As many of you are aware of lately and have probably been using to transfer funds faster and with smaller fee's over exchanges and other sites: Ethereum is officially 40,000 % faster than Bitcoin and costs 96% less to transfer.

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQme5nRb6b7DGnbBNkmjWtrv6KL5yyoJD19o2ejzes1m3uJ/image.png)</center>

Bitcoin has an average block time of 10 minutes, many exchanges require 6 confirmations of transactions before you can access the coins you've sent there which means an average time of 1 hour. Since only max 7 transactions can occur per second this also means that sending them with very low transactions might mean that your transaction won't get picked up by certain blocks when they are found and you will have to wait for the next one instead. If many users are overpaying transactions this could mean that yours that has the minimum transaction cost can be in limbo for a much longer time.

Ethereum has an average block time of 13 seconds, yes you heard that right. 13 seconds vs Bitcoins 10 minute average block timer. Although many exchanges require 50 confirmations this still means that on average it will take ~11 minutes for a transaction to confirm fully vs bitcoins 1 hour. Needless to say not all exchanges need to have a 50 confirmation requirement. 

Compared to these two giants, Steem's block time is only **3 seconds** and around 120 confirmations used by most exchanges which brings it to an average time of 6 minutes. Not only is it one of the fastest, but when using it from accounts to accounts it is instant and costs **no fees**. That means when you send to an exchange it will cost you no additional fees, only the exchange takes some which is usually 0.01 Steem.

So here are the average times it takes for each of these 3 currencies to be deposited onto your exchange:

Bitcoin: 1 hour
Ethereum: 11 minutes
Steem: 6 minutes

#### The average time it takes for them to be withdrawn onto your wallet (if exchanges executed the transactions instantly):

Bitcoin: 10 minutes
Ethereum: 13 seconds
Steem: 3 seconds

____

Hedge Funds have started investing in cryptos for real now, according to news.bitcoin:

>Fund administrator MG Stover & Co, accounting firm Arthur Bell, and law firm Cole-Frieman & Mallon alone have 62 in the pipeline.

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmX4fb5YZVkgVubZ5U6Xt8EWLqrZQhhT8MiX4WVT8zKMkb/image.png)

Corey Mclaughlin who is a managing member at [Arthur Bell](http://www.arthurbellcpas.com/) has said:

>I’ve been in the hedge fund space since 1998, and I’ve never seen anything like it in volume of launches in a particular area. It’s just crazy.

Matt Stover, who is the founder of MG Stover & Co shared that:

>This is the first time I can remember where we have had a hard time keeping up with the sales calls.

They are very surprised that so many instrituional players have shown interest in this asset class.

As many have said before, this might only be the beginning of the volumes and price increases we are seeing lately, 2018 might bring an even bigger explosion and make the charts of 2017 look like a small blimp in the history of the currencies.

#### Is this really the first big step into mass adoption? What do you think?

___

Microsoft announce the Coco Framework for enterprise blockchain networks.

They state that block-chains due to them being open-source have all transactions on a public ledger and they want to work on privatizing them more in the future. Making it easy for startups, retailers, health providers and personal usage to get the advantages of it without having everything public so that anyone can access them. Coco is open-source and enables high-scale confidential blockchain networks and provides means to accelerate production enterprise adoption of blockchain technology.

It leverages the power of already existing blockchain protocols and enables enterprise-ready blockchain networks that deliver:

- throughput and latency approcahing database speeds
- richer, more flexible, business-specific confidentiality models
- network policy management through distributed governance
- support for non-deterministic transactions

<center>![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVc92dWnj8finBkcFyEq9hrVxZ362dpj9mFp9FXasnY1q/image.png)</center>

Coco is open and compatible with any blockchain protocol and has already begun integrating with Ethereum and have announced that J.P. Morgan Chase, Intel and dR3 have also committed to integrating their enterprise ledgers which are Quorum, Hyperledger Sawtooth and Corda.

They also say that this is just the beginning and are looking forward to exploring more integration opportunities with other ledgers in the near future, hopefully Steem also being one of them. :)


___

Since my one Alt-News post where I was talking about NEO and StorJ and TenX early one some people in the chats have been asking me for some advice on some other coins that could have a good entry point right now for a small investment. Before I give out any advice I want to make sure that the readers realize the risk in this and therefor add a disclaimer to this.

