Bitcoin and cryptocurrency began stamping its hypothetical feet and making noise in mainstream media over the last decade, with individuals taking a keen interest in blockchain and its link to banking and investment. Since then blockchain, the technology that runs Bitcoin, has developed into one of the biggest revolutionary technologies with the potential to impact every industry from data centres to the financial sector. Abigail Opiah reports.

Blockchain first arrived on the scene back in 2008 when a person (or group of people) using the name Satoshi Nakamoto released a whitepaper that explored the concept of a peer-to-peer version of electronic cash that would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. With the launch of Bitcoin in January 2009, blockchain had its first real-world application.

Blockchains multiple strands created conversations that go far beyond its original purpose of a growing list of records that are linked using cryptocurrency. According to Vincent Barro, Vice-President Datacentre & Business Development at Schneider Electric, before peeling away at blockchains surface level to unlock its full potential, conversations around tokenization need to be had.

When we talk about crypto, we need to talk about blockchain and tokenization, which are the main two technologies behind cryptocurrency. Crypto is huge in terms of banking, and you can see companies like Swisscom invest a lot in crypto which means that they want to take the lead globally on it, he says.

To be efficient with your customer, you need to have infrastructure and a presence in the cloud. This is extremely critical for blockchain because you are going to need the edge. The blockchain business has been predicted to jump from 2.5bn to 20bn by 2025, thus the data centre needs to adapt to this new business strategy. With that being said, there are some challenges that relate to energy including modularity.

I have a lot of demand from customers for modular solutions, which can be containerised solutions or something more local. On the other side, youve got this link with the cloud providers and major colocation data centres, which conjures the need for super-efficient solutions that leads to liquid cooling which is a big topic at the moment.

Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. By design, a blockchain is resistant to modification of the data. In one breath, the conversation led to all the tree-branches that stem from blockchain which puts conjures up the question of what is next for blockchain, will all the big technology players jump on board, and which regions will see the adoption of blockchain completely flourish first.

What has been happening over the last two years is a lot of acceleration within Microsoft and Google to come to Switzerland. The usual situation in Switzerland was more about medium-sized colocators that do colocation business but there are a lot of

Google and Microsoft decided to enter the Swiss market through colocation, with Google communicating that it will enter the market via Green Datacenter AG. Green Datacenter was a small colocation provider, which became a major player in the last two years thanks to Google.

The reason why these companys feel it is important to be in Switzerland is because they want to be under the Swiss data protection legislation and banking applications. That is mandatory to attack the wall of finance and insurance.

One point which is important but has not been finalised is that Amazon may move to Switzerland as well in the very near future. In terms of finance, this is important because of low latency. With this new ecosystem of data centres, these companies will have about ten milliseconds of improvement in latency which is huge when we talk about finance, and as the country is not very big, it has two interconnected points within an hour and a half between Zurich and Geneva.

This is because Switzerland has no specific hindrances that affect cryptocurrencies. Switzerlands Federal Council, the nations collective head of state and government, has announced it will commit to improving the legal framework for blockchain and distributed ledger technology companies.

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As the conversation steered towards tech giants, one instant ping in the brain was Facebooks announcement of its very own cryptocurrency, Libra.

The cryptocurrency is a permissioned blockchain digital currency that does not yet exist, with only rudimentary experimental code being released so far, but it has been projected to be launched in 2020.

At the moment, there are around 240 cryptocurrencies in the world, thus we see consolidation in this environment, which is set to grow more, adds Barro.

240 cryptocurrencies are a lot of cryptocurrencies. The blockchain sector has witnessed the birth of new alliances, Bitcoin and Ethereum survived the bear market, new cryptocurrency trading products and a plethora of blockchain protocols matured and expanded in growth.

Compute Norths President Marshall Johnson predicts that migration from China will continue in regards to blockchain and hash rate will continue to jump. His other predictions for blockchain is that there will be a continued evolution of the technology, and as a result, there will be further enterprise adoption, especially in financial services, supply chain and banking.

Lastly, he predicts that low costs will still win, previous generation machines will be dead this year unless there is serious price movement, and halvening will make some miners go out of business that have not upgraded their equipment.

