PC. If that doesn’t work, it’s probably time to upgrade your hardware.

6.    BROWSING THE WEB UNPROTECTED

Contrary to popular belief, “common sense,” while very valuable, should not be your only malware protection. Even legitimate sites can become infected with malware and then pass those problems on to you; browsing carefully won’t save you. You have to use an antivirus on your computer.

Thankfully, after a few years of sub-par ratings, Microsoft’s built-in Windows Defender feature has gotten quite good. Just leave it on and let it do its job. For extra protection, though, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is more aggressive with its protection, and I’ve found that it catches a lot of stuff that Chrome and Windows Defender miss. The free version is fine for those who just want to run an occasional scan, but the paid version includes always-running anti-exploit features that block potentially harmful sites. When you use it in conjunction with a traditional antivirus such as Windows Defender, you’ll be set on protection.

On top of that, other basic security practices still apply:

Keep your software up to date (both Windows and the programs you use), use a good password manager, and learn how to spot phishing scams. It may seem trivial, but a bad piece of malware or ransomware can cause you a world of hurt.

Let's Talk About... Microsoft's Windows 10 Spring Creators Update 2018

Microsoft's Windows 10 Spring Creators Update – Interesting Facts about the latest Update Release

Next month Microsoft Windows 10 Spring Creators Update will be released and these are some interesting facts about it.

Avid Reg readers will be aware of what's forthcoming for the Redmond operating system. If you're just tuning in, well, see the aforementioned link, and strap in for these highlights. When the OS upgrade is released proper, we'll be on the scene with the full details. In the meantime, here's your need to know:

1. Microsoft reckons the operating system will take, on average, 30 minutes to install, which is much shorter than usual
2. The OS will feature a thing called Timeline, which presents a summary of what you've been up to over the past 30 days, with on-screen links to apps and documents
3. You can share files with physically nearby devices using a wireless feature called Nearby Share
4. Shell and other bits and pieces of the desktop will look nicer. You may be forced to use Edge, though, but at least you can mute the browser's tabs
5. The Photos app in Windows 10 will be updated to use the High Efficiency Image File Format, a change that promises to improve the quality and compression of pictures

This update is called or codenamed is Red Stone 4, aka version 1803, and what's actually in it, is anyone's guess right now as Microsoft is being coy about the final change log. The software is largely expected to roll out from April 10, that being the month's Patch Tuesday.

Our advice? Hold off until the initial bugs are ironed out, and the exact feature list is cemented in. Alternatively, grab betas from the Windows Insider stream of updates and play with it to your heart's content.

DOES THIS INFORMATION IS USEFUL? PLEASE, LET ME KNOW YOUR COMMENTS

 

Let's Talk About... CRYPTOCURRENCY

CRYPTOCURRENCY

INFO SOURCE 1

INFO SOURCE 2

A cryptocurrency (or crypto currency) is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange that uses cryptography to secure its transactions, to control the creation of additional units, and to verify the transfer of assets. Cryptocurrencies are a type of digital currencies, alternative currencies and virtual currencies. Cryptocurrencies use decentralized control as opposed to centralized electronic money and central banking systems. The decentralized control of each cryptocurrency works through a blockchain, which is a public transaction database, functioning as a distributed ledger.

Bitcoin, created in 2009, was the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Since then, numerous other cryptocurrencies have been created. These are frequently called altcoins, as a blend of alternative coin.

DEFINITION
According to Jan Lansky, a cryptocurrency is a system that meets all of the following six conditions:

•    The system does not require a central authority, distributed achieve consensus on its state.
•    The system keeps an overview of cryptocurrency units and their ownership.
•    The system defines whether new cryptocurrency units can be created. If new cryptocurrency units can be created, the system defines the circumstances of their origin and how to determine the ownership of these new units.
•    Ownership of cryptocurrency units can be proved exclusively cryptographically.
•    The system allows transactions to be performed in which ownership of the cryptographic units is changed. A transaction statement can only be issued by an entity proving the current ownership of these units.
•    If two different instructions for changing the ownership of the same cryptographic units are simultaneously entered, the system performs at most one of them.


