When looking at the world of blockchain technology it isn’t hard to get lost in all the hype, marketing talk, technical buzzwords and idealistic exaggerations. To stay sane in this arena of information overload it’s a good idea to take a look at the bigger picture every once in a while. And what better way is there for a data scientist like me to do so, then by grabbing a bunch of news articles, do text analysis on them, and see if you can find a method to this madness?

As a picture says more than all the words that make up the 7,500 news articles I analysed, feel free to let the pictures do most of the talking. For the ones who like to read on about what I take away from all this I serve three short stories that go nicely with these infographics in the remainder of this article. While you are at it you can share some of your own insights or start a good discussion in the comment section.

“In the remainder of this article I serve three short stories that go nicely with these two infographics.”

Bitcoin Bad, Blockchain Good

Up until the point that $450 million in BTC disappeared at the Japanese Bitcoin Exchange Mt. Gox , it was “all systems go” and “the sky is the limit” for our beloved Bitcoin. After that, Bitcoin got a bad connotation. It took a little while and some Silk Road however, to really get the “bitcoin bad, blockchain good” train running.

The Advent of the Enterprise Blockchain

It was August ’15 when a small company fond of marmots released the first version of its permissioned blockchain platform. By then known as ERIS and recently rebranded to MONAX this platform’s launch signalled the advent of the enterprise blockchain. A trend that has since been unstoppable. This trend steadily continued with Project Hyperledger by the Linux Foundation, and most recently with the announcement of the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance.