Blockchain & Crypto Insights
Decentralized Systems. ICOs. Cryptography.
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency blog
Insights and perspectives about Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, and advances in Financial technologies from OrionX research analysts
Available for download
Many of OrionX Constellation(tm) research papers are available for download. No registration or payment is required.
Available for download
Twelfth CryptoSuper 500 List – Report
Our first CryptoSuper500 report was five and a half years ago, in November 2018. While there are over 20,000 “cryptocurrencies” that have been created in the interval, only 52 of these coins including stable coins tied to fiat have valuations above $2 billion. Most projects have been abandoned or are worth little; most were essentially get-rich quick schemes for their initiators. Only a small number of coins have used proof of work consensus algorithms; the ones that do not are more properly considered tokens.
The Bitcoin market cap has grown in line with the 6th power of its age over this interval, one would have predicted growth by a factor of 12.5 and it grew quite close to that ratio. For price one would have predicted a factor of 10 and it grew by that same factor. Bitcoin annual production has grown by a smaller factor of 2.8 because there have been two halvings in the block subsidy during the past 5-1/2 years, in May 2020 and April 2024.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Evolution
Twelfth CryptoSuper 500 List – Slides
This our Twelfth semiannual report on the global Cryptocurrency mining industry. Bitcoin has emerged as the world’s largest, albeit special purpose, supercomputer. And it is globally decentralized. Millions of nodes all run the same open-source code to secure the Bitcoin network, create value, and put new transactions onto the distributed ledger. The latest Top500 list has just been announced at the ISC 2024 conference in Hamburg, and once again the Frontier supercomputer with 1.2 Exaflops peak performance is number one on the list.
Specialization is a current topic in future supercomputers and some lessons can be learned from Bitcoin. If assigned to SHA-256 hashing, Frontier would provide only the equivalent hash rate of about three cabinets of the latest high-end Bitcoin mining systems, costing less than 0.1% of Frontier’s cost. Michael Saylor, Chairman of MicroStrategy, has pointed out that GPUs are two orders of magnitude slower than the 5-nanometer technology of custom ASICs used for Bitcoin mining today. He makes the point that the Bitcoin network is unassailable by all of the hyperscale computing resources combined in AWS, Google, and Microsoft Azure cloud data centers today.
Digital Transformation
Constellation Summary
Report Type: Evolution
Eleventh CryptoSuper 500 List – Report
The first CryptoSuper 500 report was released five years ago in November 2018. Since that time there has been consolidation from six POW coins down to just two, Bitcoin and Dogecoin, that now pass the hurdle for the list. The Bitcoin market capitalization has compounded at 43% per annum over the interval and the global hash rate at 56% per annum. Both have risen faster than Moore’s Law. The annual production of top cryptocurrencies has grown more modestly, at 16% compounded per annum. The more modest rate of increase is a result of Ethereum switching to proof of stake and dropping out of the crypto super POW race in September 2022. The report also discusses central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). China was the first major country to implement such a currency. Having completed its investigation phase, it appears that the European Central Bank is committed to a CBDC, with a preparation phase starting earlier this month.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Evolution
Eleventh CryptoSuper 500 List – Slides
The computational resources that create and maintain Bitcoin execute a Reusable Proof of Work (POW) security protocol and comprise a decentralized supercomputer with millions of specialized ASICs that perform about 500 Exahashes/second of secure protocol calculations, that is, half a Zettahash/second. The top 12 publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies have a collective market cap of over $8 billion and hold over $1 billion in Bitcoin in their corporate treasuries. They have roughly 100 Exahashes/sec of hash rate and they mine 20% of the 900 Bitcoins mined on an average day, primarily in North America.
Digital Transformation
Constellation Summary
Report Type: Evolution
Tenth CryptoSuper 500 List – Report
We began this series of crypto super reports four and a half years ago to understand the intersection of cryptocurrencies and supercomputing. What we have observed during this interval is the increasing dominance of Bitcoin in terms of both the computing power utilized and the associated market capitalization. Now we have a dozen pools brokering most of $10 billion worth of annual economic value, almost all from Bitcoin, and with about $1 billion of that in transaction fees while 90% is due to the value of new coinage.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Evolution
Tenth CryptoSuper 500 List – Slides
Bitcoin continues its dominance of the crypto world. There are now a dozen pools brokering most of $10 billion worth of annual economic value, almost all from Bitcoin, and with about $1 billion of that in transaction fees while 90% is due to the value of new coinage. China has abandoned its former dominance of the industry as it seeks to promote a central bank digital currency alternative. The US has emerged as the #1 geography for Bitcoin minting, driven by substantial venture capital investment. About half of the North American hash rate is found within publicly traded companies.
