Thoughts on Things

Bitcoin is a currency based on blockchain technology. The key words here are “based on.” This is important is because Bitcoin itself can fail (i.e. have its price fall to 0) while blockchain technology can simultaneously thrive. For investors, this is a critical distinction that they need to be mindful of, as that is what fundamentally drives the decision to invest in Bitcoin instead of another type of blockchain tech like Ethereum. I will first explain briefly what Bitcoin is, and the technology that underpins it. Then I will discuss what it means to actually invest in Bitcoin as opposed to other blockchain technologies. Bitcoin explained: A) Blockchain and decentralization Bitcoin was created to be a decentralized currency system that isn’t reliant on banks or institutions to govern its stability. For example, if we transacted money, an institution (ex. Paypal, Chase Bank, etc) would be the arbiter of these transactions. But what if we wanted a system where the very ...

MongoDB (MDB), one of the biggest names in NoSQL databases has gone public! Investors rejoice as the stock shoots up over 30% in its debut on the NASDAQ last week, putting it’s market cap at over $1.5 billion. In a CNBC interview with CEO Dev Ittycheria on IPO day, he claimed that MongoDB sees itself as a partner to cloud giants like Amazon and criticizes traditional database technologies as archaic. The company also touts the Stack Overflow survey of 64,000 developers that reported MongoDB as their preferred database to work with. For the average retail investor potentially looking to jump on the MongoDB ship, there are a few contextual points you will want to understand with regards to these comments. Unless you work with both NoSQL and traditional relational databases (RDBMS) on a daily basis, there will likely be knowledge gaps you will want to fill before deciding whether or not to invest. First, a three sentence description of SQL and NoSQL . SQL - involve...