The Age of Cryptocurrency, the Trailer

Mike and I made a trailer for The Age of Cryptocurrency. Book trailers have gotten pretty elaborate over the past few years, and it's no surprise. While once upon a time it didn't make sense to make a trailer to sell a book, the rise of YouTube and social media have opened this up as a new way to market your book. It's not a must have yet - I haven't seen any trailers for Stephen King books - but it's quite nearly mainstream.

There are an awful lot of trailers out there now, and some of them are quite elaborate, clearly made by professional production companies. B.J. Novak has a slick one for his collection of short stories, "One More Thing." It helps, of course, to have friends like Mindy Kaling and probably everybody who knew from "The Office" to help you with your trailer.

Then there's this one for Gary Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story." Again, it doesn't hurt your trailer's chances if you can get James Franco to make a cameo as himself. Or Jay McInerney.

We didn't have access to Mindy Kaling. Or Jay McInerney. Or James Franco. Or Satoshi Nakamoto, for that matter. What we did have access to was Times Square. So Mike and I waited for one sunny afternoon and took our iPhone out into Times Square and asked people one simple question: "What is bitcoin?"

It's really the crux of the entire book, to answer the question, "what is bitcoin?" It's the question that got Mike and I interested in the first place. It's the reason we dug into the history of cryptocurrencies, and cypherpunks, and the history of money, and why we went to China, and Silicon Valley.

What is bitcoin?