book ico on Publica

BOOK ICO completed successfully!

$0.10 RAISED from contributors

Book ICO title

Will Bitcoin Become Evil?

Author

Hobo Media Publishing

Why buy Hobo Media books? 

   Hobo Media aims to revolutionize the way authors and readers think about books. We love reading books and benefiting from the growth we achieve from the knowledge in the pages. However, the Hobo Media team believes that marketing on books have never been done quite right. We plan on solving that problem and helping authors grow while readers enjoy a vibrant second-hand market. 

   The Hobo Media team believes that readers should profit, in fact, we think that you as the reader should make most of the profit! You, the reader, have always been the book author’s best means of getting word out about their book. We think that it only makes sense that you are rewarded for spreading the word. That’s why we don’t want you to buy a book from us, no no no…, we want you to buy 1000 books! Sounds like a lot? True, it sounds like a lot of books, but there’s no reason a book needs to be sold for $9.99 when it can easily be sold for $0.10!

   We want to empower our readers to buy in bulk and profit on the secondary market built on Publica. Sure, we’re not going to sell every book for $0.10, that’s only for the initial book offering, but when we sell the rest of our books, we really don’t mind if you sell your copies at lower prices than us. Sweet deal!

About the author

What is Hobo Media?

Hobo Media is a decentralized journalism and publishing network made up of global journalists, bloggers, educators and other content producers. We promote authors and assist them in full-service token management on various blockchain platforms. 

Book ICO Progress

$0.10 RAISED from contributors

ICO structure

Book Token A BOOK token is an indivisible token that represents access to a unique piece of digital content. A token is therefore a unique access key. Each book that is published or crowdfunded on Publica is assigned its own, unique BOOK token.
Symbol BOOK_HWBBE
Total Supply 2100000 Tokens
Initial Rate $0.10 per one BOOK_HWBBE Token
Rate After ICO $2.99 per one BOOK_HWBBE Token
if only softcap is reached Prices will go from only $0.10 to $2.99!

About Book

Genre: Journalism
Language: English
Planned publishing date: 30.06.2019

   Bitcoin is becoming a household name, but one entangled with confusion and discomfort. This once cute play money was all fun and games, until it made billionaires. The economic climate has changed and the financial institutions and governments that would not bother discussing cryptocurrencies in the past are suddenly finding themselves in unchartered territory. Now forced to decide either to defend the traditional monetary systems vehemently and risk being left behind, or dip their toes in new waters, the traditional system must choose how to respond.

   So many discussions of coins focus on other coins dying, their own coins going to the moon or a particular coin affording the coin holder the ability to buy a lamborgini, a question few are asking themselves is, Will this change actually be good for the world? This is an important conversation the world needs to have while it is being reshaped. Cryptocurrencies are here to stay, but while this new economy is still in its infancy and as malleable as soft clay, we need to stop and ask ourselves, Will Bitcoin become evil?

What if we had really good cash?

   We like to store lots of things because none of us only need one thing to survive. We store gold for bad economies, we stash away a survival pack of chocolate and bottled water for hurricanes, we collect ethers for the super cool future, we accumulate canned foods for the apocalypse and, of course, treasures in Heaven for when all that fails. Storing all the potential necessities you could ever find yourself needing is difficult and burdensome, and so we have cash. Ideally, cash is suppose to replace our need to store a bunch of things. We should be able to buy all necessary goods and services with cash, this way we don’t have to store all that other stuff. However, this strategy fails under a few extreme circumstances, so we really need to prepare for such drastic environments.

   The problem with cash is not just about the zombie apocalypse scenario, there is another major issue and its not hypothetical, that issue is inflation. Inflation drives the need for a store of value, without inflation cash would be that universal store of value, and it would only fail during that zombie apocalypse. Investing in stocks, paintings, real estate and classic cars is not just about profit, one could argue that its even more about financial loss prevention. People like making money, but they hate losing money a great deal more. The poor and middle class person feel inflation only a little, in fact, if they are in debt they might even benefit from the decrease in difficulty to pay their debt off thanks to inflation making the agreed amount of debt obligation less significant. However, inflation can keep the wealthy up at night, knowing that their store of value shrinks by the day as the presses print. This is the true value of investments, the ability to passively keep making money and thus contend with the inflation rate.

   Our government-backed currencies are not suitable for being a store of value because of manipulative inflation. Despite the fact that governments receive taxes for funding operations, they often want even more money than they are getting from the population, so they inflate the currency. This renders the sum of cash you have stashed in your wallet, bank or hidden under the bed less valuable than it was previously back when you earned it. Inflation in this way reduces the accumulated value of your life’s labor and undermines your efforts to obtain wealth and preserve security during your old age. Who is fine with that? Even if you believe strongly in having social programs, anyone that has worked hard for a net worth of $1 million would grow angry to realize that its only worth around $3,700, yet that is essentially what happened in Venezuela. The national debt obligations faced by many countries hints at this very event arising where you would assume it could not.

