What is ChainTrek?

The cryptocurrency space saw a 425% increase in total market cap in the first half of 2017. Ethereum and Litecoin joined the rank of Bitcoin to become household names. In the last few months, Olaf Carlson-Wee has graced the cover of Forbes, a Bitcoin enthusiast photobombed Janet Yellen’s Fed Testimony, and hackers stole over $7 million from the CoinDash ICO. During the same period of time, Visa posted a job for a blockchain developer keen in Ethereum’s contracting language (Solidity), the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance became the largest open-sourced blockchain initiative, and Bitcoin’s future is up for debate with the incoming August 1st hard fork.

While a lot of the interest and media attention has been focused on the rapid price increases over a short period of time, few have covered the foundation of it all, the startups and the technology they’re built upon. A lot of talk and coverage is talk on what could be, not what’s here. This is why I’ve decided to start ChainTrek — a curation of the emerging technologies that are available for use today. While the technology’s current state and potential releases might correlate with the token price (if there is a token), we’ll be avoiding any type of token price or speculation talk and instead focus purely on the user experience and functionality in the current state.

Monday will be the release of the first trek, including 4 unique blockchain protocols (chain links) followed by guides on how to get started with each. I have a solid list to work off of but I’m open to any recommendations on technologies to cover (Google forms to stay lean for now). Monday, the 31st, will start with Sia, Ethlance, Brave, and Steemit. As always critiques and ideas are always welcome.