This newsletter wants to make blockchain easy to understand: TheBit

When it comes to cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is getting the most attention lately. But to truly understand the space, there’s a whole other set of currencies to dig into with their own economics, as well as the underlying blockchain technology itself.

It can be a lot to navigate, even for someone like Erica Amatori who is involved.

That’s why Amatori, along with cofounder Chris Hoyle, created TheBit. With an email newsletter, interviews and guides, they’re aiming to provide good info about cryptocurrencies and blockchain that’s easy to understand – and they’re willing to take a light tone to do so.

Amatori, who lives in D.C. and works in fintech, found herself keeping up with news as she tracked her own investments. So she set out to create a way for “my own passion project of informing myself an help other people as well.” After teaming with college friend, dev and fellow investor Hoyle, they spent the last part of 2017 testing and building the site and spreading the early word. It officially launched last week.

Chris Hoyle (left) and Erica Amatori. (Courtesy photo)

Amatori sees the email newsletter as the entry point for most users, offering up digestible news items, such as the recent development that Venezuela is creating its own cryptocurrency as well as updated on currencies.

The guides dig deeper dig deeper, with info available on intro, intermediate and advanced levels. “What the @#$% is a crypto kitty?” to be particularly enlightening.

Amatori has also been conducting interviews with experts and entrepreneurs in the space. She’s picking up new things, as well.

“I’ve been learning a lot from everyone I’ve been interviewing,” she said.

Now they’re working on growing the audience, as well as the content on the site, and more features such as data visualizations could be in the works. Amatori sees it as important to provide understanding for people who might be interested in becoming investors themselves. And as she looks at the wider technology landscape, she expects there will be a lot more areas to cover.

“I firmly believe blockchain will be ingrained in every single industry by the end of the year in some way,” she said.