UPDATE: If purchasing the book onchain and getting token for print edition as described below is too daunting, email me at isaac at gmail dot com and I can work out an old-school mechanism to buy with USD.
Yesterday, I released a new book and I’m really excited about it!
This makes book #10 (not that I’m totally counting), and this one is a lot more personal than any of my others. It’s a collection of weekly, private emails over the course of the first year of getting Crash off the ground. It provides a real-time look into all the craziness going through my head as we struggled to define the product, brand, market, raise venture capital, separate from my previous company Praxis, sell Praxis, and my own health crises in the midst of it.
The book is also unique for another reason. I skipped traditional publishers and Amazon self -publishing, and published it directly to the BitcoinSV blockchain. That means the digital version of the book is encrypted onchain, and anyone who purchases it can unencrypt and download it. There is also a physical edition – with a total of 100 that will ever be printed (collectors item!;-), and you can purchase a token that allows you to redeem one.
The book is called, “The Inner Game of Startups” and it’s available in limited supply on Canonic.xyz (or click the book below).
Why publish this way?
I chose to publish on bitcoin for several reasons.
- The book will live forever, doesn’t live on any server, and can’t be removed by any third party
- Purchases instantly send BSV to my wallet and split revenue with the publishers, etc. No delays, bank transfers, etc.
- There are zero fees (well technically near zero – more like 100th of a penny) for purchases
- I love experimenting with new stuff that empowers creators to own and control their content
- It allows for a combo of digital tokens (“NFT”: non-fungible token) which can be bought and even resold to others on secondary market like any digital good, AND a physical book that can be redeemed with the token
- Unlimited digital supply, plus limited physical supply makes it both scarce and non-scarce
- I could work with the printer to do things however I wanted instead of whatever publisher or Amazon gives me
- I believe decentralized data and instant micropayments are the future of the internet, especially for independent creators, and I want to show what’s possible
- The BSV blockchain is an incredible protocol with an exciting ecosystem of apps being built, and I love being a part of networks of people pushing limits and full of energy
- It retains the intimate feel of the original newsletter the book comes from
It has been a really fun experience, and Canonic is an incredible platform. In fact, I’ve uploaded all of my other books and even a few papers there, but this is the first book exclusively on bitcoin and that included an NFT redeemable for a print edition.
How the heck can I buy one if I’ve never used BSV?
BSV is not a typical cryptocurrency that people are buying and selling and trading on crypto exchanges for speculative purposes. There is some of that, but not much. Its primary use is within actual apps. Entrepreneurs are building on it and users are exchanging with it and using it for payments, games, and data storage.
The upside to this is that it has real use and utility. The downside is it’s not well known and it’s not listed on almost any crypto exchanges or Coinbase. (I used to think this was a bad thing, but I’ve come to believe this is a saving grace in the long run. These exchanges are basically casinos at this point, and keeping BSV cognitively separate from pure speculation coins makes the ecosystem stronger and more serious IMO.)
The other downside is it’s not easy to obtain!
Once you obtain it, it’s incredibly easy and fun to use on lots of really cool apps and wallets that work instantly and seamlessly with near-zero fees.
So here’s the easiest way to get it so you can buy my book
- Setup an account on Coinbase if you don’t have one yet
- Buy a few hundred bucks worth of USDC (it’s a token pegged to the US dollar)
- Go to RelayX.com and create a BSV wallet
Good. Now you have a wallet with USDC on Coinbase, and a wallet ready to recieve BSV on RelayX. Then you just need to swap the USDC for BSV.
- Go to coinshuffle.io
- Select USDC to BSV
- Enter the amount you’re swapping, click ‘exchange’
- Paste your RelayX wallet address where you’ll receive the BSV (in your RelayX app, click “receive” then “copy address”; on desktop click “add funds” then copy address)
- Paste your USDC address for refund in case swap goes bad (hit “receive” in Coinbase, and copy)
- Execute the swap
- Now buy the book on Canonic with a single swipe!
Though using BSV is instant and almost free, no other cryptocurrency is. So you’ll have to wait probably ~10 minutes for the swap to execute because Coinbase and USDC are slow, and Coinshuffle will take a fee.
BUT here’s the good news. You’ll now have a few hundred bucks of BSV in your RelayX wallet, which means you can instantly buy the book, AND you can use a whole bunch of other cool apps and games on BSV.
Thanks for being with me on my journey btw
If you’re reading this, I owe you a thanks. I’ve been blogging, podcasting, Tweeting, publishing books, building stuff and sharing crazy ideas for over a decade now, and all along the way I’ve had so many amazing people willing to read, listen, like, comment, and share great feedback and stories with me. I do these things selfishly, but of course I get a massive morale boost when I see evidence of a Remnant out there that appreciates and supports it!
UPDATE: Here’s an in-depth convo with the creator of Canonic about the philosophy behind this approach to publishing and the implications for the world of ideas.