Blockchain news review from last week.

In this blog, I will cover the hottest news from the past week in blockchain and bitcoin space. I shall be publishing weekly news every week from now onwards.

Here comes a solution, which addresses the need to increase the bitcoin blockchain size " without requiring a hard fork ".

Lee introduced the proposal of Extension Blocks on GitHub, a popular sharing platform for coders.

he then summarized it in an entry on Medium, an online publishing tool.

It comes with potential factors like upgrade by means of a soft fork and opt-in benefits. Those who don't opt in can continue to use bitcoin.

Ledger is the first academic journal focusing on Blockchain Technology.

Chris Wilmer, University of Pittsburgh Assistant Professor of chemistry, decided to launch this academic journal, seeing the lack of research papers publishing on this subject.

It covers research articles on cryptocurrency, blockchain technology, as well as any relevant intersections with mathematics, computer science, engineering, law and economics.

Global financial leader, Fidelity is the first in finance to join IC3.

 Initiative for cryptocurrencies and contracts (IC3), is a research group primarily consisting of academic institutions. It comprises of faculty members at Cornell University, Cornell tech, UC Berkeley, University of Illinois, etc.

Bitcoin becomes a legal payment method in Japan.

Its the first bid of good news in quite some time for the bitcoin community.

Bitcoin has gained more than 19% in 2017.

At the time of writing this, the bitcoin is trading at $1239.70 . 

Ledger a Bitcoin hardware wallet, raises $7 M. 

There are more than 50,000 units of hardware wallet sold in 130 countries. Next for launch is enterprise grade cryptocurrency security solutions.

Blockchain Capital recently raised $10 M for a venture fund.

It raised the fund via Initial Coin Offering i.e. ICO. 

" The $10M will be used to invest in blockchain startup companies", Brock Pierce, managing partner at Blockchain Capital, told CCN.



Bitcoins market cap is now larger than majority of fiat currencies in the world. Its market cap is higher than the currencies of Thailand, Nigeria, Mongolia, Bolivia, Laos, etc.
Bitcoin can be used as a digital cash system on a daily basis, in the future.

Hope this weekly will help you keep updated about the latest news and activities in this space. 
You can post your suggestions or some other important news which I may have missed,in comments below.

Bitcoin and Blockchain startups. PART-2

Here I am listing some more startups in the Bitcoin and blockchain space. This list covers the exchanges and cryptocurrency trading companies.

Exchanges and Cryptocurrency trading

1. Coinbase  

     Founder: Brian Armstrong

         Fred Lee

     Founded: June 2012

     HQ:  San Francisco, CA, US 

      

2. Coinsecure

    Founder: Mohit Kalra, 

       Benson Samuel

    Founded: June 2013

    HQ: New Delhi, India

3. Unocoin

    Founder: Satvik Vishwanath,

       Abhinand Kaseti, Sunny Raj,

       Harish BV

    Founded: Jan 2013

    HQ: Bengaluru, India

4. BTC China

    Founder: Bobby Lee

    Founded: June 2011

    HQ: Shanghai, China

5. Bitkan

    Founder: Edward Liu

    Founded: 2013

    HQ: Shenzen

6. Quoine

    Founder: Mike Kayamori,

       Mario Gomez

    Founded: May 2014

    HQ: Singapore

7. Korbit

    Founder:Louis Jinhwa Kim,

       Tong Lyu, Langmo Kim

    Founded: July 2013

    HQ: Seoul, South Korea

8. Polychain Capital

    Founder: Olaf Carlson-Wee

    Founded: July 2016

    HQ: San Francisco

9. Kraken

    Founder: Jesse Powell

    Founded: July 2011

    HQ: San Francisco, US

10. Zebpay

    Founder: Mahin Gupta,

      Saurabh Agrawal, 

      Sandeep Goenka

    Founded: Sept 2014

    HQ: Ahmedabad, Gujarat

             (Singapore)

