It’s Friday already? When did that happen? How has everyone’s week been? It’s been kind of busy here, as I’ve been trying to promote this publication and get some work done on other projects. There isn’t too much to report in the FJA department. We’re still hovering around 50–60 followers, but hoping to grow. Advertisements haven’t worked out quite as well as we’d have liked, but we’re trying other avenues of promotion, including other social networks. If you enjoy these articles, please make sure to tell your friends and associates about us.
It’s been roughly 11 years since Satoshi, the still anonymous developer, released Bitcoin into the wild, starting a revolution in financial and internet technology. Since then, numerous blockchains and cryptoassets — I use the term “cryptoassets” rather than “cryptocurrency” in many cases, because a currency has to be used as a regular medium of exchange — have emerged.
There were Bitcoin clones like Litecoin and Dogecoin. But there have also been entirely new blockchain technologies, like Ethereum, which allow for the development of smart contracts and distributed applications. People have made fortunes betting on cryptoassets.
People have lost fortunes betting on cryptoassets. Just like during the dot-com bubble, there’s a lot of risk and a lot of volatility, and blockchain has a long way to go before it reaches maturity. This lack of maturity is visible in the high volatility of many cryptoassets. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron, and many other coins have been fluctuating in purchasing power wildly over the last week, with Ethereum dropping about 10–12% from its recent highs.
One of the more recent events in blockchain has been Facebook’s decision to enter the fray. In this article, Eric Olszewski writes about Facebook’s Project Libra. \Link\
Joshua Dopkowski has another perspective on Facebook’s Project Libra, likening it to the Roman Empire in terms of an economic force. \Link\
In the early days of blockchain, it was fairly easy to mine your own currency. These days, it’s nearly impossible to use personal computers to mine. The computational complexity is just too high. So cloud mining services popped up. Unfortunately a lot of those services were scams that hurt many people. Vasily Sumanov talks about cloud mining, its risks, and its potential benefits. \Link\
Publish0x has a lot of blockchain and cryptoasset discussions. The quality of articles on publish0x tends to be a little bit lower than the articles on Medium, in part because there’s no curation guidelines; there’s also no curation. But there are a number of interesting articles. Publish0x is also just finishing its first writing competition, which is crypto-focused.
Last week’s Follow Friday article was on gaming, and the new era of online games is in the form of dapps (distributed apps). Enjin is a major player in the dapp gaming push, creating a token standard that makes it easier to create content for games. Cryptogames’ comments on the release of the new beta version of an Enjin powered sports game. \Link\
Most blockchains are decentralized, distributed, and fairly anonymous. Even if they do have everything publicly visible, all you see is an address, and anyone can create a new address, helping to protect their anonymity. However, NEO is different. It’s quite centralized and NEO addresses should be fairly unique. ClosetSaxPlayer suggests that these features, which make NEO somewhat more palatable to regulators, could make it “the one.” \Link\
Note: referral codes have been included in the publish0x links to help support this publication.
Okay! I think that’s it for this week. I’m going to see if I can start finding some other authors to write a few of the Follow Friday posts in the future. It would be great to have other peoples’ perspectives on the writing community. But until that happens, I’ll continue to write these articles. Hopefully people are enjoying them. If you’re interested in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, there’s a lot of material out there. Of course, there’s a lot of risk with any new technology and financial vehicle, so please do your research.
Originally published on The Freelance Journalism Alliance's publication on Medium