   The argument being made by many in the Bitcoin (BTC) community is that a blockchain-based cryptocurrency suits better as a store of value than as a digital cash. However, do we really need a store of value if we had truly good cash? Currently, money is nothing more than an illusion perpetuated by everyone. We pass around printed paper like it has a value, but the reality is that it is backed by nothing at all. In fact, we even know that its an item that is being duplicated rapidly everyday, simply because the governments are not satisfied with the budget they get from taxes. It doesn’t end there, our fiat currencies went off the gold standard, but now they are even going off the paper standard. There are far more US dollars as digits on a computer than there are paper dollar bills to back the computer digits. We imagine banks are these places full of money, but the reality is that its just a place with computers that claim they have a lot of money, and have at least 10% of the cash they claim to have. And when we want to spend some of this imaginary cash, we promise years of labor to these banks so that they will transfer digits representing pretend value from one account to another so that we can continue the mutual delusion with some other people. Meanwhile we promise to owe the bank many hours of our life for all this pretend value. I’m sure it is apparent to you how much we need a much better cash.

   This is the point of cryptocurrencies, its a better cash. Or, is it? There’s a problem, some don’t think cryptocurrencies make very good cash. This is what the war between Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is about, at least partially. Many in the BTC community have given up on the idea of global cash on the blockchain because of what must be sacrificed in order to do it. The blockchain has to scale to perform many transactions per second, but in order to do that it makes verification of those transactions cost-prohibitive for most people. In the eyes of many in the BTC community, this results in potential loss of decentralization for the blockchain, which would defeat the purpose of having a cryptocurrency on a blockchain. This is a valid concern, and it is because of this concern that the BTC community has left the idea of being world money and pushes the store of value proposition.

   Bitcoin BCH makes a different case for their position and it too is not without its merit. The Bitcoin Cash side of the argument is that the true and only value that the cryptocurrency serves is as money for the whole world, and this can only be achieved with high transactions per second rates and low transaction fees. In order to obtain this, they have to employ a big block strategy. The reason the BCH community views their blockchain as the true Bitcoin is because the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, fully intended Bitcoin to scale with global adoption by raising the block size. But would this destroy decentralization of the blockchain and thus defeat the point? Not necessarily, while a big block strategy causes the cost of verifying the blockchain by running a full node more and more expensive, it does not absolutely mean that the blockchain has become compromised. A blockchain does not necessarily need to have everyone run a full node, but enough people, companies or organizations globally need to run a full node in order for the average user to trust that their transaction effectively went through. In the scenario where Bitcoin Cash becomes the universal circulating currency, you would likely see many companies popping up offering full node services, which would allow you to pay a small service fee to receive verification reports about the blockchain. If enough businesses provide this service, it would be reasonable for the average user to trust that the blockchain is sufficiently decentralized.

   So, what should we think on this subject? First, we need to break down exactly why Bitcoin is valuable. If it is a good store of value, what makes it a good store of value? In order to figure out if it is a good store of value we need to compare it against the historical king of store of value: Gold. Gold is a very good store of value, this we know. But how do we know this? Gold is good as a store of value because it can be minted into fungible pieces of similar dimension and weight as other gold and traded among people. But it is also a good store of value because it does not perish and there are many uses for it. Bitcoin, on the other hand, is useless. You can’t make anything with a bitcoin in the real world, its not particularly pretty, it is ridiculously easy to lose and people have experienced that loss.

   Then what is the value add of Bitcoin? We know its valuable, because if it wasn’t nobody would be talking about it and writing books about it and bankers would not be running scared. So where’s the beef? Bitcoin is not good at doing what what gold does, its good at doing something gold does very poorly. Before I tell you what that is I want you to take a moment and ask yourself, Why does anyone value the US dollar? It might seem complex but its actually really simple. The US dollar is not heavy, its lightweight and easily folded into small spaces like a wallet. Paper cash serves a purpose of being more conveniently transported and traded around than heavy, clunky, hard to divide gold. But paper money was still not perfect, distance could prove to be a problem. That’s where bank accounts and credit cards came in and worked great. Its in this domain that cryptocurrencies can flourish.

