One of my goals is to constantly learn new things. Can be anything from welding (still to be done) to setting up an online blog (does this qualify) and my current endeavour – cryptocurrency. Everyone has heard of Bitcoin and the millionaires who have resulted from its spectacular ( meteoric) rise. It is now trading at the US$20,000.00 mark up from the US$3000.00 a year and a half ago. However, Bitcoin is not alone as there are literally hundreds of crypto currencies currently available some with their own block chain, some piggybacking off other block chains. Block what huh you say – well this is a whole new world, something akin to what we saw during the birth of the PC and again when the internet was spawned.

Seriously though if this is of interest doing some reading and YouTubing because I certainly do not understand it enough – yet- to try to explain. A summary – in my view- is these are software programmes that facilitate business between parties without the need to go via a 3rd party. The software is the blockchain and the value is the cryptocurrency. These software programmes are maintained and the software contracts validated by miners.

The rise in Bitcoin can be seen below.

Compare this to another cryptocurrency (Ripple) being touted as the new currency for inter bank transfers.

BTW – this is written on and uploaded from my iPad. Yeahah….