Fresh out of university, Ethan Lou moves west to write for Reuters, landing in an oil boomtown founded by redcoats fighting illegal whiskey. But before that, he had another life in the cryptocurrency world, crossing paths with the likes of the late Gerald Cotten of QuadrigaCX and the Ethereum co-founder Anthony Di Iorio. When early Bitcoin investments pay off spectacularly, Ethan leaves his job to build a blockchain start-up, riding into a nearly-trillion-dollar frontier of open-bar pool parties, wealth-flaunting money giveaways, psychedelics, scams, scandal, and turmoil. Somehow, he ends up in North Korea, at the very conference at which the Ethereum computer scientist Virgil Griffith is accused by the FBI of breaking sanctions — and Ethan saw everything. He finds nothing lasts. Calamity comes in waves. Bitcoin plunges. Overhead, vultures circle, and in the tall grass, lawmen lurk. Ethan and his fellows seek fortune and new beginnings amid the harsh unpredictability of their new world.

Once a Bitcoin Miner is a richly told first-person narrative, containing exclusive revelations and delving deep behind the scenes of major events from this prominent, yet shadowy domain — accessible literary journalism painstakingly researched through official records, interviews, and confidential files and sources.

Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: ECW Press
Release Date: May 25, 2021
Subjects: Business Economics E Commerce see also Computers Electronic Biography Autobiography Editors Journalists Publishers

About the Author: Ethan Lou is an author and freelance journalist. His debut book, Field Notes from a Pandemic (McClelland & Stewart), a travelogue and COVID-19 deep dive, will be published later this year, followed by Once a Bitcoin Miner (ECW), a nonfiction odyssey about the cryptocurrency Wild West, in 2021. Ethan’s essays and features have appeared in The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, and The Washington Post, and he previously reported from such newsrooms as Reuters and The Toronto Star.