In a halvening also referred to as halving Bitcoin rewards that go to the so-called miners that support the coins network drop in half in order to prevent inflation from eroding the purchasing power of the coins.

Since bitcoin has halved twice in the past, we can say that it has shown to be a major catalyst in setting off a new bull market era for bitcoin. As bitcoin halves and fewer are being generated, the increased scarcity leads to an increase in value, says Johnson.

The increased scarcity of bitcoin means only the most high-performing and high-efficiency mining operations will stand to see steady or increased profits following the halving. This makes outdated miners like the Antminer S9 nearly irrelevant without some sort of optimisation strategy to extend their productive life.

This will drive many to upgrade to a more efficient miner like the Antminer S17, especially for large-scale operations. Utilisation of cheap energy and mining colocation should also be leaned on more significantly leading up to and in the wake of the halving in order to maximise profit in an increasingly competitive market.

Like Barro, Johnson too identifies the link with blockchain and data centres, highlighting that there will continue to be high demand low-cost computing and storage, which will put pressure on the data centre sector to evolve and adapt.

Worldwide data and computing requirements continue to grow rapidly. Blockchain and many applications are not mission-critical, require vast amounts of power and resources, and there is a trend to outsourcing these types of applications (IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Image Rendering, and Blockchain), says Johnson.

This opens the door for innovative solutions, like the Tier 0 data centre infrastructure that Compute North is developing and building. North America offers a unique blend of power resources, geopolitical stability, and reliable infrastructure that is appealing to mining operations.

Although China recently reversed a two-year ban on cryptocurrencies, volatility and uncertain still exists in the region as government oversight of the sector appears to be in a regular state of flux. By moving some of their mining operations to the U.S., miners benefit from a more stable economic environment, the availability and mix of cleaner energy, stronger infrastructure and the advantages of an industry that is held to a higher standard. Diversifying operations is recommended to mitigate risk.

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New IBM (NYSE: IBM) boss Arvind Krishna (pictured) took over as a chief executive on Monday, and vowed to boost the 109-year-old tech companya presence in cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI).

Krishna, 57, said the firm had to deepen our understanding of hybrid cloud and AI, adding that the company needs to win the architectural battle in cloud by establishing Linux, containers and Kubernetes as the new standard, in an email to staff.

IBM has been struggling to generate positive revenue growth over the past several quarters. IBMs 2019 sales came in at $77bn, a 3% decline on the previous year.

The New York-based firm no longer dominates the tech landscape the way it did a generation ago. IBM market value stands at around $100bn, less than a tenth of rivals Microsoft and Amazon.

Arvind Krishna, replaces Ginni Rometty who will stay on as executive chairman until the end of the year. Krishna also played a key role in the groups $34bn Red Hat acquisition, completed last July. The Red Hat acquisition has enhanced its presence in hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence markets. IBM generated cloud revenue of $6.8bn in the latest quarter.

Sustaining cloud revenue growth is not an easy task because IBM has to compete with the market leaders in the public cloud business including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Krishna also showed concerns over the impact of slower economic growth. IBM stock price has already lost more than 20% of value this year amid coronavirus related concerns.

Krishna said: The first thing I have to worry about is all of our employees and clients and all our businessesthat we can continue, that we have resilience. We have to maintain a healthy balance sheet, healthy cash flows.

While the company currently doesnt have any liquidity issues but the new chief executive officer is planning to extend the debt reduction strategy. Its debt stood around $62.9bn in the latest quarter. It ended the latest quarter with $9bn of cash in hand while the company expects to generate $12bn in free cash flows this year.

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Intellectual Ventures LLC (IV), throughsubsidiary Intellectual Ventures II LLC (IV II), has suedDell (VMware) (6:20-cv-00220) over the provision of variousproducts related to virtualization and data center network trafficmonitoring and optimization. Five patents of disparate origins areasserted in the new Western District of Texas complaint, IV havingmoved three of them into the plaintiff's possession back in2018, assigning the other two to IV II earlier in Marchalongwith five others of similar subject matter but not yet asserted inlitigation. Various VMware products are accused of infringing thefive patents.