OVERVIEW
Decentralized cryptocurrency is produced by the entire cryptocurrency system collectively, at a rate which is defined when the system is created and which is publicly known. In centralized banking and economic systems such as the Federal Reserve System, corporate boards or governments control the supply of currency by printing units of fiat money or demanding additions to digital banking ledgers. In case of decentralized cryptocurrency, companies or governments cannot produce new units, and have not so far provided backing for other firms, banks or corporate entities which hold asset value measured in it. The underlying technical system upon which decentralized cryptocurrencies are based was created by the group or individual known as Satoshi Nakamoto.

As of September 2017, over a thousand cryptocurrency specifications exist; most are similar to and derive from the first fully implemented decentralized cryptocurrency, bitcoin. Within cryptocurrency systems the safety, integrity and balance of ledgers is maintained by a community of mutually distrustful parties referred to as miners: members of the general public using their computers to help validate and timestamp transactions, adding them to the ledger in accordance with a particular timestamping scheme. Miners have a financial incentive to maintain the security of a cryptocurrency ledger.

Most cryptocurrencies are designed to gradually decrease production of currency, placing an ultimate cap on the total amount of currency that will ever be in circulation, mimicking precious metals. Compared with ordinary currencies held by financial institutions or kept as cash on hand, cryptocurrencies can be more difficult for seizure by law enforcement. This difficulty is derived from leveraging cryptographic technologies.


ARCHITECTURE
BLOCKCHAIN
The validity of each cryptocurrency's coins is provided by a blockchain. A blockchain is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Each block typically contains a hash pointer as a link to a previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. By design, blockchains are inherently resistant to modification of the data. It is "an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way". For use as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is typically managed by a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks. Once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks, which requires collusion of the network majority.

Blockchains are secure by design and are an example of a distributed computing system with high Byzantine fault tolerance. Decentralized consensus has therefore been achieved with a blockchain. It solves the double spending problem without the need of a trusted authority or central server.

The block time is the average time it takes for the network to generate one extra block in the blockchain. Some blockchains create a new block as frequently as every five seconds. By the time of block completion, the included data becomes verifiable. This is practically when the money transaction takes place, so a shorter block time means faster transactions.

TIMESTAMPING
Cryptocurrencies use various timestamping schemes to avoid the need for a trusted third party to timestamp transactions added to the blockchain ledger.

PROOF-OF-WORK SCHEMES
The first timestamping scheme invented was the proof-of-work scheme. The most widely used proof-of-work schemes are based on SHA-256 and scrypt. The latter now dominates over the world of cryptocurrencies, with at least 480 confirmed implementations.

Some other hashing algorithms that are used for proof-of-work include CryptoNight, Blake, SHA-3, and X11.

PROOF-OF-STAKE AND COMBINED SCHEMES
Some cryptocurrencies use a combined proof-of-work/proof-of-stake scheme. The proof-of-stake is a method of securing a cryptocurrency network and achieving distributed consensus through requesting users to show ownership of a certain amount of currency. It is different from proof-of-work systems that run difficult hashing algorithms to validate electronic transactions. The scheme is largely dependent on the coin, and there's currently no standard form of it.

MINING
HASHCOIN MINE
In cryptocurrency networks, mining is a validation of transactions. For this effort, successful miners obtain new cryptocurrency as a reward. The reward decreases transaction fees by creating a complementary incentive to contribute to the processing power of the network. The rate of generating hashes, which validate any transaction, has been increased by the use of specialized machines such as FPGAs and ASICs running complex hashing algorithms like SHA-256 and Scrypt. This arms race for cheaper-yet-efficient machines has been on since the day the first cryptocurrency, bitcoin, was introduced in 2009. However, with more people venturing into the world of virtual currency, generating hashes for this validation has become far more complex over the years, with miners having to invest large sums of money on employing multiple high performance ASICs. Thus the value of the currency obtained for finding a hash often does not justify the amount of money spent on setting up the machines, the cooling facilities to overcome the enormous amount of heat they produce, and the electricity required to run them.

Some miners pool resources, sharing their processing power over a network to split the reward equally, according to the amount of work they contributed to the probability of finding a block. A "share" is awarded to members of the mining pool who present a valid partial proof-of-work.

One company is operating data centers for mining operations at Canadian oil and gas field sites, due to low gas prices.