Digital Transformation
Constellation Summary
Report Type: Evolution
Ninth CryptoSuper 500 List – Report
With Ethereum’s change in consensus algorithm in September, away from the security-first proof-of-work for token creation to the transaction speed-first proof-of-stake, and the current crypto winter in prices, cryptocurrency mining pools produced at a rate of less than $7B annual economic value (AEV), down from over $42 billion a year ago. The list is now completely dominated by Bitcoin, showing an AEV of $5.8 billion, down from $20 billion one year ago. Dogecoin is the new #2, but is much smaller in generated annual economic value.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Evolution
Ninth CryptoSuper 500 List – Slides
Our Ninth CryptoSuper500 list. As of this report the economic value of newly generated Bitcoin has dropped to $6.2 billion from $9.7 billion since OrionX’s prior report in June of this year. Ethereum mining was also generating $9.4 billion in value at that time, but that has collapsed to zero as of mid-September with the Merge and full conversion to proof of stake. Since our first list, produced four years ago, global hash rate has increased by a factor of 5.2 in four years, for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 51%. Bitcoin’s value is up more modestly, with a CAGR around 25% since November 2018, but the price remains highly volatile; very recently volatility has been similar to that of the NASDAQ stock index.
Digital Transformation
Constellation Summary
Report Type: Evolution
Eighth CryptoSuper 500 List: $19B Annual Value, US Leads BTC Mining with 38% – Report
We make three observations for the decline in BTC price in dollars. The first is the unfavorable macroeconomic backdrop. While inflation has been rising worldwide, the growth rate in most countries has been falling as the “post-COVID” bounce in economies wore off, and as COVID didn’t end even while becoming more endemic, and as supply chain disruptions cut activity in some sectors. And for the last three months the world has experienced the brutal invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia, further slowing economic activity while also contributing to inflation.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Evolution
Eighth CryptoSuper 500 List: $19B Annual Value, US Leads BTC Mining with 38% – Slides
“Despite the large price drop since our last list, the economic value of Bitcoin mining has risen at a 28% compound annual growth rate, while that of Ethereum has risen at 91% compounded since our first list was published in November of 2018,” said Dr. Stephen Perrenod, OrionX Partner and Analyst and the developer of the CryptoSuper500.
Digital Transformation
Constellation Summary
Report Type: Evolution
Seventh CryptoSuper 500 List: $42B Economic Value – Report
Bitcoin and Ethereum have achieved a production level of $20 billion per year (annual economic value). Bitcoin has reached a market cap of $1.2 trillion and Ethereum is approaching $0.6 trillion. Together they are responsible for over 60% of all cryptocurrency market capitalization. In a world of 13,000 current cryptocurrencies with nearly $3 trillion market cap, only 22 coins have market caps over $10 billion.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Evolution
Seventh CryptoSuper500 List: $42B Annual Economic Value
The annual economic value of cryptocurrency mining has grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 97% since we tabulated our first CryptoSuper list three years ago,” said Dr. Stephen Perrenod, OrionX Partner and Analyst and the developer of the CryptoSuper500. ““Despite the Chinese ban on bitcoin mining enforced in June of this year, the total global mining hash rate recovered to prior levels in a matter of months.”
Digital Transformation
Constellation Summary
Report Type: Evolution
Sixth CryptoSuper500 List: DeFi, NFT, China
As of May 29th 2021, almost all the produced value by cryptocurrency mining is in three coins: Ethereum’s ETH coin, Bitcoin, and Dogecoin. While Bitcoin continues to represent the top spot in mining power, ETH produced the most mining revenue, aided by emerging applications that offer Decentralized Finance (DeFi) or manage Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Trends to watch include …
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Evolution
Sixth CryptoSuper500 List: Economic Value Nears $40B
Reaching nearly $40 billion in annual economic value, cryptocurrency mining continues to play an impotrant role, aided by emerging applications that offer Decentralized Finance (DeFi) or manage Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). This report and associated slide presentation presents an overview of market forces and details of the top 45 pools for Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Dogecoin.
