Understand the blockchain. Understand the technology, the potential and the risks.

Understand what you’re investing in. If you don’t understand it, don’t buy it. That’s as true of crypto currencies as anything else.

Investing in companies who are banking on the blockchain is a safer bet than investing in cryptos themselves.

In this TechCrunch article, I outline several ways to invest in companies that are likely to benefit from the blockchain without buying any cryptocurrencies.

There are two ways to profit from the blockchain:

1) By owning cryptocurrencies; and/or

2) By owning equities of companies that will benefit from the blockchain technology.

The latter is a safer way to invest. It’s safer because these companies are smaller and have more room to grow than Bitcoin does, for example (Bitcoin’s market cap is $120 billion). These stocks also have more room for error if their bets on the blockchain don’t pay off.

While Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, was invented in 2009, it has only been in the last few months that it has reached popularity with the general public. During this time, many other cryptocurrencies have also come into existence.

These currencies, known as altcoins, are similar to Bitcoin but offer different advantages. Many investors prefer them to Bitcoin because they often have a faster transaction speed and a lower transaction fee. However, these advantages are not enough to make them mainstream rivals to Bitcoin. The most important factor separating Bitcoin from altcoins is market cap. Currently, the market cap of all cryptocurrencies combined is around $400 billion, with Bitcoin taking up $200 billion of that (that’s 50%). In short: there is no serious competition for Bitcoin as the king of crypto.

This poses a problem for investors who want to invest in crypto but are not interested in trading volatile currencies. Some people like cryptocurrencies because they see potential in the technology and want to support it; others want to profit off the hype; and others just want their money to grow. Fortunately for these groups of people, there is still a way to get involved with crypto without having any exposure to cryptocurrencies themselves: investing in blockchain companies instead.

The blockchain technology is a revolutionary technology that will begin to change the way we conduct business and use the internet.

The nature of this technology, not only allows people to send value from one person to another but also cuts out the middlemen creating more efficient systems. Whether it is bitcoin or other altcoins, trading cryptocurrencies are accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

However, as much as I am bullish on crypto currency and believe they will be a big part of our 21st century lives, there are many different ways to profit in this space without buying cryptocurrencies.

One of the biggest benefits of this new technology is called smart contracts. These self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller being directly written into lines of code allow for trusted transactions and agreements to be carried out among disparate, anonymous parties without the need for a central authority, legal system, or external enforcement mechanism. They render transactions traceable, transparent, and irreversible.

The Ethereum blockchain is currently the most popular platform for developers creating smart contract applications. The platform is not just a ledger for tracking money like Bitcoin; it can be used for all sorts of things like voting systems and asset registration and identity management.

Right now, the financial markets are wagering on blockchain, the technology that underlies cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Banks are investing in blockchain startups. Goldman Sachs (GS) has a team of analysts studying the sector.

So, what is the blockchain? It’s a public electronic ledger — analogous to the ledgers used by banks — that can be openly shared among disparate users to create an unchangeable record of transactions, each time-stamped and linked to the previous one. Every transaction is visible to anyone with access to the system, and it’s verified by consensus of a majority of users rather than by a powerful authority figure such as a government or bank president.

The blockchain also allows for smart contracts: agreements written in computer code that execute automatically when certain conditions are met. This eliminates counterparty risk since there’s no longer any need for trust between parties to an agreement. The blockchain, like the internet itself, is an open network that operates on many computers simultaneously; it isn’t owned or run by any single entity.

The rise of bitcoin has brought digital currencies into the mainstream. But should you invest in Bitcoin? Here’s why some experts say you shouldn’t bitcoin prices have increased dramatically this year as investors flock to trade cryptocurrencies like bitcoin,

Blockchain technology is changing industries around the world. It’s bringing organizations, governments, financial institutions, and payment platforms into a new digital age. It’s revolutionizing everything around us.

For those who are not familiar with blockchain technology, it is best described as a decentralized digital ledger that is used to record transactions across many computers so that any involved record cannot be altered retroactively, without the alteration of all subsequent blocks.

The blockchain is one of today’s hottest tech topics. Now that we know what blockchain is, and how it works, we can begin to understand the investment opportunities that have been created by this new technology.

Investing in individual cryptocurrencies isn’t for everyone. Fortunately for investors who are uncomfortable investing directly in cryptocurrencies or those looking for a way to invest in the growth of this technology through more traditional means there are other options available.

The following are just some examples of companies that have made significant investments into blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies:

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released a white paper describing a revolutionary technology. This technology is called the blockchain. The blockchain is a new kind of ledger that is public, distributed and secured with cryptography.

Bitcoin has been the most successful application of blockchain technology to date. But there are many more companies and projects looking to utilize this technology for purposes other than digital currencies.

There is a lot of excitement in the investment community around these blockchain companies and projects. For example, the price of shares in Riot Blockchain, a former biotech company that recently re-branded itself as a cryptocurrency company, increased from $4 at the beginning of October to more than $40 in December 2017. The price has since declined to less than $9.00 but still remains above where it was trading before its rebranding.

What Is The Blockchain?

Blockchain is an open ledger that records transactions between parties efficiently and permanently. It is considered immutable because transactions are verified by multiple parties on the network instead of only one party. No single entity can control or manipulate the information on the blockchain because it is decentralized, distributed and secured using cryptography.

There are two types of blockchains: public and private. With public blockchains anyone can access the information or transact on the network with permission

Cryptocurrencies are a revolutionary technology for the financial industry, but it’s not the only innovation that has the potential to change the world.

The blockchain, Bitcoin’s underlying technology, is a decentralized ledger of all transactions across a peer-to-peer network. It is powered by individuals who contribute computing power to process and verify transactions on the network, creating new tokens of the cryptocurrency in return.

The blockchain is also an incredibly secure database technology with massive potential for other industries including health care and insurance.

Investors should pay attention to three areas in particular: companies building blockchain software solutions, companies using blockchain to provide unique solutions, and companies that could benefit from increased cryptocurrency adoption.