Ep11: Weekly Cryptocurrency News 10/24/18

10/24/18 • 26 min

Consensus Network: Cryptocurrency News & Education

Consensus NetworkTM Weekly Crypto News for 10/24/18

Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization: Approx. $210 billion

Bitcoin Price: $6423

Bakkt Announces Launch Date.
CBOE meets with SEC to discuss ETF.
Goldman Sachs makes Huge Investment in Crypto Custodian.
Coinbase DOMINATES the Crypto World.
Japan Grants Cryptocurrency Industry Self-Regulatory Status.

Email your questions to me at [email protected] or go to consensusNetwork.io and leave me a voicemail that I can play on the show!

Consensus NetworkTM Weekly Crypto News for 10/24/18

Cryptocurrency Market Capitalization: Approx. $210 billion

Bitcoin Price: $6423

Bakkt Announces Launch Date.
CBOE meets with SEC to discuss ETF.
Goldman Sachs makes Huge Investment in Crypto Custodian.
Coinbase DOMINATES the Crypto World.
Japan Grants Cryptocurrency Industry Self-Regulatory Status.

Email your questions to me at [email protected] or go to consensusNetwork.io and leave me a voicemail that I can play on the show!

Previous Episode

Ep10: Bitcoin in Historical Perspective

Last week on the news I told you about how Yale University has decided to get into the crypto market through its endowment.

It’s just another sign of the inevitability of this technological phenomenon. The major universities have accepted that it’s real. We already know that Wall Street has as well.

Now, let’s go back to the University thing. Of course, they want to teach things that are relevant to students right?

Well, sure enough, you are seeing blockchain and distributed ledger courses pop up at Universities left and right. That doesn’t mean they know what they are talking about but they are trying, that’s for sure.

The University of California, Berkeley has been on the cutting edge of many new technological and social movements so it is not surprising that my guest today, Greg LaBlanc is one of the instructors of the latest course introducing Berkeley students to blockchain.

Greg comes at this from a pretty unique perspective as a financial historian so make sure to tune in to this interview.

Next Episode

Ep12: Mance Harmon, Hashgraph and the Future of Distributed Ledgers

There is more to blockchain than bitcoin. And there is more to distributed ledgers than blockchain.

Blockchain describes only one type of decentralized consensus mechanism. Although it is really the dominant system in this new distributed world, it’s not the only one.

I’m no computer scientist by any means and I suspect you aren’t either. But I will say that from what I have learned, the major challenges in using blockchain technology so far have been related to scaling.

Blockchain is inherently slow. Bitcoin takes 10 minutes to reach consensus—hard to wait that long making a transaction at Starbucks. Lightening network will likely change that but those are the facts now.

Ethereum is faster at 15 seconds per transaction. But where do we need to be in order to go prime time with cryptocurrency? Well, Visa does about 5000 transactions per second so let’s think of that as the gold standard for speed to incorporate something new into daily financial transactions.

I’m not saying that you can’t get there with blockchain and sidechains, but as we say in the non-technical world. There is more than one way to skin a cat (don’t ask me why we say that).

One project that got my attention a couple years ago was hashgraph. Hashgraph uses a completely different consensus mechanism with apparent lightening speed and asynchronous Byzantine fault tolerance—something that many computer scientists believe to be the gold standard for security in distributed systems.

That in and of itself is exciting but and idea or white paper can only get you so far. As an investor, I always look at the team first. When you look at Hashgraph, you see one of the most impressive teams in all of the cryptocurrency projects out there.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Mance Harmon, CEO of Hashgraph a few months ago before it’s presale and when we this week I will play it for you!

This is a token you will see in circulation next year that you should keep an eye on.

Shownotes:

Mance’s life before cryptocurrency

How Distributed Ledger Technology will change the world

Limitations of the current blockchain

Performance of Hedera hashgraph

Applications made possible by Hedera

What does hashgraph stand with/against the current blockchain

The difference between private and public distributed ledgers

The reason why hashgraph is patented

The Hedera Council