Digital Transformation
Constellation Summary
Report Type: Evolution
Fifth CryptoSuper500 List: Exascale Hashrates
Cryptocurrencies have reached Exascale class supercomputing, with a hash rate of around 115 ExaHashes per second just for Bitcoin. The Bitcoin hash rate is roughly flat since the last Bitcoin halving in May, but due to the strong Bitcoin price rise, the Annual Economic Value (AEV) has grown significantly. AEV of cryptocurrencies that rely on proof of work mining has hit a new high of around $9 billion, despite the Bitcoin Halving of block reward in May. AEV is up 90% since the June 2020 list.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Evolution
Fifth CryptoSuper500 List: Economic Value Hits New High
Cryptocurrencies have reached Exascale class supercomputing, with a hash rate of around 115 ExaHashes per second just for Bitcoin. The Bitcoin hash rate is roughly flat since the last Bitcoin halving in May, but due to the strong Bitcoin price rise, the Annual Economic Value (AEV) has grown significantly. AEV of cryptocurrencies that rely on proof of work mining has hit a new high of around $9 billion, despite the Bitcoin Halving of block reward in May. AEV is up 90% since the June 2020 list.
Digital Transformation
Constellation Summary
Report Type: Evolution
Fourth CryptoSuper500 List: Post Third Halving
The aggregate annual economic value of crypto production is now about $5 billion. It has fallen back by one-third due to May’s Bitcoin Halving event which reduces block rewards each four years. Since prices tend to move higher for Bitcoin, it is reasonable to expect a recovery. There are over a million mining rigs around the world just for Bitcoin, adding up to a total of some 100 Exahashes per second of power. China has most of the top 50 cryptocurrency supercomputer-class mining pools. The cost of electricity and transaction costs will play critical roles.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Evolution
The Top-5 Technologies All Organizations Must Understand
Talk given at the Stanford HPC-AI Conference. We discuss the digital infrastructure of the future enterprise and the state of critical technology trends. OrionX works with clients on the impact of Digital Transformation on them, their customers, and their messages. Generally, they want to track, in one place, trends like IoT, 5G, AI, Blockchain, and Quantum Computing. And they want to know what these trends mean, how they affect each other, and when they demand action, and how to formulate and execute an effective plan. This talk is a somewhat technical summary of such discussions.
Digital Transformation
Constellation Summary
Report Type: Evolution
Third CryptoSuper500 List: A Hundred ExaHashes
There are now over 4000 cryptocurrencies. Most are worth relatively little, and only 13 have market caps over $1 billion. Market cap is the number of coins or tokens outstanding times the price. In an extreme illustration of the Pareto principle, two-thirds of the market cap of all cryptocurrencies combined is with Bitcoin, the premier crypto.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Evolution
CryptoSuper500: 3rd Edition, November 2019
The CryptoSuper500 tracks decentralized supercomputers that are used for cryptocurrency mining, an intensive application that has become a driver of technology development and investment decisions globally. There are now over 4000 cryptocurrencies. Most are worth relatively little, and only 13 have market caps over $1 billion. Market cap is the number of coins or tokens outstanding times the price. In an extreme illustration of the Pareto principle, two-thirds of the market cap of all cryptocurrencies combined is with Bitcoin, the premier crypto.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Event
Libra, Corporate Money to Take Cryptocurrency Mainstream
Facebook’s commanding global digital presence can drive adoption and take the cryptocurrency concept to the mainstream. However, Libra compromises on too many attributes of the ideal cryptocurrency to be categorized as anything but a walled-garden Corporate money, and barely a “crypto” currency at that. Libra could have been something better, let’s call it Solar.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Event
CryptoSuper500: 2nd Edition, June 2019
Cryptocurrency Supercomputing refers to large-scale cryptocurrency mining operations which are typically powered by accelerator technologies such as GPUs, FPGAs, or custom ASICs. Bitcoin is the most notable of such currencies. The CryptoSuper500 list tracks supercomputer class systems that are used for cryptocurrency mining, an intensive application that has become a driver of technology development and investment decisions globally. Cryptocurrency mining via Proof of Work is important since it continues to represent the most effective consensus algorithm to maximize security in a decentralized manner.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Event
Cryptocurrency Outlook 2019
We provide our views of the cryptocurrency economy in the next 9-15 months and review the accuracy of our last outlook from last year. Topics that are covered include Ethereum and Smart Contracts, Bitcoin and Lightning, Security Tokens, Stablecoins, Enterprise Blockchains and Distributed Ledger Technology, Cryptocurrency Phones, Messenger Coins, and Retail Killer Apps. We begin with definitions and a glossary of terms.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Event
CryptoSuper500: Top Cryptocurrency Supercomputers
The CryptoSuper500 list tracks supercomputers that are used for cryptocurrency mining, an intensive application that has become a driver of technology development and investment decisions globally. The growth of the cryptocurrency market has put the spotlight on emerging decentralized applications, the new ways in which they are funded, and the software stack on which they are built. Cryptocurrency technologies include blockchain, consensus algorithms, digital wallets, and utility and security tokens.