Those five patents include a single asset (9,338,217) from a family having one memberasserted in litigation before acquisition by IV; three patents (7,016,963; 9,092,546; 9,686,378) from a 13-member family no memberof which appears to have been previously litigated; and a fifthpatent (6,816,464) comprising a family of one alsomaking its debut in litigation.

The '217 patent broadly concerns, according to theplaintiff, "an improved way to provide remotely hosted virtualmachines to users". It issued to an IV affiliate in May 2016as the most recent member in a 13-patent family, the earliest ofwhich issued to G&H Nevada-Tek, a Nevada partnershipbetween the '217 patent's named inventors Michael L. Goughand Paul L. Hickman. Gough and Hickman assigned the family to aTexas entity that the two createdAccolade Systems LLCbetween 2007 and2010 before returning them to G&H Nevada-Tek ahead of theirNovember 2011 assignment to an IV entity.

During the three years that Accolade Systems held a portion ofthe '217 patent family, the entity filed two cases assertingone of them (7,130,888), a short-lived 2007 suit againstCanadian cyber security company 01 CommuniqueLaboratory, LogMeIn (merged withCitrix subsidiary GetGo inNovember 2017), and Symantec (nowNortonLockLife after acquisition byBroadcom in November 2019), each of which wasdismissed with prejudice after little substantive litigation; and a2007 case filed originally against Cisco(WebEx), Citrix, and LaplinkSoftware that persisted into 2010 against Citrix alone.The claims against Laplink Software were dismissed with prejudicein relatively quick fashion, while Accolade Systems and Cisco(WebEx) settled in April 2009, roughly one month before DistrictJudge Leonard Davis handed down the claim construction order in the case. Only the claims againstCitrix proceeded toward trial, but Judge Davis granted summaryjudgment in the defendant's favor after Citrix argued that thesettlement with Cisco (WebEx) covered its use of any and allaccused products as a customer of Cisco (Citrix stating that it"has used only Cisco routers and switches with its GoToServices"). Accolade Systems appealed, but the parties endedtheir dispute before midstream.

On March 11, 2020, IV moved the '217, together with two ofits family members (8,484,317; 8,751,597) to IV II's hands, presumablyfor assertion in litigation. VMware is alleged to infringe the'217 patent through the provision of various virtualizationproducts, including "vSphere, ESX/ESXi, Horizon/View, vCenterServer, Connection Server, vMotion and vSAN", targetinguser-side features, server-side features, and relevantinfrastructure used to serve and maintain virtual machines withpersonalized storage and settings.

IV II pleads that the '963, '546, and '378 patentsbelong to a five-member family generally related to "animproved way to invoke and deliver server-based applications toremote client devices based on unique client characteristics".The three issued in March 2006, July 2015, and June 2017,respectively, the earliest to Melia Technologies(d/b/a Nimbus Software), which assigned the familyto an IV affiliate in March 2009. A different IV affiliate movedthem into IV II's hands in September 2018.

VMware is alleged to infringe the '963 and '546 patentsthrough the provision of "Horizon View, vSphere, ESX/ESXi,vCenter Server, [and] Connection Server" products, targetingfeatures that provide virtualized apps as a service, includingfeatures related to displaying remote user interfaces. Thedefendant is alleged to infringe the '378 patent through theprovision of "Horizon/View, Horizon Client/Horizon HTML 5Client, vSphere, ESX/ESXi, vCenter Server, [and] ConnectionServer" products, targeting features related to transmittinguser input to a remote virtual computer and displaying thatcomputer's interface on the client computer.

The '464 patent generally relates, according to IV II, to"an improved way to test candidate network routes and select asubset thereof for interconnecting gateways across a wide areanetwork (WAN)". It issued in November 2004 to ArrayTelecom, comprising a family of one and passing intoIV's possession in November 2011. An IV affiliate moved the'464 patent to IV II's hands on March 11, 2020, togetherwith two others (7,822,841 and 8,352,584), the first assignee of which isModern Grids, a Colorado entity formed by theirnamed inventor Jeffrey B. Franklin. The accused products are"VMware NSX and SD-WAN by VeloCloud", with featuresrelated to data center network traffic monitoring and optimizationtargeted.

