I’ve started a Patreon page, so you can further my journalistic work here on an ongoing basis. Here’s the front page pitch:
I’m David Gerard, author of the book and news blog Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain, a critical look at the entire Bitcoin and blockchain phenomenon. I also write the music blog Rocknerd.
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations.”
The cryptocurrency and blockchain space is full of hype, unrealised schemes and straight-up scammers. Everyone has a holding they want to see go to the moon, and will say anything and its opposite to make that happen. Even the specialist crypto press is too often boosterism and selling dreams.
There’s nearly no critical analysis or even basic kicking-the-tyres journalism. My work here endeavours to fill the gap.
Getting quality work out on a timely basis takes effort and resources. Your subscription enables me to continue to write and research on a sustainable ongoing basis. No content will be paywalled, and all finished work is available on the news blog.
Subscriber-level patrons also have access to Patreon-only previews and heads-up of stories I’m working on, with the opportunity to suggest angles to look into.
Sadly, Patreon only as yet accepts conventional currencies, via card or PayPal 😉
I’m also working on my next book, likely to be on other technology-flavoured scams and the weird subcultures that form around them. Patrons get access to early work on this as well.
I try to post a substantial piece at least every few days. Typical research and writing time is on the order of four to six hours; the Björk piece took three evenings. I think the results are worth doing and inform the world.
The news blog helps market the book, but if it can better support itself more directly then I can commit more time and effort to it. If my work here would inspire you to, say, buy me a drink once a month, $5 is about equivalent to that!
I expect to branch out to other writing in due course — I need to get stuff done on that next book, which will be a bit like Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain only not about Bitcoin — but this is my main project for the medium future.
(And music blogging at Rocknerd, of course, but that’s more of a lifelong compulsion.)
Patrons of $5/month or higher get access to previews of things I’m working on, and $20/month or higher get nice Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain buttons once a month, lovingly hand-made right here by me! I’d be delighted to hear patrons’ ideas on wording, other suitable rewards, and things you’d like to see.
If you look at the Patreon page now, you’ll see a couple of locked patrons-only posts, one of which is a preview of a piece I hope to get posted tomorrow or Tuesday about the blockchain in health care.
I’m annoyed that podcasts or video are unlikely to be feasible any time in the foreseeable future — my house is tiny, cramped and noisy — though we’re seeing what we can put together.
Better equipment would be good — so far it’s a laptop and a phone with Skype. Good phone recorder, good general audio recorder, good audiovisual setup, good desktop for video editing … you can do a surprising amount with junkyard computing, but it has its limits. Buy things to review, upgrade my financial press subscriptions …
So subscribe to the site, and tell all your friends and colleagues!
(That journalism and public relations quote probably wasn’t actually George Orwell. Wikiquotes, the Wikipedia-associated quote encyclopedia, tried to track it down a few years ago and failed. How annoying.)
Your subscriptions keep this site going. Sign up today!