Given the economic and environmental concerns associated with mining, various "minerless" cryptocurrencies are undergoing active development. Unlike conventional blockchains, some directed acyclic graph cryptocurrencies utilise a pay-it-forward system, whereby each account performs minimally heavy computations on two previous transactions to verify. Other cryptocurrencies like Nano utilise a block-lattice structure whereby each individual account has its own blockchain. With each account controlling its own transactions, no traditional proof-of-work mining is required, allowing for feeless, instantaneous transactions.

China is home to about three-quarters of the machines mining the bitcoin blockchain. As of February 2018, the Chinese Government halted trading of virtual currency, banned initial coin offerings and shut down mining. Some Chinese miners have since relocated to Canada.

In March 2018, a town in Upstate New York put an 18 month moratorium on all cryptocurrency mining in an effort to preserve natural resources and the "character and direction" of the city.

WALLETS
A cryptocurrency wallet stores the public and private "keys" or "addresses" which can be used to receive or spend the cryptocurrency. With the private key, it is possible to write in the public ledger, effectively spending the associated cryptocurrency. With the public key, it is possible for others to send currency to the wallet.

ANONYMITY
Bitcoin is pseudonymous rather than anonymous in that the cryptocurrency within a wallet is not tied to people, but rather to one or more specific keys (or "addresses"). Thereby, bitcoin owners are not identifiable, but all transactions are publicly available in the blockchain. Still, cryptocurrency exchanges are often required by law to collect the personal information of their users.

Additions such as Zerocoin have been suggested, which would allow for true anonymity. In recent years, anonymizing technologies like zero-knowledge proofs and ring signatures have been employed in the cryptocurrencies Zcash and Monero, respectively.

ECONOMICS
Cryptocurrency market capitalizations as of 27 January 2018, in billions of US dollars.

Cryptocurrencies are used primarily outside existing banking and governmental institutions and are exchanged over the Internet. While these alternative, decentralized modes of exchange are in the early stages of development, they have the unique potential to challenge existing systems of currency and payments. As of December 2017 total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies is bigger than 600 billion USD and record high daily volume is larger than 500 billion USD.

COMPETITION IN CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKETS
As of January 2018, there were over 1384 and growing digital currencies in existence.

TRANSACTION FEES
Transaction fees for cryptocurrency depend mainly on the supply of network capacity at the time, versus the demand from the currency holder for a faster transaction. The currency holder can choose a specific transaction fee, while network entities process transactions in order of highest offered fee to lowest. Cryptocurrency exchanges can simplify the process for currency holders by offering priority alternatives and thereby determine which fee will likely cause the transaction to be processed in the requested time.

For ether, transaction fees differ by computational complexity, bandwidth use and storage needs, while bitcoin transactions compete equally with each other. In December 2017, the median transaction fee for ether corresponded to $0.33, while for bitcoin it corresponded to $23.

LEGALITY
The legal status of cryptocurrencies varies substantially from country to country and is still undefined or changing in many of them. While some countries have explicitly allowed their use and trade, others have banned or restricted it. Likewise, various government agencies, departments, and courts have classified bitcoins differently. China Central Bank banned the handling of bitcoins by financial institutions in China during an extremely fast adoption period in early 2014. In Russia, though cryptocurrencies are legal, it is illegal to actually purchase goods with any currency other than the Russian ruble.

U.S. TAX STATUS
On March 25, 2014, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruled that bitcoin will be treated as property for tax purposes. This means bitcoin will be subject to capital gains tax. In a paper published by researchers from Oxford and Warwick, it was shown that bitcoin has some characteristics more like the precious metals market than traditional currencies, hence in agreement with the IRS decision even if based on different reasons.

CRYPTOCURRENCY ALLIANCE SUPER PAC
The Cryptocurrency Alliance Super PAC. One of the many groups formed to protect consumer interests in cryptocurrencies.

In response to the IRS ruling, numerous organizations have been created to advocate for consumers. One of the most prominent examples is the Washington, D.C. based Cryptocurrency Alliance, an independent expenditure-only committee (Super PAC), created to raise awareness about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

Legal issues not dealing with governments have also arisen for cryptocurrencies. Coinye, for example, is an altcoin that used rapper Kanye West as its logo without permission. Upon hearing of the release of Coinye, originally called Coinye West, attorneys for Kanye West sent a cease and desist letter to the email operator of Coinye, David P. McEnery Jr. The letter stated that Coinye was willful trademark infringement, unfair competition, cyberpiracy, and dilution and instructed Coinye to stop using the likeness and name of Kanye West. 17th of January 2014 Coinye was closed.