IV moved at least seven patents in three transactions to IV IIon March 11, 2020: the '271 patent, together with its twofamily members; the '464 patent, together with the two Franklinpatents; and a single patent (7,793,051) originally issued to PantaSystems, a failed California company from which IV pickedup the patent in May 2012. The two Franklin patents broadly relateto "hosting computing clusters for clients"; the '051patent, to shared memory.

IV was founded in 2000, with the new complaint touting theNPE's origins, particularly the accomplishments of NathanMyhrvold, the former Microsoft CTO and one of IV's cofounders.IV II pleads that "[u]nder Dr. Myhrvold's leadership, IVacquired more than 70,000 patents covering some importantinventions of the Internet era", two "significantaccomplishments" of which are characterized as the"related technologies of cloud computing andvirtualization".

While IV has launched roughly a dozen litigation campaigns since2010, in recent years, it has turned to divesting patents at anaccelerating rate, announcing plans to halt the acquisition of newpatent assets and forging a "deepened" relationship withTexas monetization firm Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC, to which IVhas assigned multiple patent portfolios over the past severalyears, initially of smaller size but more recently of considerablebulk. Batches of patents have been assigned to myriad otherentities, including other NPEs. RPX has prepared aliving report cataloging IV's divestitures to NPEs sinceJanuary 1, 2016, as well as notable subsequent assertioncampaignsthe latest version of that report can be downloadedfrom RPX Insight here. 3/25, Western District of Texas.

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The rapidly spreading novel coronavirus is causing financial markets across the globe to tumble. But, some stocks will actually win in response to the pandemic, because of shifts in consumer and enterprise behavior. As such, many of the winners will be cloud stocks.

The thinking is pretty simple. Every student is now learning from home. Every employee if possible is now working from home. And every consumer is now shopping from home. That means every academic institution, every enterprise and every consumer-facing business needs to have a digital presence built on the cloud in order to survive. Demand for cloud computing technology should, therefore, accelerate over the next few quarters.

As the analyst team over at Wedbush wrote in a note from last week:

With remote learning, work from home, and more applications and technology needing to be accessed during this lockdown, we emphasis the shift to cloud computing over the last few years is now the hearts and lungs core technology and infrastructure enabling companies and governments globally to operate smoothly during this unprecedented stay at home period.

This isnt a near-term, one-time boost. Companies that pivot to the cloud, end up staying in the cloud. In this sense, major cloud providers have an opportunity to generate significant, long-term tailwinds coming out of this pandemic.

Yet, cloud stocks alongside the rest of the market are falling off a cliff. Year-to-date, the First Trust Cloud Computing ETF (NASDAQ:SKYY) is off 10%.

All things considered, then, it seems like now is the time to buy the dip in high quality cloud stocks. Some top cloud stocks to buy on the coronavirus dip include:

Source: NYCStock / Shutterstock.com

Of all potential cloud stocks to buy on the dip, the one that looks the most compelling is Microsoft.

Thats because Microsoft has the most momentum in this space. Exiting 2019, Microsoft had just won the hugely sought-after $10 billion cloud computing contract for the Pentagon. The contract win was broadly seen by insiders and analysts as confirmation that Microsoft has the strongest cloud infrastructure business in America, and many believed the company could turn that huge contract win into several, smaller contract wins throughout 2020 and 2021.

The coronavirus pandemic has thrown a wrench into that thesis. But not for long.

As stated in the intro, cloud computing demand will actually accelerate higher now. Not just for cloud infrastructure services like Azure. But for cloud-host enterprise works solutions like Microsoft Teams and Office 365, too.

As it does, Microsofts cloud business will regain the momentum it had in late 2019. This healthy momentum will propel the company to win contract after contract, post steady double-digit growth and guide the stock back to all-time highs.

Source: soul_studio / Shutterstock.com

Another top tier cloud stock to buy on the dip is Alphabet.

