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I think the cryptocurrency story is real, just like the internet story was real in 1999, but these ICOs show that the market is getting way ahead of the tech, r

I think the cryptocurrency story is real, just like the internet story was real in 1999, but these ICOs show that the market is getting way ahead of the tech, regulations, business models, etc. I have a longer rant about it, here: https://twitter.com/jonst0kes/status/880806655067291649 https://twitter.com/jonst0kes/status/880806655067291649 (Sadly, twitter's threading model is now so broken that you have to do lots of clicking to get to the good back-and-forth dialogue in there.) Anyway, I'm sort of toying with the idea of doing a kickstarter for a big explainer book on blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and DLT in general, which would basically be like my CPU architecture book ("Inside the Machine"), but for this topic. (I'm spending all my spare mental bandwidth right now on understanding this tech, mostly so I can think through shorting this space eventually, but I'm not convinced it's worth my time to try to explain it to the general public... a kickstarter would help me price that. I dunno though, I've never even backed anything on kickstarter so I'd have to spend a bunch of time figuring out how to set up a successful campaign, first.) But to sum up, people I've talked to in this space think the ICO thing is a frothy mess, but it's also set to get worse as the general public gets more opportunities to buy in. A lot of these ICOs are built on top of ETH, and the path to USD liquidity is through ETH, so despite the platform's issues it seems likely that ETH is going to get much of the benefit of this bubble (and much of the negative impact when the bubble pops). I'm keeping an eye on the upcoming ETH exchange-traded trust, and I think there will be an ETH ETF that will eventually launch and get bid up.

nradov 9y ago
Why do you need a Kickstarter campaign? Most authors just go ahead and write.
- jonstokes 9y ago
  It's not clear to me from this reply that you know very much about authors, advances, and the like. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, writing a book is an actual job for some people, and not a hobby, a passion project, a speculative endeavor, a side gig, or a way to boost your leverage in compensation negotiations with potential employers. Seeing as how it's an actual job that entails a bunch of really hard work that I don't have to do and, frankly, don't particularly enjoy more than N number of other things I'm doing right now and that I'm good at, I'm not interested in doing it unless it can replace some subset of the paid work I'm currently doing that I enjoy (and learn from).
  - nradov 9y ago
    The only authors who receive significant advances are those who previously wrote books that sold well, plus a few outliers who are already famous for other reasons. Most authors have to find other ways to support themselves prior to getting published (and often afterwards as well).
budfiction 9y ago
Seems like a project worthy of its own ICO ;)
- jonstokes 9y ago
  Heh, I actually had the same thought. Then I had the following thought: "I relish the thought of one day talking to the SEC even less than I do talking to the IRS, and if this were successful I'd probably end up talking to both at some point."
Simon_says 9y ago
You want me to go on Twitter to read something longer?

nradov 9y ago

Why do you need a Kickstarter campaign? Most authors just go ahead and write.

jonstokes 9y ago
It's not clear to me from this reply that you know very much about authors, advances, and the like. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, writing a book is an actual job for some people, and not a hobby, a passion project, a speculative endeavor, a side gig, or a way to boost your leverage in compensation negotiations with potential employers. Seeing as how it's an actual job that entails a bunch of really hard work that I don't have to do and, frankly, don't particularly enjoy more than N number of other things I'm doing right now and that I'm good at, I'm not interested in doing it unless it can replace some subset of the paid work I'm currently doing that I enjoy (and learn from).
- nradov 9y ago
  The only authors who receive significant advances are those who previously wrote books that sold well, plus a few outliers who are already famous for other reasons. Most authors have to find other ways to support themselves prior to getting published (and often afterwards as well).

budfiction 9y ago

Seems like a project worthy of its own ICO ;)

jonstokes 9y ago
Heh, I actually had the same thought. Then I had the following thought: "I relish the thought of one day talking to the SEC even less than I do talking to the IRS, and if this were successful I'd probably end up talking to both at some point."

Simon_says 9y ago

You want me to go on Twitter to read something longer?