My Participation in the First-Ever Bitcoin Fiction Anthology, “21 Futures: Tales From The Timechain”

The short stories on “21 Futures: Tales From The Timechain” are bound for the history books, and an Eduardo Próspero original is part of that landmark project. The anthology is the spearhead, the first published example, of a new genre that we call bitcoin fiction. It really is just fiction in which bitcoin plays a central role, but hey… nowadays, it’s crucial to play these marketing games. 

Use THIS LINK to get a 10% discount for “21 Futures: Tales From The Timechain” or any other book you like, courtesy of your favorite writer in the whole wide world.

The book comes through Konsensus Network, a “starfish publishing house” that has been “connecting authors and readers in the bitcoin space since 2019.”

Back to my short story, it’s titled “Eye In The Sky” and it takes place in a bitcoin citadel. The citadel meme entered the community’s imaginarium through this classic fictional letter from a time traveler. Even though it contained veiled mockery, bitcoiners everywhere appropriated the term and made it part of their mythology. Nowadays, the community sees the epoch of the bitcoin citadels as a predecessor to the total hyperbitcoinization of the world. Before BTC becomes the only currency on the planet, bitcoiners will have to isolate themselves and create independent private cities.

In an introductory post for Stacker News, I shared an exclusive teaser trailer for “Eye In The Sky”:

Mining Centralization Is Bitcoin’s Weak Spot, But We’re Working On It. This Is How

One of the biggest threats to the bitcoin experiment is mining centralization. Gone are the days in which China controlled 60% of hashpower, and a single mining pool could get close to the dangerous 50% range. However, there are still centralizing forces at work. From the ASICs market to the mining pools, to the big miners edging out the small ones, centralization comes from all angles. Will the bitcoin network resist and react to the pressure that this generates? History says it probably will.

Two companies, both Chinese, control the ASIC market with an iron fist. Plus, all of its current competitors are in China as well. That’s not healthy for the bitcoin network. It’s one of those single points of failure, in fact. On their consumer’s end, the industrialization of bitcoin mining brings firmness, strength, and other positive aspects to the network. It also discourages home mining, since the competition is so vast and well-capitalized. 

Not only that, those giant publicly traded miners are signing deals with energy companies that give them even more of an edge. Those powerful interest groups connecting through bitcoin speaks volumes about the network’s future. It also contributes to the mining centralization problem. Small miners are crucial, but, how can they face these six-headed hydras?

Add this log to the fire, BlackRock is heavily invested in Riot, Marathon, Cipher, and Terawulf. The asset management firm has a large ownership stake in all of those businesses, which are 4 out of the 5 biggest publicly traded bitcoin mining companies. That’s centralization on top of centralization.

Lastly, the mining pool problem persists. Even though the ecosystem is more decentralized than ever, there are still miles and miles of room for improvement. Every miner can direct its hashrate wherever it wants. Most choose to join a mining pool, and those entities get to pick and choose which transactions go into the blocks that they validate. That’s right, a few mining pools create the vast majority of bitcoin’s blocks. That’s mining centralization in another flavor.

The good news is that the bitcoin network is working on it and will probably solve every issue. Keep reading to learn how.

About Bitcoin And “Web 2.5,” HackerNoon’s First Documentary

I have mixed feelings about the trailer for HackerNoon’s “Web 2.5” documentary. On the one hand, HackerNoon is the coolest publication, it’s a net good for writers all over the world, and its leaders are adorable. How could you hate on them? And they got an Amazon Prime deal? The whole world should celebrate that. That documentary puts the publication one step closer to the big leagues and helps each and every Hackernoon collaborator. Plus, Linh Dao Smooke is right, “a new reimagined version of the Internet is desperately needed.”

On the other hand, “Web 2.5” seems to be about Web3 when it should be about Web5.

Before reading consider, and let’s be clear about this, that I haven’t seen the film yet. This short article is exclusively about the “Web 2.5” trailer.