   Bitcoin does four things, and it does those four things very well. The first is teleportation, seriously, bitcoins can go from China to Venezuela in minutes. On the Steem platform it only takes 3 seconds for any amount of its native coin to travel across the world. The second is verification, by running a full node you can verify that the transaction happened, because its an unforgetting database and you own a copy of the entire database in real-time. The third is hack-proofing, blockchains are digital fortresses, although banks give us this sense of being safe and capable of protecting our money, they are actually quite bad at it. Hackers take off with money all the time, banks don’t even spend all that much on preventing it, but blockchain on the other hand makes this quite a bit harder for hackers. A blockchain is anti-fragile, and if someone finds a weakness, it won’t have that weakness in the future. The biggest security risk is you, so don’t be lazy and messy about your passwords. The fourth is personal sovereignty, you don’t have to trust someone, you don’t need permission to move your money or transfer it from one place to another. It belongs to you, and as long as you don’t let your child color all over your printed out password (some people have…) you should be good to go. This fourth part is a huge value add for a store of value, because countries go crazy and sometimes you need to leave. Gold is harder to take with you and hide than a paper password hidden in your gym shorts or a cleverly planned out tattoo in a private place.

   Bitcoin is not actually good gold, its very different from gold and its strengths are the exact opposite of gold. Gold is as real as a thing can get, but due to its realness, its also a real pain to relocate or trade. So people create paper notes for it, but this in many ways defeats the whole point of gold. Bitcoin is not a note or an IOU, its the item exactly, and once transferred that’s that. Its strengths are the same strengths as the US dollar, which is convenience for international trading. The US dollar right now is the most reliable and effective currency for global exchange, and cryptocurrency is ultimately out to take its job and do it better.

What is a Book ICO?


Book ICO is the next generation way to kick-start books — authors publish their way.

ICO’s took 2017 by storm. Publica Book ICO’s are the next generation crowdfunder-plus-presale for ebooks where authors are free to publish their way.

Authors — You set your own prices for during and after your Book ICO. When your book is a recognized token on a blockchain you’re selling book tokens directly to your followers who support you and look forward to the promised release.

Presale funds can improve the quality of independently published books. Or publicize great books that might never find their true audience without it.Your book tokens work anywhere in the world on any iOS or Android device.

Readers — When you buy a book token, that’s your private access key to read the book in your Publica reader app available now for iOS and Android phones and tablets. Many Chromebooks too.

You can also send book tokens to other people, unlike any conventional ebook. So buy as many book tokens as you want!

You can also sell recognized book tokens on a secondary token exchange so depending on the total circulation of a book’s tokens, tokens in your wallet may grow in value if the book becomes collectable.

What are you waiting for? Oh, the countdown clock...

FAQ

  • How to participate in a Book ICO?

    To participate in a Book ICO you'll need to create a wallet and buy PBL, which is the currency used on Publica’s platform, as well as ETH tokens to pay the transaction fee.

    When the Book ICO campaign is running and you have your PBL tokens, click the "Buy BOOK token" button and follow this tutorial.

    You will receive a BOOK token (or several tokens) that are your access keys to the book's contents and you'll be able to read the book on your Android or iOs device, and send the book to your friends, or even sell a book on a secondary market.

  • Where can I create a wallet?

    You can create your own wallet in the Publica app (follow these instructions). Or you can use any other ERC20 compatible wallet (we recommend MyEtherWallet). Or you can import an existing cryptocurrency wallet.

  • Where can I buy PBL tokens?

    To participate in a Book ICO you will need to buy PBL tokens (we also refer to them as Pebbles). You can buy Pebbles on several cryptocurrency exchanges such as Kucoin, Cryptopia and IDEX exchanges. See detailed instructions on how to buy PBL tokens.

  • Where can I read a book?

    Simply install Publica’s e-reader app on any Android or iOS device. Publica's e-reader app is also a cryptocurrency wallet and your Publica e-library.

    Watch this tutorial on how to install the app and read a book.

    You can download and install the e-reader app for your Android or iOs device.

  • What is a BOOK token?

    A BOOK token is an Ethereum ERC20 token that represents access to a specific book. A BOOK token is therefore a unique access key. You can buy several BOOK tokens (book copies) and give away or sell your books whenever you wish.

  • Why do I need PBL tokens?

    PBL tokens are the Publica platform's internal currency. Readers use PBL tokens to participate in Book ICOs on the Publica platform, or to purchase any book listed in the Publica store.

    Authors receive their revenue in PBL tokens so they have full control over their finances.

  • Why do you need cryptocurrencies and blockchain?

    By using cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology we can now introduce immediate and direct transactions between authors and readers, bring trust and transparency into the ecosystem as well as give authors tools to set up their own business models by using smart-contracts. This allows authors to sell directly to their readers at an unprecedented and scalable level.

    With no middleman, authors are in full control of their author business. Blockchain empowers authors by placing them at the heart of the financial model.