Fair question!  I think this is going to be more of the 10-12 age range.  I think the book captures more about the excitement of how quick and easy Bitcoin is rather than explaining concepts about how it functions.  There is no mention of blockchains or elliptical curves.  I think it's the kind of thing where kids might want to learn more about "magical internet money" and continue to learn about it elsewhere.

It's also written in a way where if you don't really care about Bitcoin, you still get experience the young magician's excitement, disappointment, and ultimate triumph on his quest to become a great magician.

 

Thank you very much!  I'll make sure to reach out to you soon when Color Swarm launches our alpha site.  I think it's going to be pretty fun to work on these videos with individuals creating each frame.  I have a call later tonight with someone who wants to do the first video. 

Thanks for your feedback about the pre-sale.  As yours is the only opinion so far, there is unanimous consensus!

I think I will also have a formal announcement thread at some point once there are illustrations of some of the pages. That will be more exciting than just reading the text of the story.

I’ve just finished writing my “bitcoin children’s book” called The Astonishing Josh-O and His Magical Internet Money. I'm now moving on to the next phase of having it illustrated and making plans for release.  I'm looking for an illustrator as well as some general feedback to gauge interest.

THE STORY

The Astonishing Josh-O and His Magical Internet Money is a story about a young aspiring magician who has almost saved enough money to buy the magic wand of his dreams.  When his father suggests that Josh start taking his allowance in Bitcoin, Josh is thrilled to learn about a new, “magic” form of money… until he realizes that the magic shop doesn’t accept it.  In fact, it seems like almost no one does.  Josh must determine if he wants to keep getting his allowance in Bitcoin or buy his wand… or maybe there’s a way for him to do both (without just selling Bitcoin)?

WHO I’M LOOKING FOR

An imaginative illustrator, ideally someone from this community who shares a passion for Bitcoin. If you or someone you know is interested, I’d love to talk to you about it.  Please have some form of portfolio or prior work, but you do not need to have professional illustrator experience.  There are 38 pages to illustrate and compensation is negotiable.

GENERAL QUESTIONS FOR THIS COMMUNITY

Crowdfunding / Pre-sales - Would you be interested in crowdfunding or pre-purchasing a copy of the book? I’m going to make it regardless, but it would be great to get feedback to see if people would be supportive of crowdfunding or pre-sales.

Tokens - If I do a pre-sale, would people be interested in buying a token and redeeming it using the Tokenly system from Let’s Talk Bitcoin?

“Easter Eggs” - I intend to have surprises in most of the illustrations that may range from hidden QR codes that lead to a puzzle or hidden references to Bitcoin’s history.  Are there any ideas that jump out as being compelling “Easter eggs” in the illustrations?


WHO I AM

My name is CC and I created a company called Altanimus and have been working on a variety of creative projects that include comics, podcasts, illustrations, a collaborative coloring project, and recently a children’s book called How to Keep Your Helicopter (which can be purchased with Bitcoin on our site. Also available on Amazon). I’ve been obsessed with Bitcoin since 2011 and am exciting to start integrating cryptocurrency more and more into some of the projects I’m working on.

QUESTIONS

What questions do you have for me?  If anyone has suggestions or wants to become more active in this project, I’m open to suggestions!

I just signed up for Vaultoro too -- can't wait to start trading there with CAT!

Wow.  Those are really challenging! Well done to the person who solved it!

It's true that C.A.T. is not a coin, but it is the early adopters who use it and give feedback and promote the product that will allow for future releases of C.A.T. to be more successful.  Not trying to push you too hard in any direction, just offering my two cents for you to consider.

Thanks for all the great work you've done so far!

I hope that the early adopters of C.A.T. are able to get at least one of the new markets as an option for supporting the program in its early stage!

What is more memory intensive?  The amount of markets or the amount of orders?  I'm assuming the number of actively traded markets.

Makes sense.  Is there a possibility of a future release that may include loading environment settings?  Sometimes I restart C.A.T. because I'm unsure if it's running too slowly or if the Cryptsy servers are overloaded.

If I close C.A.T. and open it later, then "Load Markets PingPong Parameter," will C.A.T. be able to ingest my open orders on Crypsty?

I have about a thousand open orders on C.A.T. and I need to restart my computer.

Very excited to see this interface with other exchanges.  Which ones are you thinking about including?  Personally, I love it if bter.com and mcxnow.com were available.

I'm noticing that on some trades I'll enter a ping order and the strike price of that order will change.  I thought it would only change AFTER a pong when the algorithm tries to recalculate a ping order.

If I click "Never recalculate user ping orders" will that keep my original ping orders from changing? Or does that mean that after a pong, my original ping order goes back into the order book?

Could someone please send some testnet NXT to the following address:
4874805052937677329

Thank you very much!