#### Disclaimer
Never invest more than you can afford to lose. Before investing make to re-search the currencies yourself and not follow advice blindly. 
Having said that, I am not getting paid by these currencies to advertise their names and won't be going too much into detail about them as to not try and sway you into placing in a big amount of value. Also remember that this is usually not a short-term trade and past performances or advice does not mean it will turn out the same way in the future. If I am ever doing a promotion post for these I will make it clear that it is promoted content.

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmNVMrjBCndA1vLxJaFzixA8hApUpKQSTsRjr1YFxNha2k/image.png)

Asch is currently one I would invest a small portion in from the low total supply alone and the fact that it is only trading on a few chinese exchanges, so if you manage to get registered there and check if you're able to purchase some I think it might pay off in the long haul, especially once other exchanges start trading it and bring in more volume into it. This is what their chart looks like right now:

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdHQwNEAGg8NNUNfZ7mfPA74pLPmqaNyDwKgMb3npdEPB/image.png)


Another one that I think has a somewhat good time for an entry point - although it was much better earlier before I started writing this (jumped from around $1.05 to $1.20 in the meantime) is Ark.

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmedbvfCp1KRSeeVXrfXyvFEH6et6hLPAkaB23vYQqZBzM/image.png)

It might be wise to wait for a drop as its currently at 40% increase in the last 24 hours, but with a <100 million coin supply and a bridge for different blockchains and a physical card system with NFC might help with adoption of this currency and if the recent uptrend in currencies continues like it has recently I can see this one going up to $5-$10 in the upcoming weeks/months.

This one does also trade on Bittrex so it makes it a lot easier to purchase and hold there or download their wallet from their website if you want to feel safer than holding your coins on an exchange.

My 3rd suggestion would be... *drum roll*... Steem! 

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmW5AbWQjFNAURgGQLd2LDUFD3btXZgg8YPap9QGdhW6uS/image.png)

Currently at #22 on coinmarketcap.com and down 4.58% since 24 hours ago. As you know it has an active development team and according to @penguinpablo's stats has an ever increasing userbase and activity. Even though its still in the stages of minting out new coins daily its one of the currencies with the best use-case out there right now and I believe due to it being so young still and only on a few exchanges (which one of them has been having a lot of issues remaining up for Steem recently) could be a good sign for it being undervalued right now and a good mid/long-term investment. Especially if you power it up and use it for curating/posting to increase your investment. 

#### Feel free to discuss these suggestions in the comment section below and if you have happened to read and act on my previous mentions of currencies in the other Alt-News I would obviously be happy for you if you have made some profit off of it! 
___


<center>[Image Source: Arthur Bell](http://familyofficeassociation.com/arthur-bell-cpas/)
[Image Source: MS Azure](http://blockapps.net/blockchain-software-microsoft-azure/)
[Source to the MS story](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-microsoft-s-coco-framework-for-enterprise-blockchain-networks/)</center>



___







<center>[Alt-News #1](https://steemit.com/altnews/@acidyo/alt-news-visa-confirmed-eth-flash-crash-to-0-10usd-on-gdax-hilarious-blockchain-explanation-video)
[Alt-News #2](https://steemit.com/altnews/@acidyo/alt-news-2-gdax-refunds-customers-mcafee-to-mine-eth-ethereum-on-cnbc-sia-asic-to-be-released)
[Alt-News #3](https://steemit.com/news/@acidyo/alt-news-3-russia-to-legalize-ico-s-cnbc-ethereum-taking-over-fortune-bitcoin-vs-ethereum-myethwallet-net-scam)
[Alt-News #4](https://steemit.com/altnews/@acidyo/alt-news-4-storj-integrate-with-filezilla-iota-and-f6s-team-up-and-list-of-iota-business-connections-enterprise-ethereum)
<center>[Alt-News #5](https://steemit.com/altnews/@acidyo/alt-news-5-antshares-rebrand-to-neo-and-new-whitepaper-singapore-startup-tenx-use-of-visa-debit-cards-sia-bounties-and-asic)
[Alt-News #6](https://steemit.com/altnews/@acidyo/alt-news-6-visa-ibm-microsoft-and-usaa-looking-for-eth-devs-hp-joins-ethereum-enterprise-alliance-venezuelan-bolivar-worth-half)</center>