11. Bitstamp

     Founder: Damijan Merlak,

      Nejc Kodric

     Founded: Aug 2011

     HQ:  London, UK

12. bitt

      Founder: Oliver Gale,

        Gabriel Abed

      Founded: Jan 2016

      HQ: Barbados, Caribbean

13. Paymium

      Founder: Pierre Noizat,

       Gonzague Gandval

      Founded: Jun 2011

      HQ: Paris, France

14. Bitso 

       Founder: Ben Peters,

         Daniel Vogel, Pablo Gonzalez

      Founded: Jan 2014

      HQ: Mexico City

15. Bitaccess

      Founder: Haseeb Awan, Moe 

        Adham, Vignesh Sundaresan

      Founded: Nov 2013

      HQ: Ottawa, Canada

16. Luno

     Founder: Marcus Swanepoel,

        Pieter Heyns

     Founded: Aug 2013 

     HQ: London

17. Bitflyer

      Founder: Yuzo Kano

      Founded: Jan 2014

      HQ: London, UK

18. Shape shift

      Founder: Eric Voorhees

      Founded: Aug 2014

      HQ: Zug, Switzerland

19. Okcoin

     Founder: Mingxing Xu

     Founded: June 2013

     HQ: Beijing, China

20. Tech Bureau Corp

     Founder: Takao Asayama

     Founded: June 2014

     HQ: Osaka, Japan

21. Cripto facilities

     Founder:  Timo Schlaefer,

       Jean Christophe Laurelle

     Founded: Feb 2015

     HQ: London, UK

Bitcoin And Blockchain startups. PART-I

Here I am listing some emerging startups in the blockchain space to keep eye on, in 2017.
Since the field is very diverse, so we will be categorizing them in certain categories.

Wallets and Money services

1) Blockchain.com

     Founder: Peter Smith, Nicolas Cary

     Founded: November, 2013

     HQ: New York, US

   

2) Bitpay

     Founder : Tony Gallippi, Stephen Pair

     Founded: May , 2011

     HQ: Atlanta, Georgia, US

3) Abra

      Founder : Bill Barhydt

      Founded: Sept. 2014

      HQ: Silicon Valley, CA, US

4) Snapcard

      Founder: Michael Dunworth, Ioannis Giannaros

      Founded: Nov. 2013    

      HQ: San Francisco, CA, US

      

5) Coins.ph

     Founder: Ron Hose, Runar Petursson

     Founded: Jan, 2014

     HQ: Pasig, Rizal, Phillippines

6) Netki

      Founder : Justin Newton

      Founded : July, 2014

      HQ: Canoga Park, CA, US

7) Circle

      Founder : Jeremy Allaire, Sean Neville

      Founder : Oct. 2013

      HQ: Dublin, Ireland

  

8) Uphold

      Founder : Halsey Minor

      Founded : Nov. 2013

      HQ: San Francisco, CA, US

9) Case

       Founder : Melanie Shapiro

       Founded : April, 2014

       HQ : Rochester, NYC, US

      

10) Coinplug

       Founder: Ryan Uhr, Jay Hong

       Founded: June, 2013

       HQ: Korea

11) Wyre

       Founder: Iaonnis Giannaros
       Founded : May, 2103

       HQ: San Francisco, CA, US

12) Streami

       Founder: Junheang Lee, James Park

       Founded; July 2015

       HQ: Seoul, South Korea

13) Xapo

       Founder: Wences Casares,                                                                Federico Murrone

      Founded: April 2014

      HQ: Palo Alto, CA, US

14) Ripio

         Founder: Mugur Marculescu, 

                   Luciana Gruszeczka,
                   Sebastian Serrano
         Founded: May 2013

         HQ: San Francisco, CA, US

15) Coinjar

       Founder: Asher Tan, Tong Zhou                                     

      Founded: May 2013

       HQ: Melbourne, Australia

16) Ledger

       Founder: Nicolas Bacca,

        Joel Pbeda,
        Thomas France, Eric Larcheveque
       Founded: Jan 2015

       HQ: Paris

The gift of life

We are always thrilled to know about our tomorrow. People are busy busy doing stuffs, working hard day and night, making multiple sacrifices. All of these to make sure our tomorrow gets secured. Yes, its true that action results in positive outcome. But we are often unhappy with the value of outcome received. Here I'll quote three important points as said by the famous speaker Earl Nightingale to cope up with these kind of uncertainties in our life. After reading these three points you will sure be much more dedicated and focused towards what you wish for.


1) He says that " Our rewards in life will always be in exact proportion to our contribution, our service. In other form, the money you are paid by the company you work for will always be in direct proportion to
    a) the need for what you do,

    b) your ability to do it, and
    c) the degree of difficulty involved
 in replacing you.
     So we should choose our job according to our ability to contribute. Also we are responsible for our own future. We cannot blame our job for our good or bad condition. An important point to keep in mind is that "Jobs don't  have futures- people do".


2) The next thing which is very important to remember is our mind. He calls it " The Gold Mind ".
    The only thing about a man that is a man, is his mind. Everything else you can find in a pig or a horse. Strong words!
     But as a long as you live, you will not hear a truer statement. The key to every human success lies in his mind, the gold mind between his ears.

3) Attitude
    The word attitude has been called most important word in a language. William James said " The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind".
    Another way of saying we become what we think about. Your total environment is a reflection of  you as a human being. The house you live in, the neighborhood you are surrounded by, the car you drive, the clothes you wear, the job you do, the people you regularly associate to.
  Your total environment is an exact and a merciless mirror of you as a human being.
   

This technology is trustless and yet promising !!

