The block chain makes all kinds of innovations possible, says Fortune magazine. 

Bitcoin is much more than a cryptocurrency. This is the opinion put forward in the January 2015 issue of Fortune. Bitcoin is a new set of rules that enables audacious innovations. The block chain technology behind Bitcoin allows any kind of exchange between two people. It can become the foundation for the Internet of Things, mentioned previously on Coinfox.

One example is the Estonian LHV Bank, which has partnered with the Coinbase Bitcoin wallet to explore the capacities of the block chain technology. Instead of Bitcoin, it works with an alternative open source standard known as Colored Coins, which employs tokens of different colours that may designate an apartment, a car, or a large stock portfolio. All transactions made with Colored Coins are recorded in a public register – the block chain. This essentially creates an organized market or exchange for users of the standard.

The author of the Fortune article singles out two companies in particular: OneName and the Digital Currency Group. OneName is a company that works on a new kind of platform seeking to ‘combine a social network, centralized, social dashboard, and content scheduler; with a premium, high yield, advertising network designed to make our members the highest cash, ad-share earnings’. It uses the block chain to store the subscribers’ profile data, which can then be used to validate their identity in a decentralized manner.

Another example of what can be done with new technologies comes from Ryan Selkis of the Digital Currency Group: ‘Every time you’re running low on printer ink, it could notify the block chain and send you more’. The Digital Currency Group, established by Barry Silbert and Ryan Selkis in October 2014, invests in, starts and grows bitcoin companies, essentially serving as a start-up accelerator to build the foundations for a digital currency revolution.