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Event
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies – Why What When
Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, smart contracts have emerged as unignorable technologies, with potentially far-reaching implications. The talk covered the essence of these technologies, focusing on what is real, what is a promise, impact on other key trends such as IoT, AI, and Quantum Computing, and why they might or might not deliver on their promises. Smart contracts and ICOs will be covered in a future presentation. Contact us if you’d like to request a speaker.
(This is the full slide deck supporting a keynote speech given at the Advanced Scale Forum conference in 2018.)
Digital Transformation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrencies
Report Type: Event
Cryptocurrency Outlook: More Chasm Crossing
In this paper, we provide our views of the cryptocurrency economy in the next 9-15 months. The only thing more difficult than forecasting the near future is forecasting for longer time frames, and with the rapidly evolving cryptoeconomy, forecasting for a whole year is dangerous enough. Make no mistake, cryptocurrencies are money.
Despite the attempts of economists and money center bankers and central bankers to fight this reality, the leading cryptocurrencies are money in varying degrees. The major ones are not as significant as the US Dollar, Yen, or Euro, but they are used as media of exchange amounting to trillions of dollars per year, and have been retaining value and increasing value rapidly, despite high volatility.
The OrionX Constellation: Blockchain
Report Type: Event
Critical Technologies of the Future
In this futuristic talk, we look at how information revolution is changing everything and provide a snapshot of some critical technologies that are currently driving that change: IoT, Blockchain, Quantum Computing, AI, Cybersecurity, 5G,… all resting on a foundation of Mobility, Cloud, and HPC.
This talk has evolved since 2011. Most recently, it was presented at the HPC-AI Advisory Council conference held at Stanford University in Feb-2018. A video of the talk is available on InsideHPC.com. Contact us if you’d like to request a speaker.
Digital Transformation
Critical Technologies of the Future
Report Type: Event
Blockchain & Crypto blog
@HPCpodcast-78: 2023 Year in Review
2023 Year in Review is our annual special edition as we look back at one of the more eventful years in recent history for HPC, AI, Quantum Computing, and other advanced technologies.
30% Tax on Bitcoin’s Electricity Input is Proposed
An in-depth look into the proposed tax on Bitcoin’s electricity input. This article was featured on Medium’s ILLUMINATION.
-By Stephen Perrenod
Black Holes* as a possible source of Universal Dark Energy
A look into whether it is dark energy, not dark matter, that black holes explain.
-By Stephen Perrenod
OrionX Download Podcast: Crypto Winter, SBT, CBDC
The crypto winter arrived but a lot continues to happen in the cryptocurrency industry. Stephen and Shahin cover the current state of things, from some of the causes of significant failures, to Bitcoin’s recent rise, new developments in Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), and self-sovereign identity (SSI) and Soul-Bound Tokens (SBT).
OrionX Download Podcast: Fintech Update, CryptoSuper500, CBDC, NFT, DeFi, Regulations
The OrionX Download podcast is back with a new episode on the latest in Fintech and Crypto with Shahin Khan and Stephen Perrenod. From Stephen’s newly released CryptoSuper500 report to the latest on CBDCs, NFTs, DeFi, and regulations, the team offers the same realistic perspective and analysis that have made previous episodes so popular.
@HPCpodcast-28: LaMDA and AI Sentience, Crypto Price Collapse
Sentience, consciousness, and personhood, and the urgency of thoughtful social policies based on ethical and legal frameworks. Also the state of Crypto and NFT: technologies that might find valid use cases often manifested as investment vehicles that require close scrutiny.
@HPCpodcast-12: Framework for Top-10 Tech Trends
Web3, IoT/Edge, AI, HPC, Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, GPUs and Quantum, Cyber Risk, 5G, and BioTech represent the top-10 tech trends. Why are there so many big technology trends right now? Doug and Shahin discuss a framework to help make sense of why these trends point to important changes, how these trends are related, and what they mean individually and together.
