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Evan Karnoupakis has a brain the size of a planet. We’ve been friends since high school. After both going to business school for our MBAs – he went to Wharton, I went to Babson – we went our separate ways. Evan became an educator, I became an entrepreneur, but we kept in touch at the occasional Nerdy Game Night. If you read my previous book, Blockchain for Everyone, you know about the “Fellowship of the Coin,” the group of four Tolkien-loving friends who get together for board games and geeky discussion. Evan was one of the four, the “swarthy Greek dwarf” who amazed us with his continually-expanding blockchain knowledge. So the mythology of our new book – the story behind Blockchain Success Stories – actually begins in the previous book. The first book tells of my risking and losing my company on this new technology called blockchain, and the second book tells how to build blockchain companies successfully. It seems fitting that Evan – a character in the first book – becomes the co-author of the second. And Evan really is like his character: he’s one of the smartest people I know, with an incredible ability to memorize facts and details, to hoover up vast research studies and instantly recall key points. But it was a meeting at South by Southwest in 2019 that set this book in motion. Here’s the story behind Blockchain Success Stories. | |
The Meeting in Austin It was a cold morning in March when I met with Michelle. We were sitting in a sleek hotel lobby next to a glass fireplace, with a barista whipping up lattes nearby. All around us were attendees of Austin’s famous South by Southwest festival, the annual event that brings together creative types from all over the country – along with plenty of record labels, movie studios, and book publishers looking to hire. Michelle was an Acquisitions Editor for O’Reilly Media, which means she’s the person who makes new books happen. O’Reilly is, of course, well-known for their excellent series of technology guides, which are the industry standard for programmers and developers: | |
Most O’Reilly books have animals on the cover. (Ours has Jell-O shots.) I was at SXSW promoting Blockchain for Everyone, and Michelle was scouting for a new book about blockchain, something more targeted to the business leader. “You know what would be interesting?” I asked her. “A book of blockchain case studies.” “Say more,” said Michelle. “All these blockchain books are so technical,” I continued. “They’re all theory, no practice. I would love a book that just walks through how people are building real blockchain businesses. We could interview leaders from most successful blockchain projects around the world, get their stories, and pull out blockchain best practices.” I'm a professional simplifier, so I'm simplifying this conversation. The original idea was a lot rougher. Michelle really helped refine the idea behind the book, then shepherd the proposal through the process. The reason that professionally published books are generally better than self-published books is because you have this team of incredible experts who have seen thousands of books. They know what makes a good book. Most of these people get very little credit, maybe a page in the Acknowledgments, but they really spin a writer's words into gold. It starts with the editor who decides to go ahead with the book. You've heard of angel investors; Michelle was our angel acquisitions editor. | |
Nerdy Game Night: that’s Evan on the lower right. (Courtesy Blockchain for Everyone) Bringing in the Big Brains I had never written a book with a co-author before, but Evan had been contributing to Bitcoin Market Journal, and I thought of him immediately. This new book would require a lot of research, and in order to be first to market, we’d have to move quickly. (In the publishing world, a year is fast.) “Let’s make this a book of blockchain success stories,” I pitched him. “Not just how blockchain works, but how blockchain works in real life.” “Like case studies,” he offered. “Case studies! Exactly!” In business school, many classes are taught using the “case study” method. Case studies are typically 10- to 20-page stories about a real-world business problem, seen through the eyes of a company executive or founder. Maybe you’re Tim Cook taking over Apple from Steve Jobs, or maybe you’re the New York Times deciding whether to launch a new digital project. | |
Yes, there is a case study on The Rock's business ventures. Case studies are fun to read, because they’re real-world problems—just like real life. Typically they include a lot of data, such as balance sheets and income statements, much of it irrelevant to the story—just like real life. At the end of the story, they leave you hanging, and you’re challenged to figure out the company’s next step—just like real life. This is why the case study method remains so popular in business schools: because it’s just like real life. You’ve got a messy problem with no clear solution. Best of all, there is no “right answer.” Most professors assign the reading beforehand, then you come to class and present your solution. The only important thing is that you back up your solution with a credible argument on what you would do next. “Blockchain case studies would be a really useful contribution to this industry,” Evan went on. “We need to see how people are actually building these projects in real life.” “Each chapter could cover a different use case for blockchain,” I continued. “Digital currencies, collectibles, supply chain…” “We interview the founders and tell their stories,” Evan offered. “We’re building the stories around this new industry.” And so it was decided. The gold standard for case studies is Harvard Business School, and we wanted to do case studies with that same level of rigor and quality. At the same time, we wanted them to be fun to read, not a stuffy textbook. We wanted this book to become the new industry standard: the Bible of business blockchain. | |
