So a lot of people have heard of Bitcoin, but there are many more people that have not.  If you live in the crypto currency space, like I do, you sometimes forget how far away from mainstream Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are.  But, that may already be changing.  This from an article by Sean Williams shows just how far blockchain technology has come in the past few years. "Just over a week ago, financial giants American Just over a week Express ( NYSE:AXP ) and Banco Santander ( NYSE:SAN ) announced a cross-border partnership that entails utilizing the blockchain network developed by Ripple. Behind bitcoin ($137.4 billion), Ethereum ($35.2 billion), and bitcoin cash ($20.3 billion), Ripple has the fourth-largest market cap ($9.1 billion) of any virtual currency. As reported by CNBC , payments made by American Express' business customers on its FX International Payments platform will be routed through Ripple's blockchain network and allow for instant, cross-borde...

IOTA is not your typical cryptocurrency.  IOTA, which typically stands for the Internet Of Things is a completely new approach to managing a blockchain. Blockchain technology is what made coins like Bitcoin (BTC) possible.  BTC is just a coin that uses the blockchain technology.  As I've said many times before, the "real" invention here was coming up with a blockchain that works.  To show that it works they created BTC.  The success of BTC is a very good indication of how well blockchains can work. Blockchains are what provide the audit trail of each transaction.  It is what allows you to purchase a digital "product" and be assured that the product is authentic and that you are the only one who owns that particular product.  It is what allows us to use BTC as money because it protects against counterfeiting.  Blockchains do have their limitations, most notably transaction speed, and IOTA solves these limitations.  This is hugely impor...

As the November 16th Fork day for Bitcoin approaches I am getting more and more apprehensive about it. I really have a hard time seeing this fork go well. If you've been following me for the past year or so you'll know that's 100% different view from what I normally have. I have already moved most of my holdings to cash (Tether) and for my BTC brethren I encourage you to at least consider sitting this one out. I don't know who is going to be the winner here, BTC, B2X, or some other coin, but I've been hearing more and more about maybe Bitcoin Cash (BCH or BCC) being in play as the survivor. Here's a REALLY interesting article that talks about that possibility. I can't argue against any of what is in this article. https://www.yours.org/content/predicting-the-outcome-of-the-november-bitcoin-fork-89914ce0e1f5/?utm_content=bufferf3dec&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer