Open source protocols and platforms can easily be forked, but it isn’t easy to recreate a developer community. Hackathons are a valuable way of gaining developer interest and bringing people from around the world together to share ideas. In the crypto space, it’s important to follow where the developers are going, and I’ve been excited to see this through the lens of the Ethereum community.

ETHGlobal is an organization that helps put on Ethereum hackathons around the world. The 36 hour events are filled with technical workshops, educational talks, and are entirely free for hackers. Over the past year, I’ve…

I started scheduling weekly 1:1 calls with women who were interested in learning more about cryptocurrencies. I received hundreds of inbound requests after my tweet.

It was exciting to see the amount of interest. Since I couldn’t connect with everyone, I’m sharing the themes from the calls each month (see March 2018).

Trends

Q: What is a privacy coin? Isn’t the point of blockchain to be transparent?

A: There’s a misconception that coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum are anonymous. All transactions are actually broadcast to a public ledger so you can see transaction details like balances, transaction amounts, and…

I started scheduling weekly 1:1 calls with women who were interested in learning more about cryptocurrencies. I received hundreds of inbound requests after my tweet.

It was exciting to see the amount of interest. Since I couldn’t connect with everyone, I’m sharing the themes from the calls each month.

Investing

Q: Where should I go to buy cryptocurrencies?

A: I recommend my friends and family to start with Coinbase. It’s easy to link up a payment method and start purchasing cryptocurrencies. You’ll need to be careful about how you store them. I recommend moving the coins off to a…

It can be both exciting and intimidating when first getting into cryptocurrencies. I asked people in the crypto community to share the one thing they wish someone had told them when they first got into cryptocurrencies. Hopefully the following consolidated list will be helpful for those that are looking to go down the crypto rabbit hole.

1. Dive into learning about blockchains and cryptocurrencies

Before you start investing in cryptocurrencies it is critical that you build up an understanding of the space. A few good places to start:

• Blog: Stephen McKeon has a helpful and thorough post for newcomers. …

What is IOTA?

According to the IOTA website,

IOTA is a revolutionary new transactional settlement and data transfer layer for the Internet of Things. It’s based on a new distributed ledger, the Tangle, which overcomes the inefficiencies of current Blockchain designs and introduces a new way of reaching consensus in a decentralized peer-to-peer system.

This post should help those who are completely new to IOTA to get an introduction to how it is different than other cryptoassets like bitcoin.

Similarities and differences from Bitcoin

Bitcoin transactions are processed by miners in sequential groups called blocks. There is a limit to…

I put together a list of beginner’s guides that I’ve written on cryptoassets.

The target audience is people who know about Bitcoin and are looking to learn more about other cryptoassets. I’ll keep this post updated as I write more. Hope you find them educational!

Disclaimer: I owned ETH, XMR, LTC, ZRX, DCR, ZEC at the time of each writing. Since then my personal holdings may have changed. …

What is Zcash?

According to the Zcash website,

“Zcash is the first open, permissionless cryptocurrency that can fully protect the privacy of transactions using zero-knowledge cryptography.”

Bitcoin is an open and permissionless cryptocurrency but there is a common misconception that bitcoin transactions are anonymous. A history of every bitcoin transaction is displayed on a public ledger called the blockchain. Sophisticated software can be used to determine who is responsible for a significant number of these transactions. In response to this lack of privacy, there have been a number of cryptocurrencies that have focused on adding privacy functionality. …

What is Decred?

According to the Decred website, “Decred is an open and progressive cryptocurrency with a system of community-based governance integrated into its blockchain.” Bitcoin paved the way for cryptocurrencies in 2009 and there are a number of groups that have subsequently branched off to start new coins. One example is Decred which is a fork of Bitcoin with its own unique differences. This post should help those who are new to Decred to understand how it is different than other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Comparison

Bitcoin mining (the way new coins are generated) is extremely competitive and requires cheap…