Last week was a big one for bitcoin.

The cryptocurrency went a long way toward developing its Street cred with two major announcements.

On the consumer side, Square, the small business payment systems company, is now beta testing some bitcoin transactions.

And on the institutional side, the CME, which is the world’s largest futures, options and derivatives exchange, plans to begin trading bitcoin futures in early December.

What set the financial world agog is the blockchain technology that supports bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. While JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon slammed bitcoin, he had praise for the technology.

I had the opportunity to speak with Brad Levy, the CEO of MarkitSERV and someone whom I hold in high regard.

Levy, who Institutional Investor referred to as one of “the world’s most powerful trading executives,” says “Blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology, and bitcoin is only one use of blockchain.”

“Essentially, the blockchain is a form of plumbing behind cryptocurrencies. It’s really about the future of conducting commerce efficiently and safely,” Levy added.

On bitcoin’s success, Levy compares it to the internet of the late ’90s.

“The internet as it came into being was bigger than just messaging and e-mail. It just took a decade or three, and the internet bubble popped along the way.

“Yahoo and AOL, still exist, kind of, but they aren’t big players today,” Levy said.

Irrespective of whether bitcoin’s price is in a bubble (I suspect it is), whether it’s a currency or an asset, the technology is here to stay.

Bitcoin is the expression of energy, and the technology is really the math of data-miners, most of whom are really quants sitting in server farms in China, each using supercomputers.

I n the long run, bitcoin is the sizzle and blockchain is the steak.

So move over, PayPal, and bye-bye credit cards, the financial world is changing. Square and the CME are just the beginning of the next wave.