     It's 2017 now, 8 years have passed since the first launch of Blockchain white paper in 2008. Still the technology is in its nascent stage. Currently infrastructure tools and platforms are being built for the Blockchain technology so that the developers could build new kind of services running on BlockChain algorithm. Ethereum, which is an open source project, is leading the space. It's founder Vitalik Buterin is the veteran of this Blockchain and crypto currency field with his presence since 2011 i.e. 5 years out of total 7 years, although he is just 23 years old now.

Why should you bother ?

    It's not very often when these kind of fundamental technology is invented, which has the potential to disrupt a major segment of our lifestyle. In the case of Blockchain technology, it can disrupt the whole fintech industry and create new possibilities in different other fields like payments, IOT, AI, contract settlements, online voting, digital media entitlement, identity systems ,etc. The rise of this tech has created a whole sea of opportunities for the developer communities.

How does it work ?

    The Blockchain technology is basically a distributed ledger technology where the data is recorded in multiple connected computers unlike in the case of Internet where all the data gets stored on a centralized server.
    Imagine there is a kind of magic paper. Now you keep one sheet of it with you and distribute 100 sheets of it to 100 individuals. The magic in it is such that if you write something on your sheet, it automatically gets written on each of the 100 sheets distributed previously. Similarly if anyone writes something on her sheet, it gets written on every other sheets simultaneously.(isn't it amazing!!!)
    Similarly in Blockchain technology, hundreds of thousands of computers are distributed and connected in peer to peer fashion with an algorithm running on them. This algorithm works same as that of the magic paper. If something is recorded in one computer, it automatically gets recorded in each of the other computers which are running the algorithm.
    The data recorded in each computers are secured with very complex cryptographic functions which are practically impossible to breach into.( We will discuss all the technical stuffs in future blogs).

How does it make a difference?

    As we have seen that computers are used to record data independently on BlockChain technology. Therefore it eliminates the need of middlemen whose sole purpose was to keep records of data.
    The cryopto currency like Bitcoin works on BlockChain platform. Each of the transactions done with the Bitcoins are recorded in peer to peer fashion in distributed computers. In fact there is no company or organization to keep track on the transactions being done with Bitcoins. Therefore this tech is also called a trustless system where you don't have to trust a third party like banks to keep your money and transaction record.Currently the Bitcoin has reached to the monstrous $20 bn market cap.
    Today the internet has become centralised where anything you share or post gets stored in that company's central server. Be it Facebook, Google, Instagram, Dropbox, etc, they store all your data and we have to trust them to not misuse our data. One thing you may not have noticed is that slowly a new type of economy has taken birth, it's Data Economy.
With the adoption of the Blockchain based products, our data will be stored securedly without having to trust anyone.
    We will discuss in detail about Bitcoins, Data economy, Blockchain algorithm etc in future blog posts. I gladly welcome any kinds of query and suggestions. You can drop me a mail at mukeshjha5661@gmail.com ( Google still storing my data)

How we are surpassing Web 2.0 to enter Web 3.0 !

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released a white paper explaining a breakthrough technology "The Blockchain". The Blockchain tech would fundamentally change the way we share digital data on the internet. Mr. Nakamoto remained online to clarify the apparent doubts in the community of coders, for a couple of months, before going anonymous.

        Today we don't know who is Satoshi Nakamoto, but his technology will lead us a long way ahead.
       
  The Blockchain is basically the next generation of internet also termed Web 3.0 . The internet lets you exchange information on the web, whereas the Blockchain allows you to exchange value over it.
Think of it as when you have a Rs 100 note. You are possessing a certain value. Now you give that note to your friend. With this action you have transferred that certain value to your friend and you no longer possess that value. The transfer occurred here is complete and permanent.
   
         This same phenomena is not possible for digital data on the internet. Since whenever you transfer any data on the internet, a copy of it remains with you. We cannot transfer something as completely as Rs 100 note for example, on the internet. Therefore we just share information on the internet. And thus internet is called an " information exchange protocol ".
 
Here comes the need of a new technology in the picture. The Blockchain that is. On the blockchain platform we can transfer digital data with its value, completely on the web. Such unique transfer of value can be done on blockchain. Thus, Blockchain technology is a " value exchange protocol ".
         
                      

P.S-
Web 1.0 - The early phase of internet between 1990-2001, when the web was static in nature. One could read information on the web pages and so there was one way sharing of data.

Web 2.0 - After about 2002 when social media took birth. Users could now participate on the web and comment on it. Thus two way exchange of data became possible.

Web 3.0 - Introduced in 2008-9 with the introduction of Blockchain Technology and Bitcoins. But got grounds in 2011-12 when Bitcoin usage got a boom in the tech geeks community. With Bitcoin
Users could transfer value on the web. Thus value exchange became possible on the web.