Iām writing a sci-fi novel that features #Bitcoin prominently and takes place around the year 2100. It builds on predictions made in The Sovereign Individual, The Fourth Turning, What Technology Wants and The Case for Space.
Questions for you:
- Would you read this book?
- If so, in what formats? (Paperback, hardcover, ebook, audiobook).
- How long of a book would you enjoy (max/min page length)?
Please help me collect data by sharing this post.
#asknostr
I couldn't help you. There are books I would read that are 1000 pages long on a website and books I wouldn't read that are 100 pages long physically in front of me.
I don't enjoy audiobooks, but the format is the last thing I care about.
What I do like is the coherent worlds. Something where I can find "gravity points" and where I understand incentives of actors.
And where I can hope for more content because it's interesting for other authors to put theirs digures and tails.
In short anthologies are my cup of tea.
btw. ikd why my brain picked this:
This is helpful, thank you!
The world I'm building features a multiplanetary civilization with colonies on the moon and Mars. Because of Bitcoin's 10-minute block time, mining is only possible on the Earth/moon. Earth has become the centralized hub of finance through which other worlds must transact.
Colonies in the asteroid belt specialize in producing high-end computing hardware (including mining equipment) but can't themselves mine because they're too far out. The main conflict of the novel is the threat of asteroid colonists to execute a contentious fork with a significantly longer block time. This would decentralize mining throughout the inner solar system, undermining Earth's privileged position.
Still working out the details. It's likely that the main antagonist will be the CEO of a major power generation/mining outfit on Earth (uses energy production from lunar helium-3 fusion). Protagonist(s) TBD.
Sounds intersting.
May I have a question(s)? Why would they need the Earth bitcoin in the first place. how they depend on Earth? it looks more like the dependency is the other way around. That means that they exchange goods for bitcoin. why would they want to mine it. The subsidy is gone and you earn on transactions only. the trasactions are confirmed with huge gap (by light speed offset). It's likely there's going to be a sidechains taking the risks for invalid transactions (and passing it as price premium to customers).
The asteroid belt contains all of the raw materials necessary for sustaining itself and its development independently, with the possible exception of helium-3 for fusion reactions. It probably has the deuterium for that form of fusion as a fallback, but generally prefers helium-3 from the moon.
For different entities to settle transactions among themselves beyond the Earth/moon, they must rely on proof-of-work generated there. They canāt participate, only verify. This means that while the asteroid belt can and does manufacture hashing hardware, it canāt benefit from mining. Asteroid belt colonists pay fees that accrue to Earth alone.
To be able to benefit from the fees, the asteroid colonists need a chain with a longer block time. They could spin up their own shitcoin for this, but that would suffer all the known problems of spinning up shitcoins. Lengthening the block time can be accomplished with a soft fork alone.
Regarding sidechains, the problem with any sidechain is the peg and its credibility. A pegged shitcoin is still a shitcoin, and so in my novel, I plan to presume that theyāre just as ineffective and undesirable as I find them today.
The overarching tension I want to explore is the Earth-centric concentration of power imposed by the 10-minute block time, and what freedom and decentralization mean in the context of a burgeoning, spacefaring civilization.
That really sounds interesting. I can't wrap my head around the speed of light problem. If the colony is years far, how big the tick would must have been. That would render the transactions unusable in practice.
The only way would be a ledger and settlement layer as a sidechain. It could be the bitcoin on bitcoin, but still ...
It's not exactly what you describe but the conflict with the astroid belt people is well played out in "The Expanse".
I think there is great potential in having bitcoin as a world building tool but my honest suggestion would be to really flesh out characters and their motivations. There's always a valuable piece missing to stories with great world building but crappy characters!
There is some juice to squeeze on the philosophical impacts of civilization spanning large swaths of space/time. I mean depening on hiw large the civilization is people on different sides of the civilization literally experience time and life differently.
I would also be careful of the ex machina/ other logical pitfalls that could come out of a story like this, especially when your main audience might be bitcoiners who would quickly identifiy them.
Just my two sats. Thats a long and drawn out way of saying, Id read it!
What do you mean by ex machina/ logical pitfalls?
the google definition is: dues ex machina fallacy is the use of a āgod-likeā character or plot devixe that acts in a way that makes a problem or conflict seem insoluble, and thus forces the story into an unsatisfactory resolution.
Its a VERY common mistake in scifi or fantasy when the author has a complex world.
No one does it intentionally but it tends to happen when the author knows more about the tech and world than the reader (always happens) but fails to descirbe the plot point as common factor in the world and then some how its used to save the day.
In the case of a bitcoin story an audience of bitcoiners might read through the ex machina but an average reader would not.
Ah ok, thanks! Yes, definitely something to avoid.
Once Kind 3040 is live you could make your story into a serialized fiction. Post your chapters one at a time get some sats and some feedback on your work. As you post them you can tie them into one to make it easier for your audience to follow.
I'm thinking about releasing a serialized fiction I had on kindlevella on here, cus... Amazon is the devil...
Is there a NIP associated with kind 3040?
Nothing exists; all is a dream. Godāmanāthe worldāthe sun, the moon, the wilderness of starsāa dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty spaceāand you!
Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger
#reality
Tags: reality
Right right. Yeah, not going to take the easy way out here. š
Just enjoy writing it, donāt get limited by expectations or requirements. Imagine along the path you stumble across a very interesting plot twist extending towards few dozens of pages - would that stop you? š
I can devour a good 300 page book in a few hours (thatās including breaks) #bookstr.
Itās incredible. I also had the āsameā idea - also focusing on what utopia Bitcoin could actually bring and problems we would need to solve in order to āshipā Bitcoin outside of Earth.
10/10 would definitely prefer longer read in a hardcover book. Something like ā21st century Foundationā. Love it!
Audiobook!
Offering up my voice š«”
Also I love the audio series types that audible hosts. That would be a cool way to release chapters.
I would read it for sure. Iāve been waiting for these type of stories.
Length is irrelevant (to me) just make it a well-crafted and plausible story thatās as concise as it needs to be.
When it comes to books Iām a physical copy maxi - hard or soft cover.
I love the idea! I like sci-fi movies and games and recently start to read books. Now i read ebook and audiobook, but i can pay the price for a nice hardcover. 150 pages it's a good start but i can read some books of 300 pages or more if it's exciting and I'm immersed in the story. You can still cut the story in few books, making a cycle in the same universe/story
Wow awesome!!!
Paperback ~200 pages, please have science bits close to realistic š
Depends on plot, characters, and believable world-building. The subject of bitcoin is secondary to a good story. Some secondary features (meaning technologies, super powers, creatures etc) will entice me to try a book but won't keep me engaged by themselves.
Format and length aren't important to me.
100%, will definitely have the best characters and plot I can come up with. Just collecting some early data on the probable readership preferences
Yes
Paperback
Trilogy
There are already sci-fi fiction that features a decentralised currency, although that isn't the focus of some: 'snow crash: neal stephenson', 'cryptonomicon' and 'Diamond Age' by same author. I read a little of Snow Crash and didn't take to it. Also 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom' by Cory Doctorow and 'The Mandibles' by Lionel Shriver.