Why Am I Writing In English? Why Am I Writing For HackerNoon? Why Am I Writing At All?

I wrote this one for LinkedIn, but here it goes regardless….

The Second BITCOIN-ONLY Article’s Accomplishments

I recently learned that HackerNoon hosts approximately 35K writers and that the mailing lists reach 250K people daily. Interesting numbers to put into perspective the accomplishments of “Bitcoin Is The ONLY Digital Scarcity That Matters — Here’s Why,” the latest article in the BITCOIN-ONLY saga.

Without further ado, let’s go to the bullet points:

• Once again, the article was selected as a HackerNoon Top Story. This means it was featured for approximately 24 hours on the homepage
• This time, it was the main story on May 5th, 2023’s edition of Noonification, HackerNoon’s main mailing list.
• The article trended twice on The TechBeat, reaching #19 at the peak of its popularity,

However, “Bitcoin Is The ONLY Digital Scarcity That Matters — Here’s Why,” didn’t reach the heights of the first article in click terms. Which is ok. The BITCOIN-ONLY movement is a marathon, not a sprint.

Here are some images for posterity:

Noonification:

Trending

This was a dispatch from Eduardo Prospero, Bitcoin’s ambassador to HackerNoon.

Bitcoin Is The ONLY Digital Scarcity That Matters. This Is Why.

The simple truth is that nobody can create more digital scarcity. It’s as simple as that. Your conscious self might reject the idea, but subconsciously most people understand this basic fact. And that might be the main reason why bitcoin has and will remain king. Just think about it, don’t be afraid of abstraction. Get philosophical for a second and consider this: 

Once Satoshi Nakamoto discovered digital scarcity, every person that tried to replicate his ideas and create more digital scarcity, actually created less digital scarcity. Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t make the rules. That’s how scarcity works. You can’t create more of it. If you create more, it’s less scarce.

To better understand this, let’s go back to basics.

The First BITCOIN-ONLY Article’s Accomplishments

For those just tuning in, I declared myself Bitcoin’s ambassador to HackerNoon and started a BITCOIN-ONLY column in the popular tech publication. The first article, “Why BITCOIN ONLY? – Bitcoin is NOT “Crypto” accomplished the following:

• It was selected as a HackerNoon Top Story, which means it was featured for approximately 24 hours in the homepage
• It was also featured in Noonification, HackerNoon’s daily mailing list.
• It was a trending article during the weekend.

Considering how competitive HackerNoon is, and how much content the world publishes on the platform, I would qualify the first article as a great success.

Here are some images for posterity:

The article in question @ Noonification

HackerNoon’s notification that the article was trending.

This was a dispatch from Eduardo Prospero, Bitcoin’s ambassador to HackerNoon.

Why Bitcoin only? Bitcoin is NOT “crypto” (BITCOIN ONLY, an ongoing saga)

I started a BITCOIN ONLY column at Hackernoon.

Let’s see how that goes.

First dispatch after the jump.

We need to talk about cryptocurrencies. Here are my ten greatest articles.

Cheers to the site I’m ghostwriting for. They gave me permission to share with you the best of my work.

These articles are SEO-heavy-keyword-filled-monsters.

The texts don’t have my usual flair, because that’s not what the client needed. 

These are lean and mean traffic generating machines.

And they’re full of useful info if you’re looking to get into the cryptocurrency craze of 2021.

After the jump, we’ll discuss: Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Bittrex, and Coinmama. Which of these cryptocurrency exchanges is better for you? We’ll talk about Ripple and the XRP, about Lumen and its Stellar, and of course about the king and queen of the ball: Bitcoin and Ethereum. As a bonus we’ll feature the Verge coin, is it the new hot investment or an example of what not to do?

Get all of the answers and a lot more, after the jump:

How and why cryptocurrencies can barely open doors anymore

The other day I was reading about the unavoidable fusion between cryptocurrencies and the traditional banking system. A topic that makes my skin crawl. A topic that fascinates me. 

I came upon this quote: