As large banks embrace FinTech start-ups and their advanced technology rather than compete against them, both parties aim to eliminate the “middle man” in financial services transactions. This “middle man” is a metaphor for the different steps of customer interaction that technology has removed to make banking more efficient. However, in the hyper-speed environment from which bank - start-up integrations emerge, a new middle man - between these parties has become necessary.

*Exclusive interview from Peter Shiau, CEO and CoFounder of Blockstack.io 

In the standard software industry parlance, a software fork is just a copy of an existing project. Considering the current pre-eminence of open-source software development, a software fork can very often be carried out without explicit permission from the developer of the original project. In case of the blockchain, it is different. A blockchain fork is when a blockchain splits into two separate chains.

Recently Matt Gertler, cryptocurrency attorney at Digital Asset Research answered a big question on many minds recently: are we in a cryptocurrency bubble?  Particularly with the rise of ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and China's recent ban on them, this has been on many minds recently.

Bitcoin and blockchain, the digital ledger used for bitcoin, have been headlining news.  Bitcoin, once associated with illicit online transactions, is being recognized by big banks. Just this week State Street, one of the oldest banks in the US, made headlines as it set up its own innovation lab to deal with blockchain technology. JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, with more banks to come, backed  R3, a blockchain consortium.  To understand Bitcoin, blockchain and the crypto future we sat down with Tim Lee, founder of ArcBit bitcoin wallet, who has been dealing with the blockchain much earlier before the general public, or even large banks, heard about the Bitcoin or its digital ledger.  Tim comes from the start-up background - similar to the Bitcoin and blockchain founders and disruptors.  Byte Academy is excited to announce that Tim Lee will be doing a blockchain workshop October 16 in addition to other part-time classes.

With the increasing number of cryptocurrencies available nowadays, it’s the right time to look at how to trade in cryptocurrencies. We start with examining your potential objectives, and from thereon, we look at the various factors you should consider before choosing the right trading platform. We also list prominent cryptocurrency exchanges, along with their pros and cons.

We interviewed Kevin Chen, who left his role from Wall Street upon realizing that blockchain technology could disrupt his career there, and decided to make this switch before that happens.  He is now the Founder and Head of the IOTA Evangelist Network (IEN) which spreads awareness of “blockless” (non-blockchain) digital ledger technology (DLT), particularly IOTA’s Tangle protocol (some may also be familiar with IOTA’s native cryptocurrency that reached as high as $15 billion in market cap and top 5 of all cryptocurrencies late last year ).

Bitcoin/Blockchain

Those who’ve heard of blockchain technology at all will likely associate it with Bitcoin, the decentralized, internationally traded ‘cryptocurrency’ which made headlines across the globe back in March when the value of a single ‘bitcoin’ surpassed that of an ounce of gold. For those who don’t know, bitcoins are digital, nonphysical ‘coins’ which can be used to buy goods and services online. The trading of these bitcoins, along with all other cryptocurrencies (of which there are many), is underpinned by a database protocol called blockchain.