Microsoft seem to be more interested in Ethereum [0]. They introduced an Ethereum blockchain-as-a-service offering on Azure [1] last year, and they are working with R3 [2] and some other Ethereum-using players in the much-hyped blockchain space. They seem to have decided that Ethereum is a better solution than Bitcoin for a broad set of applications, and they're probably right.
I do think Microsoft's move is indicative of growing disaffectation with Bitcoin. Bitcoin's community has been a cauldron of discontent for the better part of two years now. It's a mess, but it's not just about the blocksize. What most scares investors and technologists is that Bitcoin's development team appears to be beholden to the interests of a single company, and still worse, has disavowed making basic changes to the protocol. But basic changes are needed to enable many of the sorts of things that people dream of doing with blockchains—at least if they're going to be done with Bitcoin's blockchain.
Meanwhile Ethereum and several other competitors are maturing into good alternatives. Ethereum is a much nicer platform for programmatic money. Dash [3], Monero [4], and new projects like Zcash [5] are in some ways technically superior to Bitcoin as currencies and payment networks. At the same time, many speculators have fled bitcoin, fearing a gridlocked community and technical stasis; they've put their money into other crypto-assets, driving up their valuations. The price of ether, Ethereum's underlying asset, has skyrocketed lately, to a valuation of over $1 billion. About half a dozen altcoins have risen enormously in value over the past several months, and higher valuations bring more interest. With more interest comes more use, and with more use comes more infrastructure; Bitcoin's first-mover advantage narrows.
There was a time when I thought Bitcoin would be able to incorporate proven technical improvements from other systems, and by maintaining its technical competitiveness in that way also be able to maintain its network effect. I no longer think that. If Bitcoin can't purge its demons, other systems will out-compete it.
Microsoft seems intent on supporting Blockchains as a service, but that doesn't mean that they're going to accept them internally on a business level.
Microsoft's Blockchain platform on Azure currently supports Bitcoin, Bitshares, Ethereum, Emercoin, OpenLedger, Ripple, Factom, Eris, Coinprism, and more.
Just because they now support Ethereum as a service doesn't mean that they're validating Ethereum and plan to incorporate deep within their business units. It also doesn't mean that they think it's better than Bitcoin.
On a personal level, I'm quite excited by Ethereum and am more and more dejected by Bitcoin these days.
I do think Microsoft's move is indicative of growing disaffectation with Bitcoin. Bitcoin's community has been a cauldron of discontent for the better part of two years now. It's a mess, but it's not just about the blocksize. What most scares investors and technologists is that Bitcoin's development team appears to be beholden to the interests of a single company, and still worse, has disavowed making basic changes to the protocol. But basic changes are needed to enable many of the sorts of things that people dream of doing with blockchains—at least if they're going to be done with Bitcoin's blockchain.
Meanwhile Ethereum and several other competitors are maturing into good alternatives. Ethereum is a much nicer platform for programmatic money. Dash [3], Monero [4], and new projects like Zcash [5] are in some ways technically superior to Bitcoin as currencies and payment networks. At the same time, many speculators have fled bitcoin, fearing a gridlocked community and technical stasis; they've put their money into other crypto-assets, driving up their valuations. The price of ether, Ethereum's underlying asset, has skyrocketed lately, to a valuation of over $1 billion. About half a dozen altcoins have risen enormously in value over the past several months, and higher valuations bring more interest. With more interest comes more use, and with more use comes more infrastructure; Bitcoin's first-mover advantage narrows.
There was a time when I thought Bitcoin would be able to incorporate proven technical improvements from other systems, and by maintaining its technical competitiveness in that way also be able to maintain its network effect. I no longer think that. If Bitcoin can't purge its demons, other systems will out-compete it.
0. https://www.ethereum.org
1. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/ethereum-blockchain-a...
2. https://r3cev.com
3. https://www.dash.org
4. https://getmonero.org/home
5. https://z.cash