Technology
A Beginner’s Guide to Cryptocurrencies
A Beginner’s Guide to Cryptocurrencies
With money pouring into the blockchain from investors, venture capitalists, and strategic partners, it is clear that cryptocurrencies will continue to be in the spotlight for years to come.
However, as with any newly emerging field, being in the spotlight can present a double-edged sword. It makes for an environment full of passionate and extremely technical discussion, but it also opens the door to blatant promotional pump-and-dump schemes and inflexible factions of cheerleaders or naysayers.
This clutter makes it considerably difficult for the average person to really wrap their head around the crypto space – and it creates opportunities to simplify the sector in an easy, digestible, and accessible way.
A Guide to Cryptocurrencies
Today’s infographic from BestAccountingSchools provides an introductory guide to cryptocurrencies, and it highlights the history, important terms, and statistics about the crypto space. It also profiles some of the pioneers that made it all happen.
It’s a great start for anyone looking to get up to speed on what’s happening in crypto – and we thought we would accompany it with some additional infographic resources that we have available on the topic as well.
Bitcoin’s Journey to $10,000 – This timeline chart catalogs Bitcoin’s wild 2017, in which it catapulted from $1,000 to $10,000 in just 11 months.
Comparing Crypto – This giant infographic compares the differences in design and protocol of six key cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic, Dash, and Ripple.
The ICO Explosion – The popularity of cryptocurrency has also led to a boom in initial coin offerings (ICOs). This nifty data visualization helps to show this.
Top 25 Cryptocurrencies – This infographic showcases the top 25 cryptocurrencies, organized by different factors: market cap, trading volume, purpose, and inception date.
Intro to Smart Contracts – Cryptocurrencies aren’t just about payments – they are also being used to automate transactions to avoid middlemen. This infographic on the power of smart contracts helps to introduce these concepts.
Historical Context – All the way back in 2013 and 2014, we put together infographics documenting the first 5 years of Bitcoin’s history, as well as why we predicted that Bitcoin would eventually disrupt banking in 2014.
Do you have any other great graphical resources that could be included for a beginner’s guide to cryptocurrencies? Let us know in the comments.
Technology
Visualizing AI Patents by Country
See which countries have been granted the most AI patents each year, from 2012 to 2022.
Visualizing AI Patents by Country
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
This infographic shows the number of AI-related patents granted each year from 2010 to 2022 (latest data available). These figures come from the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), accessed via Stanford University’s 2024 AI Index Report.
From this data, we can see that China first overtook the U.S. in 2013. Since then, the country has seen enormous growth in the number of AI patents granted each year.
| Year | China | EU and UK | U.S. | RoW | Global Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 307 | 137 | 984 | 571 | 1,999 |
| 2011 | 516 | 129 | 980 | 581 | 2,206 |
| 2012 | 926 | 112 | 950 | 660 | 2,648 |
| 2013 | 1,035 | 91 | 970 | 627 | 2,723 |
| 2014 | 1,278 | 97 | 1,078 | 667 | 3,120 |
| 2015 | 1,721 | 110 | 1,135 | 539 | 3,505 |
| 2016 | 1,621 | 128 | 1,298 | 714 | 3,761 |
| 2017 | 2,428 | 144 | 1,489 | 1,075 | 5,136 |
| 2018 | 4,741 | 155 | 1,674 | 1,574 | 8,144 |
| 2019 | 9,530 | 322 | 3,211 | 2,720 | 15,783 |
| 2020 | 13,071 | 406 | 5,441 | 4,455 | 23,373 |
| 2021 | 21,907 | 623 | 8,219 | 7,519 | 38,268 |
| 2022 | 35,315 | 1,173 | 12,077 | 13,699 | 62,264 |
In 2022, China was granted more patents than every other country combined.
While this suggests that the country is very active in researching the field of artificial intelligence, it doesn’t necessarily mean that China is the farthest in terms of capability.
Key Facts About AI Patents
According to CSET, AI patents relate to mathematical relationships and algorithms, which are considered abstract ideas under patent law. They can also have different meaning, depending on where they are filed.
In the U.S., AI patenting is concentrated amongst large companies including IBM, Microsoft, and Google. On the other hand, AI patenting in China is more distributed across government organizations, universities, and tech firms (e.g. Tencent).
In terms of focus area, China’s patents are typically related to computer vision, a field of AI that enables computers and systems to interpret visual data and inputs. Meanwhile America’s efforts are more evenly distributed across research fields.
Learn More About AI From Visual Capitalist
If you want to see more data visualizations on artificial intelligence, check out this graphic that shows which job departments will be impacted by AI the most.
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