An update and preview of my forthcoming book 'Once a Bitcoin Miner'

You may have heard, somewhere, probably from me, that I have a book coming out.

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You may have heard, somewhere, probably from me, that I have a book coming out, Once Bitcoin Miner: Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West. Among other things, it includes my eyewitness account of the trip to North Korea than got Ethereum’s Virgil Griffith arrested.

The book was supposed to be out fall this year, but then I signed a deal for another book, Field Notes from a Pandemic: A Journey Through a World Suspended, which is, as its name suggests, far more timely. It’s never a good idea to have two books from the same author out in one season. To avoid a clash, Once a Bitcoin Miner was moved to next year. (Although both are available for pre-order.)

Before then, part of the story of Once a Bitcoin Miner will be out in an investigative piece written by me in the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. It is about developments in the western Canadian city of Calgary — rise and fall amid the Bitcoin boom and bust. That piece has already been written and is undergoing editing, although I do not know when it will be out. It will likely be sometime this year.

Before that, though, I will be giving a sort of behind-the-scenes preview next Thursday in a live online event. I’ll be going over how I went about chronicling and publicizing the lives of securities investigators and allegedly shady or inept cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, none of whom really wanted to be written about.

That’s part of a writing course I’m teaching, whose description is this:

How do you craft compelling nonfiction when you’ve got little to go on and the very subjects at its centre want nothing to do with you? … Join [Ethan Lou] as he exposes the many investigative techniques he’s used to spin a good yarn and tackles the big question: what can or can’t you write about people?

The course will draw heavily from the book. It does cost money. I do not use this newsletter to hawk stuff, so do not take this as an inducement to sign up. You don’t need to know the behind-the-scenes stuff to enjoy the book.

News: Cryptocurrency tumbles most in two months as U.S. dollar jumps

Bitcoin this month rallied above $12,000, a key level. On Wednesday, as the U.S. dollar rose, Bitcoin fell to as low as $11,621, a level it largely remained at as of 10 a.m. Sunday, Eastern Time.