The boom of initial coin offerings (ICOs) in 2017 and 2018 brought a new and unprecedented way for fintech firms to raise funds in minutes without going through the traditional route of initial public offerings (IPOs).

But the boom brought along a bust as the majority of these ICOs turned out to be scams, white paper ideas that never saw the day of light, and projects that ran out of money without quite kicking off.

It’s not long ago that the ICO model went bust but it was the first iteration of the crowdfunding model that will likely last for…

The term ‘distributed ledger’ has been thrown around too many times around blockchain conversations. Many people consider blockchain technology and distributed ledger as one and the same thing. This is technically not true although the two are related. So, what is a distributed ledger? The answer lies in this article.

I will begin our journey into distributed ledgers by looking at what a ledger is. A ledger is simply a record of related data. It has existed for as long as the societies became complex and required a bookkeeping system to keep track of important economic activities.

Ledgers existed on…

What is an altcoin? Let’s start from the beginning. Shortly after the 2008 financial crisis, a new digital currency was introduced to the world via a white paper sent to a mailing list of a cypherpunk community. It was known as bitcoin. It was built on top of a new technology known as the blockchain and is regarded by many as the best thing to happen since the invention of the internet and sliced bread.

Bitcoin was the first of many and like all ‘firsts,’ it has several major flaws or what others simply considered to be drawbacks. Its functionality…

What is Bitcoin Lightning Network? Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin to the world a decade ago amid much fanfare of a new decentralized method of payment that could potentially challenge the existing financial system. It seemed to work very well for some because there were fewer transactions conducted at the time.

Bitcoin grew in popularity and many people began stockpiling the new digital asset. Some were doing it as a hobby, others were investing, and a few were just testing the Bitcoin network. …

For thousands of years, men have gone beneath the dangers of the earth to extract minerals and precious metals such as gold, copper, platinum, and the like. The evolution in technology and finance has led to a new but different form of mining — Bitcoin mining. And given that Bitcoin is not a physical entity, many people are understandably wondering how Bitcoin mining works.

Bitcoin has so far been likened to gold in many regards. Some consider the digital asset a better hedge against inflation and may even replace gold as a potential store of value. …

Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? This is one of the most important and unanswered questions in the crypto sphere. Many people and organizations have been linked to who Nakamoto is but with no success. What is known so far is that Satoshi Nakamoto is the name given to the person, group of people or entity who created Bitcoin and its underlying blockchain technology.

Nakamoto’s name has Japanese attributes attached to it and this one of the reasons why Nakamoto is believed to be from Japan. However, judging by the perfect English used in Nakamoto’s forum posts and the Bitcoin white paper…

Ripple is as interesting as they come. It is the name of both a protocol and a currency. Ripple is a real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system or an open source network used to facilitate cheaper and faster global transactions.

It is very different from Bitcoin which was initially created to be used as a form of payment. There is no doubt that Ripple has set its eyes on becoming the leader in global remittance and currency exchange sectors.

The Ripple protocol supports a native currency known as XRP and the platform can also be used to create other tokens.

History of Ripple

Ripple…