Alternative Investment Dictionary

Accelerators give mentorship and investment to entrepreneurs. Companies that use accelerators are passed the "idea stage". Accelerators last 2 to 6 months.

Angel investors are people who have the money and desire to fund companies in exchange for a portion of ownership of that company. Being an angel investor is not the same as being an accredited investor and it is also not a prerequisite to being one. Some angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding platforms or join an angel group to share the investment amount.

An accredited investor is an individual or business (financial institution or corporation) that is allowed to make investments that are not registered with the SEC (i.e some private companies). To qualify as an accredited investor you must either: 1. Have an annual income of $200,000 or greater for the last two years and expect to receive the same income in the current year. 2. Have a net worth of over 1 million dollars (excluding the value of your primary home)

Art investing is when someone buys and sells art for profit. Investors can also purchase part ownership of an artwork as a group and resell it using various websites.

Alternative Investments are investments in assets that are not stocks, bonds or cash. Examples of alternative investments are commodities, real estate, private equity, venture capital and hedge funds.

A blockchain is a chain of blocks that contain information. It is a shared database (distributed ledger) that is public. Once information is inside it, it is difficult to be destroyed. Each block has a unique fingerprint (hash). When a block created, a fingerprint for that block is created. If you change the information inside the block then the fingerprint would change, as well. Hashes are useful to track changes. If the fingerprint changes it is no longer the same block. A new block is created for each change which then is chained to the previous block. Each new block has its own fingerprint and the fingerprint of the previous block. If someone tried to change the information in a block the fingerprint would change which would not match the fingerprint of the next block chained and onwards so it will be invalid. If you change that fingerprint you would have to change the fingerprints of all the blocks. Blockchains also use a peer-to-peer network that anyone can join. When someone joins they get a full copy of the blockchain. This is another way to verify everything is in order. When someone creates a new block, that block is sent to everyone on the network. A node verifies each block to check if it has been tampered with. All of these features of the blockchain make it secure and transparent.