A primary example of this new challenge for law enforcement comes from the Silk Road case, where Ulbricht's bitcoin stash "was held separately and ... encrypted."

THE LEGAL CONCERN OF AN UNREGULATED GLOBAL ECONOMY
As the popularity of and demand for online currencies has increased since the inception of bitcoin in 2009, so have concerns that such an unregulated person to person global economy that cryptocurrencies offer may become a threat to society. Concerns abound that altcoins may become tools for anonymous web criminals.

Cryptocurrency networks display a marked lack of regulation that attracts many users who seek decentralized exchange and use of currency; however the very same lack of regulations has been critiqued as potentially enabling criminals who seek to evade taxes and launder money.

Transactions that occur through the use and exchange of these altcoins are independent from formal banking systems, and therefore can make tax evasion simpler for individuals. Since charting taxable income is based upon what a recipient reports to the revenue service, it becomes extremely difficult to account for transactions made using existing cryptocurrencies, a mode of exchange that is complex and (in some cases) impossible to track.

Systems of anonymity that most cryptocurrencies offer can also serve as a simpler means to launder money. Rather than laundering money through an intricate net of financial actors and offshore bank accounts, laundering money through altcoins can be achieved through anonymous transactions.

LOSS, THEFT, AND FRAUD
GBL, a Chinese bitcoin trading platform, suddenly shut down on October 26, 2013. Subscribers, unable to log in, lost up to $5 million worth of bitcoin.

In February 2014, cryptocurrency made headlines due to the world's largest bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, declaring bankruptcy. The company stated that it had lost nearly $473 million of their customer's bitcoins likely due to theft. This was equivalent to approximately 750,000 bitcoins, or about 7% of all the bitcoins in existence. Due to this crisis, among other news, the price of a bitcoin fell from a high of about $1,160 in December to under $400 in February.

Two members of the Silk Road Task Force—a multi-agency federal task force that carried out the U.S. investigation of Silk Road—seized bitcoins for their own use in the course of the investigation. DEA agent Carl Mark Force IV, who attempted to extort Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht ("Dread Pirate Roberts"), pleaded guilty to money laundering, obstruction of justice, and extortion under color of official right, and was sentenced to 6.5 years in federal prison. U.S. Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges pleaded guilty to crimes relating to his diversion of $800,000 worth of bitcoins to his personal account during the investigation, and also separately pleaded guilty to money laundering in connection with another cryptocurrency theft; he was sentenced to nearly eight years in federal prison.

Homero Josh Garza, who founded the cryptocurrency startups GAW Miners and ZenMiner in 2014, acknowledged in a plea agreement that the companies were part of a pyramid scheme, and pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2015. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission separately brought a civil enforcement action against Garza, who was eventually ordered to pay a judgment of $9.1 million plus $700,000 in interest. The SEC's complaint stated that Garza, through his companies, had fraudulently sold "investment contracts representing shares in the profits they claimed would be generated" from mining.

On November 21, 2017, the Tether cryptocurrency announced they were hacked, losing $31 million in USTD from their primary wallet. The company has 'tagged' the stolen currency, hoping to 'lock' them in the hacker's wallet (making them unspendable). Tether indicates that it is building a new core for its primary wallet in response to the attack in order to prevent the stolen coins from being used.

On December 6, 2017, more than $60 million worth of bitcoin was stolen after a cyber attack hit the cryptocurrency mining platform NiceHash (Slovenia-based company). According to the CEO Marko Kobal and co-founder Sasa Coh, bitcoin worth $64 million USD was stolen, although users have pointed to a bitcoin wallet which holds 4,736.42 bitcoins, equivalent to $67 million.

