Blockchain
Audiobook Launch – The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains
Happy news! (and some insights into the mechanics of authoring and publishing a little further down the page) I’ve just been told that the audiobook version of my book “The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains” is now available for preorder on Audible. It’s a great use of your Audible credits! If you’re not already on … Continue reading Audiobook Launch – The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains
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Happy news! (and some insights into the mechanics of authoring and publishing a little further down the page)
I’ve just been told that the audiobook version of my book “The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains” is now available for preorder on Audible. It’s a great use of your Audible credits! If you’re not already on Audible, you get your first listen for free when you sign up. Click it!
This means you can upskill on bitcoin, blockchains, payments, and money when you’re out and about (ha)… Or more likely, when you’re inside, trying not to go insane, and wishing you could be out and about. What a great use of lockdown time!
The e-book is also available in Singapore public libraries so you can get it for free if you use the Libby or OverDrive apps. If you can help with getting it in other countries’ libraries, I’d love to know how this works.
Some insights into authoring
I’ve found the authoring process fascinating. Often people ask, how does it work? How did I get this turned into an audiobook? What was the effort required? How did you get it into the bookshops?
My contract is with my publisher, Mango. This is the one single legal relationship in this whole project. Mango and I signed a deal, I gave them a Word doc, and once a quarter they email me a 1 page pdf sales statement, and pay me royalties – a profit share based on the number of books that they tell me have been sold.
Mango pay a printer to print physical books, they manage physical warehousing and storage, and they deal directly with some online bookstores such as Amazon for e-books. If you’ve seen the book in physical bookstores such as Relay in airports (😍), Kinokuniya on the high street, or the INSEAD campus bookshop, it’s because Mango has a relationship with a large global distributor called Ingram who has relationships with the retail outlets, often via a series of local wholesalers or distributors. Mango, a team of about 20 people, doesn’t have enough staff to maintain bilateral relationships with all the retail outlets.
And the audiobook? I had nothing to do with that. Mango made a business decision to pay for the book to be narrated, and they used Podium Audio to do it.
Podium found the right narrator and paid them to read it out to their satisfaction. In this case, they used Sean Pratt, a highly accomplished fiction & nonfiction narrator. I don’t know if Sean gets a flat fee or is incentivised by royalties. I don’t know the economics between Mango and Podium. I have very little insight into the economics and relationships other than that between me and Mango.
This is the same for book translations. In my agreement with Mango, Mango have global rights to distribute the book (though the book remains my intellectual property). If someone wants to translate the book into a different language, they have to make an offer to Mango to do that, and buy distribution rights from Mango for that particular country. This would typically be done by a local publishing house (ie a Mango in a different country), who would need to pay a translator to translate the book.
Needless to say, with this many people in the chain, I don’t make a lot of money from the book. But it has been a fun learning experience! Anyway, you get to listen to it via Audible or read it for free from the libraries, so please enjoy. And if you’ve read it already, please spread the word! 😍
Source: https://bitsonblocks.net/2020/04/19/audiobook-launch-the-basics-of-bitcoins-and-blockchains/
Blockchain
Prepare For Liftoff: Bitcoin Loses Bear Market Trendline Against Altcoins

Aside from a few rare outliers, over the last several years, owning Bitcoin has been the better investment compared to other cryptocurrencies. Altcoins like Ethereum and others have only recently caught up, and BTC dominance has maintained the lion’s share of the crypto market cap.
However, dominance has lost an important trendline dating back four full years to the peak of the last bull market, and it could suggest a major turnaround is about to occur across the crypto market. Could this be the » Read more
” href=”https://www.newsbtc.com/dictionary/altcoin/” data-wpel-link=”internal”>altcoin season crypto investors have been waiting for?
Bitcoin Dominance Loses Crucial » Read more
” href=”https://www.newsbtc.com/dictionary/bear/” data-wpel-link=”internal”>Bear Market Trendline
At peak Bitcoin fever in 2017, interest turned to altcoins that were much cheaper per » Read more
” href=”https://www.newsbtc.com/dictionary/coin/” data-wpel-link=”internal”>coin by comparison as investors searched for the next BTC.
Related Reading | Five Signs That Say Altcoin Season Hasn’t Even Started Yet
Those investors ended up learning the hard way that there is no replacement for Bitcoin. Altcoins plunged by as much as 99% in most instances, while Bitcoin wiped out only 84% of its gains by comparison. Both scenarios are now far in the rear view, and since then Bitcoin has a commanding lead.
BTC dominance has lost an important monthly trendline dating back to the top of the last bull market | CRYPTOCAP-BTC.D on TradingView.com
At the height of that fever, dominance reached as low as 35%, but has since remained around or above 63%. That key level was lost at the same time a pivotal trendline was, and now there could be no over-performance in Bitcoin for the next year or more.
The trendline in question dates back four years to the bull market peak, and has kept dominance supported ever since.
Altcoins Are Ready To Explode If Dominance Dives Further
Bitcoin dominance holds the key to unlocking the true potential of any » Read more
” href=”https://www.newsbtc.com/dictionary/altcoin/” data-wpel-link=”internal”>altcoin season, which thus far the leading cryptocurrency by market cap has kept locked away for many years now.
A zoomed in view shows how many times BTC dominance tried to reclaim the line | CRYPTOCAP-BTC.D on TradingView.com
Losing the previous long term trendline resulted in some short term consolidation followed by a large move lower. A bearish retest of 70% BTC dominance failed, sending the important crypto market metric falling back lower to the second ascending trendline.
Related Reading | Altcoin Season Is Here: “Buy Crypto” Surpases Bitcoin Searches On Google
With the 63% level now lost also, BTC dominance should gravitate toward the mid-50% range, allowing altcoins to soar compared to Bitcoin for an extended period of time.
Altcoins could also theoretically hold up better in a wider correction, but that scenario is unlikely as the riskier assets typically are more volatile and react more sensitively to greater crypto market selloffs.
Featured image from Deposit Photos, Charts from TradingView.com
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Source: https://www.newsbtc.com/analysis/btc/bitcoin-dominance-trendline-altcoins/
Blockchain
John McAfee faces more charges connected to money laundering and wire fraud