Would love to contribute my 1.5 Mh/s to this pool!  Invite please!

Social Experiment: Bitcoin & Kiva

I just posted this idea for an experiment earlier today and wanted to share it here as well:
http://www.ccpearce.com/crypto/social-experiment-kiva-bitcoin

Would love feedback or any suggestions to improve the idea!

Text from that blog entry that I linked to is below:

---

Proposal: To fund individuals with $25 Kiva credits through the donations of Bitcoin - people giving to people so they can finance other people.

Goals: 1) To raise awareness of both Kiva.org and Bitcoin through a (hopefully exciting) social experiment, and 2) to serve as an example for why charitable and financial services may benefit from directly accepting cryptocurrency.

For those who are unfamiliar, Bitcoin is a digital cryptocurrency and payment network, and Kiva.org is a non-profit organization that works to alleviate poverty around the world through financing micro-loans. Both Bitcoin and Kiva have the potential to drastically reform economic disparity around the world through financially empowering individuals.

When you lend money to a group or individual on Kiva, you aren't donating, you're lending. You're empowering someone who has a business plan and needs the capital to get it started. It's a 0% loan, so you're not making a profit (no for-profit organization can compete in this space), and the small business pays it back without the burden of interest. As the loans are repaid, your Kiva balance increases and you can lend your money again. Rather than a one-time donation to a charity (and there's nothing wrong with that), you are creating a positive feedback loop of financial empowerment.


THE CHALLENGE


Despite the harmonious potential of the disruptive forces of Bitcoin and Kiva, there is currently no simple way to participate in Kiva's online lending directly with the use of cryptocurrency.

I have been in communications with a representative at Kiva regarding the acceptance of Bitcoin as a payment option. Currently Kiva uses PayPal as their payment processor and I have been informed that PayPal is not charging Kiva for payment processing. My first argument for merchants to accept Bitcoin is to reduce the fees of payment processors, but as this is not a factor, there is understandably less of a motivation to adopt.

My most recent suggestion to Kiva was to add a donation button to the Kiva website for people who wanted to simply make a gesture and support the overhead of their company. The representative told me she would discuss it with their team, which I truly hope she will do.

But what if we could show Kiva the enormous potential of something as simple as a Bitcoin donation button? And what if we started today?


THE INSPIRATION


As I am hugely enthusiastic about Kiva as an institution, I made a Facebook post earlier today saying that I would give $25 Kiva credit to the first 10 people who commented on it.  I was excited to share the power of Kiva with friends, but I found a different level of enthusiasm after reading two comments from people who were not looking to receive any Kiva credit. One person commented that she would match the donations and another couple offered to contribute $100 to keep it going.

That is very powerful. My little bit of excitement and effort is now worth more than twice as much as I had offered to share. In a few hours, $250 became $600... and that all goes to people who will now be able to engage in the this financial positive feedback loop.


THE EXPERIMENT


I want to take that enthusiasm and altruism even further by offering to serve as a bridge between 1) people who want to use Bitcoin for the purpose of funding micro-loans with Kiva, and 2) people who are interested in trying Kiva for the first time and experiencing how important that actually is.

Bitcoiners who want to give to Kiva, you can donate to the following address:
1B4yoJ7e4DpBryCjHEtNz6NAU5K6SV8zYo

People who want to receive their first $25 Kiva credit, just post a comment on this Facebook thread and I will add you to the list. If your email or facebook email (@facebook.com address) is public, I will send the credit to that address. Otherwise, you will need to either post the address that you would like to have receive the credit, or send me a message.

Commenters will be credited in the order in which they comment, provided there are Bitcoin donations to fund the next person(s) on the list. I will send the Kiva credits once a day through the end of February, and then will most likely change to a weekly schedule (depending on how the experiment goes).

All the bitcoin transactions to the address can be easily verified and I will keep a public google spreadsheet of all credits that are being donated. I will use the 24 hour bitcoin average price when converting BTC to USD and withdraw the amount converted at that time.  You can click this link to view the Google Spreadsheet for the public record of the social experiment.

550 NXT Sent.

TX ID: 18445750498774337336

Sent from: 18084506661333818708

Thank you!

I just PM'ed and would like to invest 10,000 NXT.

Cool idea with the distribution rate!

eSKJeuNjEt9cmAR9UCGp9Gn96gAT3BNE2T

Thank you!

Hey GCInc! I'm still waiting on a 1.42344180 BTC withdrawal to 1BH4X3mdGPDJrDgFALevkcYSP8kPjGL138.  I waited for the 10:00PM time frame, but since that has passed, just wanted to put it on your radar.  Thank you.

I received my BTC withdrawal, but my withdrawal is still "pending."  This prevents me from making another withdrawal request.  Could you please adjust this?