DARKNET MARKETS
Cryptocurrency is also used in controversial settings in the form of online black markets, such as Silk Road. The original Silk Road was shut down in October 2013 and there have been two more versions in use since then; the current version being Silk Road 3.0. The successful format of Silk Road has been widely used in online dark markets, which has led to a subsequent decentralization of the online dark market. In the year following the initial shutdown of Silk Road, the number of prominent dark markets increased from four to twelve, while the amount of drug listings increased from 18,000 to 32,000.

Darknet markets present growing challenges in regard to legality. Bitcoins and other forms of cryptocurrency used in dark markets are not clearly or legally classified in almost all parts of the world. In the U.S., bitcoins are labelled as "virtual assets". This type of ambiguous classification puts mounting pressure on law enforcement agencies around the world to adapt to the shifting drug trade of dark markets.

Since most darknet markets run through Tor, they can be found with relative ease on public domains. This means that their addresses can be found, as well as customer reviews and open forums pertaining to the drugs being sold on the market, all without incriminating any form of user. This kind of anonymity enables users on both sides of dark markets to escape the reaches of law enforcement. The result is that law enforcement adheres to a campaign of singling out individual markets and drug dealers to cut down supply. However, dealers and suppliers are able to stay one step ahead of law enforcement, who cannot keep up with the rapidly expanding and anonymous marketplaces of dark markets.

CRYPTOCURRENCY IN GAMING
Games, lotteries, online casinos and other online gambling sites that feature Cryptocurrency as either a method of payment or as the winnings paid have steadily increased as its popularity has grown and become widely accepted.
Lotteries

In December 2017 Gibraltar based gaming operator Lottoland launched the worlds first regulated bitcoin lottery offering a 1000 bitcoin jackpot. Players still pay in traditional currencies but can receive their winnings in bitcoin if they choose.

ONLINE CASINOS & DICE SITES
Many online casinos and dice sites have launched to take advantage of the popularity of cryptocurrency however their legitimacy is often questioned because of concerns that they are not fair because of the computer algorithms used to run them. The service Provably fair was created to try and combat the fears of its users that they are not being cheated.

CRITICISM
Cryptocurrencies have been compared to ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes and economic bubbles, such as housing market bubbles. Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital Management stated in 2017 that digital currencies were "nothing but an unfounded fad (or perhaps even a pyramid scheme), based on a willingness to ascribe value to something that has little or none beyond what people will pay for it", and compared them to the tulip mania (1637), South Sea Bubble (1720), and dot-com bubble (1999). In October 2017, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink called bitcoin an 'index of money laundering'. "Bitcoin just shows you how much demand for money laundering there is in the world," he said.

While cryptocurrencies are digital currencies that are managed through advanced encryption techniques, many governments have taken a cautious approach toward them, fearing their lack of central control and the effects they could have on financial security. Regulators in several countries have warned against cryptocurrency and some have taken concrete regulatory measures to dissuade users. Additionally, many banks do not offer services for cryptocurrencies and can refuse to offer services to virtual-currency companies. While traditional financial products have strong consumer protections in place, there is no intermediary with the power to limit consumer losses if bitcoins are lost or stolen. One of the features cryptocurrency lacks in comparison to credit cards, for example, is consumer protection against fraud, such as chargebacks.

An enormous amount of energy goes into proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining, although cryptocurrency proponents claim it is important to compare it to the consumption of the traditional financial system.

There are also purely technical elements to consider. For example, technological advancement in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin result in high up-front costs to miners in the form of specialized hardware and software. Cryptocurrency transactions are normally irreversible after a number of blocks confirm the transaction. Additionally, cryptocurrency can be permanently lost from local storage due to malware or data loss. This can also happen through the destruction of the physical media, effectively removing lost cryptocurrencies forever from their markets.

The cryptocurrency community refers to pre-mining, hidden launches, ICO or extreme rewards for the altcoin founders as a deceptive practice. It can also be used as an inherent part of a cryptocurrency's design. Pre-mining means currency is generated by the currency's founders prior to being released to the public.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winner does not like bitcoin, has repeated numerous times that it is a bubble that will not last and links it to Tulip mania.

American business magnate Warren Buffett thinks that cryptocurrency will come to a bad ending.