Once O’Reilly accepted our proposal, it was incredible how quickly everything came together. We wrote the first section – What is Blockchain? – to introduce people who are new to the subject. Then we created 10 story-driven case studies from such leading projects as Binance, Circle, Cardano, Everledger, and CryptoKitties. Along the way, we had the support and help of the incredible O'Reilly team, especially our outstanding editor Amelia, who helped us polish each story into a shining gem, the entire book into a masterpiece. If my previous book was a book about failure and redemption, this is a book about success. We've come full circle, from trying to explain blockchain to ourselves, to explaining it to the world. We've gone from watching the story from the outside, to sharing the inside story. We’re so excited for you to read it. As it just hit #1 on the Amazon New Releases list for Digital Currencies, we hope you’ll pick up a copy (or two) for the holidays. Click here to buy our new book. | |
Health, wealth, and happiness, | |
John Hargrave Publisher Bitcoin Market Journal | |
Hi Everyone, Darn it!! Another classic American tradition messed up by COVID-19. Most years we'd be watching clips on social media of people fighting, sometimes to the death, over cheap electronics for crazy Black Friday brawls. ... I mean sales. According to my family physician, this entire pandemic is actually a punishment from G-d for our actions over the last few years, more specifically all the hatred and selfishness in the world. Even though I'm not sure how much I believe it, she (our physician) also believes firmly that the world will never return to how it once was. Given the significance of today, it kind of makes sense. If we can't be trusted to behave when left to our own means, our means have now been severely limited. It would definitely explain the dip in bitcoin this week ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. Pride is a sin, as is envy. With just a tiny price correction, a lot of boasting and jealousy has been thwarted at once. Certainly though, if this is indeed the case, why would the L-rd decide to disproportionally punish the poor over the rich? After all, the wealthy are very much the architects of the society that we live in, promoting consumerism over human decency. Why then, does the stock market continue to rise while the lower class is forbidden to earn a living? Those at the highest levels of government continue to suckle the fat from the wealth of our nation, despite their blatant inability to pass simple measures that will keep folks from being thrown out on the streets and/or starving. It just doesn't seem very fair. Then again, the bigger picture has always been rather obscure for us humans. It's like the proverbial stranger in the hospital who hears a woman scream out in great pain. He runs toward the sounds, only to see the woman's family outside the operating room filled with laughter and joy. Clearly, a baby is being born. While those are indeed very serious and real cries of pain we can understand at once the greater good behind it. Perhaps, it would be better if the world never goes back to the way it was. Perhaps, we're now being given a rare, once-in-a-generation chance to make some much-needed improvements. | |
What caused the sell-off? But what caused the bitcoin crash? Many have placed the blame squarely on the CEO of Coinbase Brian Armstrong, who sent out a rather lengthy and detailed tweetstorm about two hours before the price action started getting really ugly. | |
At first glance, this subject just seems like utter nonsense. Why, in its final hours, with the Trump administration going down in flames and millions of Americans hurting, would Treasury Secretary Mnuchin suddenly focus his efforts on crypto wallets? It makes no sense. Furthermore, even if he really wanted to, it would be next to impossible to pass any meaningful legislation through Congress right now. They can't even pass a bill on stimulus, so the idea of them coming together to regulate crypto payments is just preposterous. Nevertheless, the timing and incentives don't look very good for Armstrong, who's currently in a lot of hot water given controversy surrounding a recent NYT article. Meanwhile, a sell-off like the one we've experienced can potentially earn a lot of money in fees for an exchange like Coinbase. After all, yesterday's exchange volumes were the second highest in history for bitcoin, and the highest-ever for XRP. In my mind, Armstrong was probably trying to do the right thing, but with really lousy timing. I myself have commented many times on legislation that has not a snowball's chance of passing. It's important to voice opinions on these things for clarification, so that the next politician attempting to draft such laws can look back and have a greater understanding of the issues. We don't all make millions of dollars off our greatest blunders, but hey. Rightly or wrongly, Armstrong has been named the scapegoat for this dip, but for those of us who like to trade, all we really want is for you to fix the damn platform!! Coinbase's applications going down during every period of heightened volatility has become a running joke of the industry, and it's far more shameful than any of the above. | |
All in all The total pullback thus far from peak to trough is still less than 17%. I must say that if it is indeed done and we continue up from here, it'll probably be one of bitcoin's tamest bull market retracements in history. We've come a very long way very quickly. The price has nearly doubled in the last two months, so a pullback isn't really surprising anyone, especially ahead of the monumental all-time high. However, if could be useful already to try and identify a few levels of support, just in case the selling isn't over yet. As luck would have it, now that we've traversed this territory, the price has managed to build in a few key levels, which rather remarkably occur every $2,000. For now, we've bounded off the top one at $16,000. | |
For my part, I was able to avoid some of the drop on my high-risk account. Even though we've taken what might look like a loss when measuring from the top, I'm quite pleased that I was able to get a few better entry points than I'd previously had. At this point, my account is fully allocated, and I'll be watching over the next few days to add additional funds to take advantage of the lower prices. Want to wish you all a fantastic weekend! Warm regards, | |
Mati Greenspan Analysis, Advisory, Money Management | | |
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