@HPCpodcast-3: Metaverse and HPC
Shahin Khan and Doug Black discuss the Metaverse, its consumer and industrial uses, competition for data, avatars and more realistic digital twins, commerce in the metaverse, and why so many parts of it, from immersive graphics to 5G include computationally intensive components.
Cryptocurrency FUD, Fact or Fiction?
There is recurring “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt” leveled at Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. Steve Perrenod and Shahin Khan go over the list to demystify. On the menu: intrinsic value, energy usage, slow transactions, China, etc.
The Sixth Edition of the CryptoSuper500 List Shows Cryptocurrency Mining Nears $40 Billion Annual Value
Inspired by the TOP500 list, biannual list of the most powerful cryptocurrency mining pools tracks compute power and economic value
Bitcoin and Ethereum Portfolio Allocation
Bitcoin and Ethereum Portfolio Allocation
-By Stephen Perrenod
Flash Hash Crash: have we peaked?
Flash hash crash: have we peaked? And is Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme?
-By Stephen Perrenod
Bank of America’s Hit Piece on Bitcoin
Is Bitcoin dirty? This month Bank of America Global Research issued a 49-page report on Bitcoin titled “Bitcoin’s Dirty Little Secrets” that comes across as a hit piece.
-By Stephen Perrenod
Bitcoin’s Long Term Value
It is well known that technology adoption approximates an S-Curve or logistic function. It took half a century for electricity to be widely adopted in the US, a quarter of a century for half the population to get TVs, but mobile phone adoption took only half that time.
-By Stephen Perrenod
Axions in Pulsars
Has Dark Matter been converted to X-rays in Neutron Star magnetic fields? Many people have heard of neutrinos (little ‘neutral ones’). But there is another dark matter candidate, never observed in the laboratory, which would have a mass much less than even the three known neutrinos. And is less well known than neutrinos.
-By Stephen Perrenod
Bitcoin: A New Asset Class
A new asset class has been born. Sift through the posts on your social media and you will find that just a few years ago, it was big news that Bitcoin had broken $1000. That was a big deal because it was the third time Bitcoin was priced more than $1k. Digital money was starting […]
Cryptocurrency State of the Market and Short History
What’s behind Bitcoin’s recent price hike? Shahin Khan and Steve Perrenod look at the Cryptocurrency market and its history over the past decade. They run through and explain the major new concepts that were introduced and take stock of their progress.
Fifth Edition of CryptoSuper500 List Shows Annual Economic Value Hits New High
Menlo Park, Calif. – Nov. 13, 2020 — OrionX Research today unveiled the fifth edition of the CryptoSuper500 list. The report highlights the rapidly growing hashrate among the top six coins mined with Proof of Work consensus algorithms. In crypto mining, hashes are the metric that parallels floating point operations (flops) in the supercomputing world. Cryptocurrencies have reached Exascale class supercomputing, with a hash rate of around 115 ExaHashes per second just for Bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s Uniqueness as a Store of Value
Money is a universal intermediate good used as a form of wealth. People use it as the connector between other goods and services, and as a way to resolve debts. The first well-documented money was accounted for in Babylonian temples in the form of barley. You see already from this, that money has aspects of virtuality, and it has a definition as an accounting unit as well as serving as a medium of exchange and a store of value for delayed usage.
-By Stephen Perrenod
Bitcoin is Anti-Fragile: 20 Reasons
Bitcoin is Anti-Fragile: 20 Reasons
Bitcoin has falsely been declared dead by journalists and old fiat-economy wise men and women some 380 times. But it has survived many errors, shocks, and even splits from the main branch of its evolutionary tree.
– By Stephen Perrenod
Bitcoin is Anti-Fragile: 20 Reasons
Bitcoin has survived many errors, shocks, and even splits from the main branch of its evolutionary tree. It has been declared dead by journalists and fiat economy wise men and women some 380 times. But these events, concerns, or self-interested attacks have not stopped Bitcoin. It keeps getting stronger, and every 10 minutes the security of all prior transactions is enhanced. Bitcoin is now functionally eternal, certainly positioned to survive beyond the year 2100.
-By Stephen Perrenod
CryptoSuper 500 – Keeping Track of the Supercomputers that Mine Money
Keeping Track of the Supercomputers that Mine Money
Supercomputers, which do the heavy lifting for AI, science, and engineering, are increasingly also safeguarding digital money. While the metric for traditional supercomputers is Petaflops or Exaflops (floating point operations per second), the figure of merit for CryptoSuper is Petahashes per second or Exahashes per second.
