‘Once a Bitcoin Miner’: I have a book deal
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‘Once a Bitcoin Miner’: I have a book deal
If you’ve read my recent media pieces, you’ll notice some version of this line at the end, “Ethan Lou is the author of Once a Bitcoin Miner, a memoir through scandal and turmoil in the cryptocurrency Wild West, coming out 2020 by ECW Press.”
So, that’s a thing. The deal was reported in a literary trade publication during the week. The cat is now officially out of the bag.
Also, I write in The Guardian that Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency, officially unveiled during the week, heralds the rise of the corporation-government, potentially shaping the already vast powers of the Silicon Valley giants into a borderless, unaccountable techno-oligarchy.
Facebook already holds the keys to our speech, our inner thoughts and our perception of reality. It holds sway over elections. Now it may hold our wallets, too. If greenlit by regulators, Libra pushes the technology world past a significant and dangerous threshold — it was already powerful, and we knew it, but never like this.
That's not an uncommon view. Everyone is bashing Facebook's cryptocurrency. But I totally called this six months ago in the Toronto Star.
Price action: over $10K, but beware pullback
Bitcoin remains on the way up, although it could face a pullback in the short term, analysis says. The world’s largest cryptocurrency is at $10,688 (C$14,152) as of 1 p.m. Sunday, Eastern Time, up more than 15 per cent for the week. Bitcoin breached five figures for the first time this year on Friday, after news of Facebook’s cryptocurrency. Prices surged even more on Saturday, going about $11,000. That even as the social media giant’s project ran immediately into regulatory headwinds around the world, potentially including Canada.
Canada: proof of Quadriga fraud, experts say
New revelations that the late founder of defunct cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX moved customer funds to personal accounts and made risky trades provide the strongest evidence yet that the operation was a fraud, industry experts say.
Canada’s largest pharmacy chain, Shoppers Drug Mart, is on a pilot program that will use blockchain to identify, track and verify the source and genetics of cannabis used by medical patients. It may be copied by U.S. drug stores.
World: Bitman IPO, again, this time in U.S.
Bitmain Technologies Ltd., the world’s biggest producer of cryptocurrency mining chips, is reviving plans for an initial public offering (IPO) as Bitcoin climbs to a one-year high. The company is seeking a U.S. share sale. It was previously pursuing a Hong Kong IPO, but the application lapsed in March amid low cryptocurrency prices.
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