Bitcoin is continuing its’ explosive growth and heading deeper and deeper into bubble territory.
Bitcoin’s price grew by 47.94%; or $2,060.92, during October 2017, Coinbase data indicates. The granddaddy of all cryptocurrencies started October with a price of $4,158 and finished with a value of $6,370.10 on Halloween Day. Whoa!!
Other currencies are not participating in the bubble. Ethereum’s price only grew by 2.6% or $7.79 during October. Ether started the month at a price of $300.87 and finished at $307.01.
Ethereum is the Value Investment in Cryptocurrency
This makes Ethereum a value investment because its’ far greater than Bitcoin’s but its’ value is lower. It also demonstrates that most investors know little or nothing about cryptocurrency if they did they would be buying far more Ethereum.
Two groups that clearly understand the potential of Ethereum are Big Business and Big Banks. Many of those organizations are participating in the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, an open-sourced resource project designed to create and implement commercial applications for the Ethereum operating system.
Big Ethereum Users
Big-name participants in the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance include:
- Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE: BK)
- Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO)
- BBVA (NYSE: BBVA)
- The CME Group (NASDAQ: CME) (the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, America’s largest commodities and options exchange)
- Credit Suisse
- Deloitte
- ING Groep (NYSE: ING)
- Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM)
- MasterCard (NYSE: MA)
- Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)
- The National Bank of Canada (OTC: NTIOF)
- Samsung (OTC: SSNGY)
- Banco Santander (NYSE: SAN)
- Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI)
- UBS Group (NYSE: UBS)
- Toyota (NYSE: TM)
- TenX
- Scotiabank
- BP (NYSE: BP)
- Accenture (NYSE: ACN)
Most of these names are publicly traded corporations and I consider a few of them value investments. That makes Ethereum the value investment in cryptocurrency.
What’s even better is that this is just the tip of the iceberg there are probably many other big companies working on Ethereum on their own or as part of other projects. For example, one Enterprise Alliance member TenX which is developing debit cards that automatically convert fiat currency to altcoins is working with PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL).
Big Corporations Experimenting with Ethereum
IBM (NYSE: IBM) is part of another Ethereum effort called the Hyperledger Project. Like the Enterprise Alliance, Hyperledger is trying to develop commercial uses for Ethereum. Other notable members of the Hyperledger project include:
- Accenture
- American Express (NYSE: AXP)
- Airbus SE (OTC: EADSF)
- Baidu
- CISCO Systems
- The CME Group
- The Deutsche Borse Group (German stock exchange)
- Moscow Exchange (the Russian stock exchange)
- NSE
- Nokia (NYSE: NOK)
- NETKI
- Daimler (OTC: DDAIF)
- DTCC
- Fujitsu (OTC: FJTSF)
- Hitachi (OTC: HTHIY)
- Intel
- JPMorgan Chase
- NEC
- SAP (NYSE: SAP)
- State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT)
- Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC)
- SBERBANK
- S.W.I.F.T. (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications)
- Oracle (NYSE: ORCL)
- RedHat
One of the most important groups here is S.W.I.F.T. which provides messaging and money transfer solutions for banks around the world. SWIFT’s experiments can help Ethereum become a standard means of money transfer and perhaps a global cryptocurrency.
The United Nations Loves Ethereum
Another huge organization that’s been an important adopter of Ethereum is the United Nations.
Its’ World Food Program has been using Ethereum to send money to refugees in Syria, Singularity Hub reported. The UN is also using Ethereum to facilitate the trading of carbon credits, officially track and recognize the one billion people around the world who have no government identification, make it easy for immigrants to send remittance money to the folks back home, and create smart contracts for international transactions.
The UN’s work with Ethereum adds a lot of value because it introduces to lots of real people in the real world. It also helps create an infrastructure that can be used to integrate governments with blockchain and reach consumers and businesses in developing nations with cryptocurrency.
NEO marches on
A similar cryptocurrency to Ethereum, China’s NEO is experiencing a similar lack of respect and growth.
Even though NEO’s trading volume has increased to $40.71 million its price was only $30.25 on Halloween Day. The reason for this is that there is a lot of NEO out there; the circulating supply was 65 million and the total supply was 100 million on 31 October 2017.
Like Ethereum, NEO is an attempt to create a blockchain ecosystem for trading and contracts. NEO has not been widely adopted by business or large institutions because it only launched last year.
Another roadblock to NEO’s widespread adoption is its possible links to the Chinese government and the Communist Party. That will not be a popular selling point in countries like Poland, Spain, and the United States that suffered from Communist thuggery and aggression in the past.
Leger Blue Coming Next Month
The world’s most advanced cryptocurrency hardware wallet Ledger Blue is scheduled to start shipping on November 30, 2017 – just in time for the holidays, manufacturer Ledger announced. That’s a delay because it was supposed to come out today.
Ledger Blue offers such features as a screen large enough for an actual human being to read, a touch screen, Bluetooth connectivity, and the ability to manage cryptocurrencies right in your wallet. Ledger Blue does not come cheap one will cost you €229 ($266.59) if your order from the manufacturer.
Buyers had better hurry and get preorders in early because Ledger products often sell out real fast online. Expect the Ledger Blue to become the gold standard in cryptocurrency wallet and a must-have accessory for all altcoin Geeks.
Where is the TenX Visa?
There’s still no word on when TenX will launch a debit card that works outside of Europe. Currently, its Visa product is only available in Europe. TenX keeps posting dev (development) updates on its’ blog but they haven’t yet said when the new cards are coming.
Stay tuned to this unicorn, because TenX’s cards have the potential to be a game changer if they can convince Visa (NYSE: V) and MasterCard to go along with the program.