-By Stephen Perrenod & Shahin Khan
Fourth CryptoSuper 500 List: First After Bitcoin Halving
China has most of the top 50 cryptocurrency supercomputer-class mining pools. In many ways, CryptoSuper 500 and similar lists are a barometer of important national capabilities. As we look more deeply at the impact of technology on policy decisions at the national and global levels, we will incorporate the lessons from all such capability lists.
Fourth Edition of CryptoSuper500 List Shows Effects of Bitcoin Halving
Menlo Park, CA – June 23, 2020 – OrionX Research today released the fourth edition of the CryptoSuper500 list, the first after the “Bitcoin Halving” that took place in May 2020. The list tracks supercomputers used for cryptocurrency mining, a computationally intensive decentralized consensus process that allows cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum to operate without the need for a central trusted authority. The CryptoSuper500 list was inspired by the well-known TOP500 list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.
The Future Supply Model, Era 4
The Future Supply Model, Era 4
This article presents three two-parameter models for Bitcoin valuation with projections until the year 2050. Prices and supply, combined as market caps, and stock-to-flow and fractional supply remaining, were tabulated at each Block month boundary for the past ten Block years.
– By Stephen Perrenod
Bitcoin is Having a ‘Halving’ Amidst a Pandemic
Bitcoin is Having a ‘Halving’ Amidst a Pandemic
Monday, May 11, 2020, witnessed the third Bitcoin a “halving”. That it happened in the middle of a pandemic and economic shutdown gives it more visibility as a new asset class and arguably a safe store of value. Here’s an explanation of what Bitcoin is, why it “halves”, and what that might mean to its value.
– By Shahin Khan
What is 5G and Why is it a Big Deal?
Probably one of the best discussions anywhere about what 5G is and why it is a big deal. Shahin Khan and guest Walt Maclay, president of Voler Systems go over what 5G technology promises: speed, low latency, high density in terms of number of devices per square kilometer, better precision for positioning and location tracking, low power, high coverage, and significant back-end efficiencies, including new classes of services.
Blockchain, IoT, and the Future of Payment Systems
You need new transaction systems to make it possible for smart connected Things to do their thing: deliver services efficiently to people and to each other, verify delivery, and receive payment.
Crypto Exchange and Internet of Value
Digital technologies are disrupting the financial services industry in many small and big ways and companies starting to look like banks. Nikolaj Vestorp, co-founder of MarketKoin and the OrionX team discuss what is changing in financial markets. MarketKoin started in Indonesia which gives it a truly global perspective.
China’s Coming Crypto Yuan and the Digital Disruption of Banking
OrionX Quote
“New technologies typically are known to disrupt markets and companies but with blockchain and cryptocurrency we have a technology that can disrupt governments, too.” – Shahin Khan, OrionX
Digital Transformation (DX): Opportunity or Threat?
Digital Transformation (DX) is not just another slogan or IT upgrade, but a profound shift in what your customers want or will want, and what you have to do to deliver. It is a shift in your business model. Read about the many dimensions of DX and how OrionX can help you make it actionable.
State of the Market: Crypto/Blockchain, Quantum Computing
The OrionX Research team is back with Stephen, Shahin, and Dan going over the state of the market in Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, and Quantum Computing.
Living on Satoshi Time: What Block is it?
Today is Block Year 12, and within the year it is Block Month 5, Block Day 137 Bitcoin Generates Its Own Calendar Our Gregorian calendar is based on the Solar year, the Lunar month, and the Terrene (Earthly) day. Bitcoin has its own natural calendar that can be constructed to approximate our human calendar of […]
HPC and AI on Wall Street: Panel Discussion on Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies
HPC and AI on Wall Street Conference At the recent HPC and AI on Wall Street conference, I moderated a panel on Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain. Panelists included Ryan Quick of Providentia Worldwide, Asha Dakshi of AlphaPoint, Eric Simone of ClearBlade, and Dan Simerman of the IOTA Foundation. Thanks to Jem Pagan of BluSky Consulting who […]
Top 50 of Crypto Mining – June 2019
Today, June 14, 2019, we released the second biannual list of Top 50 cryptocurrency mining pools. We do this in conjunction with the Top 500 supercomputing list that is released twice a year, in June and November. That list has been a matter of national pride for the US, Japan, China, and many other countries. […]
CryptoSuper500, 2nd Edition
What is new with the most powerful crypto mining pools? Thanks to the efforts of my colleague Dr. Stephen Perrenod, OrionX launched a new CryptoSuper500 list last November, coinciding with the eagerly awaited TOP500 list of most powerful supercomputers. The TOP500 has spawned variations that look at different workloads and attributes, for example, the Green500, […]
Did JPMorgan Just Kill the Bitcoin Dream?