Alphabets Google Cloud is one of the three major players in the U.S. cloud infrastructure market. Naturally, this positioning exposes the company to coronavirus-related cloud computing tailwinds over the next few quarters. Such exposure should provide a lift to Alphabets overall growth trajectory.

Thats the good news.

The better news is that Alphabetalsohas the worlds biggest digital advertising business which should be able to weather the coronavirus storm because of increased consumer engagement on things like Google Search and YouTube and one of the strongest balance sheets in technology (the companys cash pile measures around $120 billion).

The best news is that, for all of those positives, GOOG stock trades at just 21-times forward earnings, a multi-year low valuation for the tech giant.

Connecting all the dots, Alphabet stock looks like a strong buy the dip candidate here.

Source: r.classen / Shutterstock.com

The bull thesis on Adobe is fairly straightforward.

Adobe is the dominant player in providing various cloud-enabled creative and work solutions to consumers and enterprises. Demand for these solutions was robust before the coronavirus pandemic, as both consumers and enterprises were shifting towards creating, editing and publishing pictures, videos and work documents online.

It will remain robust during the coronavirus pandemic, because consumers and enterprises will remain on this shift in a stay at home environment. It also helps that the company employs a subscription-based model, the likes of which wont see a significant downturn even if demand does dry up.

Our recurring revenue model and the real-time visibility we have into our business uniquely positions Adobe to manage through an uncertain environment, said CFO John Murphy in a recent press release.

It should be no surprise, then, that Adobe reported 19% revenue growth in the first quarter of 2020. Or that management is guiding for about 16% revenue growth in the second quarter. Or that profits rose more than 25% year over year in Q1.

Those are the types of numbers Adobe will continue to report for the foreseeable future. So long as they do, this stock will charge higher.

Source: Bjorn Bakstad / Shutterstock.com

Cloud customer-relationship-management (CRM) giant Salesforce is one of the best cloud stocks to buy on the dip, not because of what has happened, but because of what will happen.

What has happened in 2020 isnt that great. According to JMP Securities, enterprise spending on business help tools like Salesforces cloud CRM tools has dropped by about 20% in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

But, this weakness wont last forever.

It increasingly appears that the whole work from home situation will stay in place until the end of April, at least. Companies cant afford to sit on their hands and not invest for a whole month. Eventually, they will do their best to get back to business as usual, even if all employees are working remotely. When they do, they will re-up investment into various mission-critical services. For many companies, Salesforces cloud CRM tools are some of those mission-critical services.

Broadly, over the next few weeks, Salesforces demand trends will rebound.Rebounding demand will drive a rebound in Salesforce stock.

Source: Mike Mareen / Shutterstock.com

Last, but not least, on this list of cloud stocks to buy is the cloud infrastructure markets biggest player: Amazon.

Its no secret that Amazon Web Services is the Goliath in cloud infrastructure. With over 30% market share, AWS dwarfs Azure (17% share) and Google Cloud (6% share). This dominant positioning exposes Amazon to robust cloud infrastructure tailwinds over the next few weeks, and should provide a nice boost to Amazons overall growth trajectory.

At the same time, Amazons other big business the e-commerce platform is also winning during the pandemic. Consumers arent shopping in physical stores anymore. But, they still need to shop, especially for household essentials and consumer staples. They are doing all of that shopping on e-commerce websites, of which Amazon.com is the largest.

Big picture: both of Amazons core businesses are winning during the coronavirus pandemic, making the recent 10% drop in share price seem unwarranted.

Luke Lango is a Markets Analyst for InvestorPlace. He has been professionally analyzing stocks for several years, previously working at various hedge funds and currently running his own investment fund in San Diego. A Caltech graduate, Luke has consistently been recognized as one of the worlds top stock pickers by various other analysts and platforms, and has developed a reputation for leveraging his technology background to identify growth stocks that deliver outstanding returns. Luke is also the founder of Fantastic, a social discovery company backed by an LA-based internet venture firm.As of this writing, he was long MSFT and ADBE.

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5 Cloud Stocks to Buy on the Coronavirus Dip - Investorplace.com