Ulbricht had been doing all his Silk Road work from his main daily laptop. One afternoon in September 2013, he was sitting in a library, using their wifi to administer the site, and talking to a friend in the site’s online chat. Two apparently-homeless people started arguing loudly behind him; he turned to look, and the slight young woman using the desk opposite snatched his laptop. She was a government agent. So were the homeless people. So was the friend he was chatting to.
From libertarian economics to the Bitcoin maelstrom of get-rich-quick dreams, right-wing anarchists, magical thinking, blatant con-men and the madness of crowds – and the story repeating in 2017 with the Ethereum and ICO bubble. And the push to sell these ideas to business as Blockchain and Smart Contracts. Plus: a case study on Blockchain in the music industry.
Remember: if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is.
A forthcoming short book (40,000 words or so) on Bitcoin, blockchains and smart contracts, what these ideas are, why they don’t work in practice, and the sort of people attracted to them.
Current status: Final polishing, waiting on final artwork. Released Monday 24 July 2017.
To keep updated on progress, email me to go on the alerts mailing list at dgerard@gmail.com.
I also blog about the book from time to time on my Tumblr: reverse order or chronological order.
David Gerard is a Unix system administrator by day. His job includes keeping track of exciting new technologies and advising against the bad ones. He was previously an award-winning music journalist, and has blogged about music at Rocknerd since 2001. He is a volunteer spokesman for Wikipedia, and is on the board of the RationalMedia Foundation, host of skeptical wiki RationalWiki. His website is davidgerard.co.uk. He lives in east London with his spouse Arkady and their daughter. Until he reinstalled the laptop they were on, he was the proud owner of six Dogecoins.
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