CAUSING A RISE IN GPU PRICES
The sudden increase in cryptocurrency mining has increased the demand of graphics cards (GPU) greatly. Popular favorites of cryptocurrency miners such as Nvidia’s GTX 1060 and GTX 1070 graphics cards, as well as AMD’s RX 570 and RX 580 GPUs, have all doubled if not tripled in price – or are out of stock completely. A GTX 1070 Ti which was released at a price of $450 is now being sold for as much as $1100. Another popular card GTX 1060's 6 GB model was released at an MSRP of $250, but it is now being sold for almost $500. RX 570 and RX 580 cards from AMD are out of stock for almost a year now. Miners regularly buy up the entire stock of new GPU's as soon as they are available, further driving prices up. This has caused, in general, a disliking towards cryptocurrency miners by PC gamers and tech enthusiasts.

Nvidia is reportedly asking retailers to do what they can when it comes to selling GPUs to gamers instead of miners. "Gamers come first for Nvidia," said Boris Böhles, PR manager for Nvidia in the German region, in an interview with the German publication ComputerBase. "All activities around our GeForce products are for our core audience. We recommend our trading partners make arrangements to ensure that gamers’ needs are still met in the current climate."

HISTORY
In 1983 the American cryptographer David Chaum conceived an anonymous cryptographic electronic money called ecash. Later, in 1995, he implemented it through Digicash, an early form of cryptographic electronic payments which required user software in order to withdraw notes from a bank and designate specific encrypted keys before it can be sent to a recipient. This allowed the digital currency to be untraceable by the issuing bank, the government, or a third party.

In 1996 the NSA published a paper entitled How to Make a Mint: the Cryptography of Anonymous Electronic Cash, describing a Cryptocurrency system first publishing it in a MIT mailing list and later in 1997, in The American Law Review (Vol. 46, Issue 4).

In 1998, Wei Dai published a description of "b-money", an anonymous, distributed electronic cash system. Shortly thereafter, Nick Szabo created "bit gold". Like bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that would follow it, bit gold (not to be confused with the later gold-based exchange, BitGold) was an electronic currency system which required users to complete a proof of work function with solutions being cryptographically put together and published. A currency system based on a reusable proof of work was later created by Hal Finney who followed the work of Dai and Szabo.

The first decentralized cryptocurrency, bitcoin, was created in 2009 by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. It used SHA-256, a cryptographic hash function, as its proof-of-work scheme. In April 2011, Namecoin was created as an attempt at forming a decentralized DNS, which would make internet censorship very difficult. Soon after, in October 2011, Litecoin was released. It was the first successful cryptocurrency to use scrypt as its hash function instead of SHA-256. Another notable cryptocurrency, Peercoin was the first to use a proof-of-work/proof-of-stake hybrid.23IOTA was the first cryptocurrency not based on a blockchain, and instead uses the Tangle. Built on a custom blockchain, The Divi Project allows for easy exchange between currencies from within the wallet and the ability to use personal identifying information for transactions. Many other cryptocurrencies have been created though few have been successful, as they have brought little in the way of technical innovation. On 6 August 2014, the UK announced its Treasury had been commissioned to do a study of cryptocurrencies, and what role, if any, they can play in the UK economy. The study was also to report on whether regulation should be considered.

PUBLICITY
BITCOIN ATM
Gareth Murphy, a senior central banking officer has stated "widespread use of cryptocurrencywould also make it more difficult for statistical agencies to gather data on economic activity, which are used by governments to steer the economy". He cautioned that virtual currencies pose a new challenge to central banks' control over the important functions of monetary and exchange rate policy.

Jordan Kelley, founder of Robocoin, launched the first bitcoin ATM in the United States on February 20, 2014. The kiosk installed in Austin, Texas is similar to bank ATMs but has scanners to read government-issued identification such as a driver's license or a passport to confirm users' identities. By September 2017 1574 bitcoin ATMs were installed around the world with an average fee of 9.05%. An average of 3 bitcoin ATMs were being installed per day in September 2017.

The Dogecoin Foundation, a charitable organization centered around Dogecoin and co-founded by Dogecoin co-creator Jackson Palmer, donated more than $30,000 worth of Dogecoin to help fund the Jamaican bobsled team's trip to the 2014 Olympic games in Sochi, Russia. The growing community around Dogecoin is looking to cement its charitable credentials by raising funds to sponsor service dogs for children with special needs.

INFO SOURCE