Blockchain

Danish researcher Thomas Silkjaer is using Google's BigQuery to map publicly available information about XRP cryptocurrency addresses. The craters represent some of cryptocurrency's largest exchanges.

I found this picture in a Forbes story about the crypto-currency universe. I don't know that it actually tells you anything, but it's good that someone is at least trying to make some sense out of it.

Blockchains exist in the cloud, that is, all the data lives on anonymous servers housed in warehouses (or someone's basement) scattered all over the world. Well, maybe not in North Korea. Cloud-computing makes sense, as long as you have reliable communications. I mean, I use it. I try and keep most of my stuff on Google Drive, saves me from having to make backups, which I was never very good at. Plus it doesn't cost me anything, other than privacy, but somebody is paying to use it:

"When it comes to cloud computing, Google is far behind Amazon and Microsoft. Last year Google pocketed an estimated $3 billion in revenue from cloud ser­vices. Amazon and Microsoft, meanwhile, generated about $27 billion and $10 billion, respectively." - Michael del Castillo