An article in Barron’s written by Ben Walsh on Valentine’s Day is titled “JPMorgan Just Killed the Bitcoin Dream”. JPMorgan Chase has announced an altcoin, a stable coin, for use by institutional customers. It will be tethered to the US dollar. This development is the first such stable coin issued by a US bank. So […]
Will Lightning Electrify Bitcoin?
Why: Scaling for bandwidth and efficiency Suppose Bitcoin could scale. Many altcoins were created in the promise of handling more transactions, and with lower fees. But Bitcoin can scale, and it will, thanks to the Lightning Network which went live in 2018. While small, it is growing rapidly. Bitcoin is often criticized for lack of […]
Is Central Bank Digital Currency Cryptocurrency?
Recently the International Monetary Fund produced a research report on Central Bank Digital Currencies, titled “Casting Light on Central Bank Digital Currency”, and available here: https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/SDN/2018/SDN1808.ashx Even the title is interesting in its omission of the terms cryptocurrency and blockchain. The basic concept they were evaluating was that of central bank controlled digital currency issued […]
CryptoSuper500: the most powerful cryptocurrency mining pools
Cryptocurrency mining pools have become larger. A new list, CryptoSuper500 tracks them according to economical value, computational power, and by extension, energy use. If you are following my colleague Dr. Stephen Perrenod‘s blogs and reports, you know that he, and the rest of us at OrionX, aim to keep on top of business, technology, and […]
Will Bitcoin Consume All Electricity?
The idea that bitcoin will consume an enormous fraction of the world’s electricity is hysteria. In a recent article in the Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, June 2018 issue, Nicholas Weaver (a lecturer in computer science at UC Berkeley) raised this issue, in what was otherwise a good article on the security issues […]
Is Bitcoin on your Computer? Money in the Internet
No, not asking if you own any Bitcoin. Or the IP address. This blog is prompted by the Nicholas Weaver article “Risks of Cryptocurrencies” in the June 2018 Communications of the ACM. He writes, rather misleadingly in our opinion: “This was not because our Bitcoin was stolen from a honeypot, rather the graduate student who created […]
National Security and Blockchain Technology
National Security considerations are often intimately intertwined with the adoption of new technologies. Last year Tokyo hosted a meeting of the International Standards Organization, including a session on blockchain technology to examine ideas around standards for blockchain and distributed ledgers. A member of the Russian delegation, who is part of their intelligence apparatus at the […]
Is Blockchain the Key to Web 3.0?
Web 3.0 has been around as a meme since early in the century. This writer was formerly with the Sun Microsystems Education business and recalls meetings we sponsored over a decade ago, that were attended by academic computer scientists promoting the concept. And yet it has been slow to take off, and it remains a […]
Information Economy 2.0
Bitcoin is a Trillion $ Economy We often hear that we live in an Information Economy. We have an information-based economy, but we don’t have a pure form of “money as information”. Instead we have a hybrid of digital money and paper money with encoded information such as denomination and serial numbers and engraving details. […]
OrionX Releases New Blockchain Constellation™ Research Paper
I am very pleased and excited to announce the release of the newest paper in our Constellation™ series about blockchain/cryptocurrency technologies: “Cryptocurrency Outlook: More Chasm Crossing.” This is a comprehensive look at this emerging and important technology, written by my colleague Dr. Stephen Perrenod who has been working with cryptocurrencies for several years and has focused […]
Bitcoin Forks are So 2017
“Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom” Mao Tse Tung 百花齐放 Well there are 20 flowers in the Bitcoin ecosystem. And over 1400 in the cryptocurrency ecosystem at present. Salad forks, dinner forks, shrimp forks, dessert forks, tuning forks, pitchforks… so many kinds of forks.. Image credit: Ellen Levy Finch, CC BY-SA 4.0 Why fork a new […]
Bitcoin: Like Gold or Like a Currency?
Valuing the various bitcoin forks Recent News: Segwit2x fork has been postponed indefinitely Some say bitcoin acts more as digital gold then as a currency, more as a store of value than as a medium of exchange. It is very interesting to look at the various bitcoin forks with this question in mind. Everything in […]
Evolutionary Forks and Dividends
What is a fork? It is early days in evolutionary terms for cryptocurrency. Bitcoin has not been around even a decade. Ethereum has only been here for a few years. The respective economies of these and other cryptocurrencies have been growing at triple digit percentage rates. A given blockchain can be thought of as a […]
Ethereum: Smarter than a Fifth Grader?