According to the United States Department of Justice, Manhattan Federal Court today charged John McAfee and his team’s executive adviser Jimmy Gale Watson Jr for fraud and money laundering conspiracy crimes.
McAfee has been charged with securities fraud, touting, and wire fraud among other offenses stemming from the fraudulent promotion of crypto that federal law recognized as securities.
On 6 October last year, United States watchdog, Securities Exchange Commissions (SEC) charged the founder of the McAfee antivirus software firm for allegedly making over $23 million in the process of shilling seven initial coin offerings. Jimmy Gale Watson Jr. was also charged for violating Securities’ law in real-time on Twitter for shilling the ICOs along with McAfee.
The ICOs reportedly raised $41 million in the process with half of those proceeds pocketed by McAfee.
Manhattan US Attorney Audrey Strauss alleged that the duo exploited social media and “enthusiasm” among investors in the “emerging crypto market” to make millions through “lies and deception.” She further claimed:
…[McAfee and Watson] allegedly used McAfee’s Twitter account to publish messages to hundreds of thousands of his Twitter followers touting various cryptocurrencies through false and misleading statements to conceal their true, self-interested motives.
The investors of these ICOs allegedly concealed the fact that they were compensating McAfee and his team for their promotional tweets through funds raised from public ICO investors.
While McAfee is currently detained in Spain on separate criminal charges filed by the DoJ’s Tax Division. Watson was arrested on 4 March in Texas and will be presented before a federal magistrate judge in the Northern District of Texas, today.
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Source: https://ambcrypto.com/john-mcafee-faces-more-charges-connected-to-money-laundering-and-wire-fraud
Blockchain
PAID Network exploiter nets $3 million in infinite mint attack


Paid Network, a DeFi platform aimed at real-world businesses, has been exploited today in an “infinite mint” attack that has sent PAID token prices plunging upwards of 85%.
While the exploit netted nearly $180 million in PAID tokens at the time of the attack — what would have comfortably been the largest exploit of a DeFi protocol — the hacker’s payday will end up being far less. One observer noted that the attacker’s wallet only converted some of their tokens to wrapped ether, leaving the rest in rapidly-devaluing PAID tokens:
Summary of $PAID incident:
Total PAID swapped to WETH: 2079.603371141493
= $3,104,887.33Total PAID left in account: 594,717,455.71
= $24,313,147Total amount in attacker account = $27,418,034.33
Stay Safe. pic.twitter.com/Lz93qGKAq0
— vasa (@vasa_develop) March 5, 2021
The attacker’s wallet still has over 57 million PAID tokens worth $37 million.
The exploit is conceptually similar to an attack on insurance protocol Cover that took place in late December last year. In that instance, the team took a “snapshot” of holders prior to the attack and issued a new token, returning the supply of the token to pre-exploit levels.
The team confirmed on Twitter that they are currently planning for a snapshot and restoration:
We are investigating the issue. We pulled liquidity, are creating a new smart contract, & will be restoring everyone’s original balances to before the hack.
Those with staked, Lpool & UniFarm $PAID will have their tokens be sent to them manually.
We will share more updates soon
— PAID NETWORK (@paid_network) March 5, 2021
However, token holders anxious for a resolution may be out of luck. Some in the community are speculating that the attack on PAID wasn’t an exploit at all, but instead a “rugpull” — a colloquial term for an insider designing contracts to specifically make them exploitable and swiping user funds.
Nick Chong of Parafi Capital noted on Twitter that Paid’s deployer contract, an externally controlled account, transferred ownership of the deployer to the attacker shortly before the mint, indicating that a member of the team either rugpulled, or errantly allowed the attack to take place with a security lapse:
Paid Network’s deployer, an EOA, transferred ownership of a contract to the attacker 30 mins before the minthttps://t.co/h14GdV4fCf
— Nick Chong (@n2ckchong) March 5, 2021
Additionally, a DeFi risk analysis account @WARONRUGS warned of exactly this exploit in late January, noting that the contract owner can mint PAID tokens at any time:
❌ Scam Advisory #86- PAID Network $PAID (0x8c8687fC965593DFb2F0b4EAeFD55E9D8df348df)
Reason: The owner can mint tokens and did mint tokens to fresh wallets who never bought the presale. Contract is behind a proxy.
Likeliness of losing all funds: Very High
DYOR. #WARONRUGS❌ pic.twitter.com/YQunjpWuxY
— #WARONRUGS❌ (@WARONRUGS) January 25, 2021
An on-chain note sent to the attacker has ominously warned that “the LAPD will be in contact with Kyle Chasse very shortly.” Kyle Chasse is the CEO of Paid Network.
Paid Network did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
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Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/paid-network-exploiter-nets-3-million-in-infinite-mint-attack