Ethereum is described in Wikipedia as an “an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform featuring smart contract functionality“. How does it differ from Bitcoin? Well Bitcoin is open-source, public, distributed, and block-chain based. The difference is principally found in the terms “computing platform” and “smart contract functionality”. And there are other differences as well. Ethereum […]
Why Buffet Doesn’t “Get” Bitcoin
Warren Buffett is the most famous name in stock investing, the second richest person in the world, and a leading expert in valuing companies and securities. He also is a big investor in banks, including Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America. So he has a lot of vested interest in the current monetary […]
Cryptocurrency a Bridge to the Future
Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies more generally, can be a bridge to a better monetary future for the globe. In almost every nation today, fiat currency managed by a central bank is the norm. This is money that is inherently inflationary by design. Since central banks are controlled by national governments, and governments routinely run substantial deficits, […]
J-Coin Prediction: it will be a Bonsai among alt-coins
One of the largest banks in Japan, Mizuho, along with other Japanese banks, is looking to get into the blockchain game. CNBC reports “Japanese banks are thinking of making their own cryptocurrency”. Except they are not, based on the information released so far. This will be mobile Yen, a use of blockchain to allow mobile […]
Jamie Dimon is Afraid
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, goes the saying. JP Morgan (not Jamie Dimon) Jamie Dimon is CEO of JP Morgan Chase, arguably the most important money center bank. He recently called Bitcoin a “fraud”, heaping ridicule upon, and fighting with Bitcoin as well, with a single phrase. Because he […]
Money 3.0: Cryptocurrencies
Why are cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum Money 3.0? And what are Money 1.0 and Money 2.0? Recently, Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin a ‘fraud’. This coming from the CEO of JP Morgan, the bank that has been fined more than any other, save one, for financial crimes since the Great Recession of 2008. His statement […]
Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain, and Bitcoin, part 3
Stephen Perrenod joins Shahin and Dan to make sense of Cryptocurrency/Blockchain/Bitcoin. They complete the discussion of a transaction’s journey, which they started in the last episode, and answer the common question: “can I separate Blockchain from Bitcoin?” This is the 3rd and final episode of a series that focuses on a deeper discussion of the […]
Secure IoT is the superset trend in tech, the ultimate hashtag soup, here’s why
There are more Things than anything else! And they’re going online in droves, adding capability but also vulnerability, and making the Secure Internet of Things (IoT), the super set of the technology trends. Secure IoT is the place with the most interdisciplinary, and therefore, the most difficult challenges. If you believe, as you should, that […]
Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain, and Bitcoin, part 2
We go through a transaction’s journey, explaining hash functions and public key cryptography along the way.
Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain, and Bitcoin, part 1
Stephen Perrenod joins Shahin and Dan to make sense of Cryptocurrency/Blockchain/Bitcoin. In this first installment, they start at the beginning: the original Satoshi Nakamoto paper that started it all.
New podcast for big ideas in tech
Here at OrionX.net, our research agenda is driven by the latest developments in technology. We are also fortunate to work with many tech leaders in nearly every part of the “stack”, from chips to apps, who are driving the development of such technologies. In recent years, we have had projects in Cryptocurrencies, IoT, AI, Cybersecurity, […]
Top-10 Data Center Predictions for 2017
A variation of this article was originally published in The Register, “Wow, what an incredible 12 months: 2017’s data center year in review”, Feb 6, 2017. The data center market is hot, especially now that we are getting a raft of new stuff, from promising non-Intel chips and system architectures to power and cooling optimizations […]
Research from OrionX
Today, we are announcing the OrionX Constellation™ research framework as part of our strategy services. Paraphrasing what I wrote in my last blog when we launched 8 packaged solutions: One way to see OrionX is as a partner that can help you with content, context, and dissemination. OrionX Strategy can create the right content because […]
OrionX 2016 Technology Issues and Predictions
Here at OrionX.net, we are fortunate to work with tech leaders across several industries and geographies, serving markets in Mobile, Social, Cloud, and Big Data (including Analytics, Cognitive Computing, IoT, Machine Learning, Semantic Web, etc.), and focused on pretty much every part of the “stack”, from chips to apps and everything in between. Doing this […]