Reader Referendum: 2023 Writing Plan

I’m not the kind of person who sets annual goals at the beginning of the year. As far as writing is concerned, I always seem to hastily embrace the last-minute deadline for the weekly newsletter, hurriedly thinking of a topic and quickly getting to writing. I don’t like this state, as it lacks editing and professionalism, but I can’t change it for now.

Besides, even if I do have a so-called writing plan, I resist making it public to avoid losing flexibility. Although I am now announcing my 2023 writing plan, I hope everyone can treat it as an “adaptive pandemic policy” of the government. It could be changed suddenly at any time without consulting your opinion, and you might not even know it’s been changed. If it cannot be executed, it will be turned into a “dynamic goal”. If it still cannot be achieved, it will evolve into a “precise writing strategy”. If even that doesn’t work, the definition of “goal” will be revised. Anyway, I assure you that by the end of 2023, this writing plan will definitely be achieved.

To discuss the publication plan, let’s start with the introduction to this newsletter. Over the past year and a half, I have made several minor revisions to the introduction, and the latest version is as follows:

“Sociology of blockchain” newsletter, promoting freedom of publication, financial freedom, and democratic freedom through blockchain practices. Articles are published every Thursday, fully open to the public, aiming to popularize knowledge. If you believe in its value, don’t punish openness and encourage closure—please subscribe for a fee. All proceeds will be invested in the LikeCoin ecosystem to support creation and preserve journalism.

Published every Thursday, 52 weeks a year

The first minor adjustment is changing the publication day to Thursday, which I have “secretly” implemented recently, and I guess most readers haven’t noticed. If you actually knew, it means you take this report seriously, and I thank you for that. Although it is published on Thursdays, if possible, I will send it out on Wednesday evenings to avoid too much pressure on Thursdays.

Yes, pressure. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit that I feel pressure even for a small weekly newsletter. However, that is genuinely how I feel. Every time I have to write an article, I fear that I’ll “run out of ink”, with no insights to share and no content to write. Sometimes, I get “keyboard panic” where I completely lose touch and can’t seem to type out any sentences. Although I have managed to pull through for 82 weeks now, I still can’t relax.

You might say that if I really can’t write, why not take a week off? Yes, I believe readers would understand, or rather, I shouldn’t think myself as being so significant to others. Readers might not even notice if they receive one fewer report. However, how much readers care or understand is one thing, and my expectations for myself are another. Besides, I always feel – or rather, I know – that once I pause, the result isn’t feeling refreshed, but being unable to write again. I’m not Haruki Murakami, but I guess this is similar to the principle that marathon runners can slow down but must never stop.

So, thank you all for your indulgence, but I won’t allow myself to take a break from publishing. In 2023, there will be 52 issues, published every Thursday, be it sunny days or rainy days.

Proceeds used to support creation and preserve journalism

The second adjustment is about income and its use. Since the launch of Writing NFT last August, I have stopped promoting subscriptions and instead encouraged readers to collect articles, with the generated LikeCoin being the main source of income. Thanks to everyone’s support, the response has been quite good, enough to cover my daily “pineapple bun expenses”, although I have not actually converted any LikeCoin. As for subscriptions, although I seldom promote them, I still welcome everyone to subscribe, and I have indeed gained a few new subscribers in recent months, helping to supplement my income, for which I am deeply grateful.

Initially, the income from writing was entirely invested in the “Cheeboon Scholarship” under the name of my father. After quickly finishing the scholarships last year, I switched to a more sustainable approach, pledging all income to the “Civic Liker” validator to continuously support creation. However, a new problem soon emerged. After pledging over a million LikeCoin, my monthly budget for supporting creation was several tens of thousands of LikeCoin. With each clap giving out 1 LIKE, I had to clap a thousand times a day to spend the entire budget. This kind of steady, continuous feedback method took too much time for me, unless one day the community launches “Civic Liker+” or “Civic Liker++”, allowing me to give out 10 or 100 LIKEs with each clap.

Fortunately, with the launch of Writing NFT, I can directly collect articles from creators, providing more feedback while preserving journalism and creation in a similar way to newsletter clipping. Therefore, I made the use of income more flexible, changing it to “All proceeds will be invested in the LikeCoin ecosystem to support creation and preserve journalism”. In practice, I will allocate part of the income to editors and graphic designers (none yet, but I hope to have some in the future), pledge part to Civic Liker, and use the remainder to collect other creators’ works. If enough funds are accumulated, I may even consider supporting authors in publishing books.

If you have works that lack feedback, feel free to email me, and I will support you within the budget.

Practising publishing freedom, financial freedom, and democratic freedom with blockchain

The core positioning of the newsletter, “Practising publishing freedom, financial freedom, and democratic freedom with blockchain,” or what I call the “three blankets of democracy,” remains unchanged.

Not to sound pretentious, but I’m genuinely not that interested in money. Therefore, with the publication of “Moneyverse: How money works in the multiverse” I will consider the financial freedom blanket as mostly covered, and the focus will shift to publishing freedom and democratic freedom, especially the former.

Don’t overlook the word “practising”; it may be low-key, but it is actually the focus. Nowadays, blockchain articles are no longer as scarce as they used to be, and Blocktrend by Astro Hsu has maintained high quality for years. In this context, trying to do the same thing is meaningless and can’t compare to others.

The unique positioning of “Sociology of Blockchain” lies in its focus not on how technology develops or how high or low cryptocurrency prices rise or fall, but on how blockchain influences society. More importantly, we do not observe passively and abstractly how society changes with the emergence of blockchain; instead, we proactively engage and find ways to intervene in society with new technologies, practising the “three blankets of democracy”.

This newsletter is written in this context, sometimes brainstorming ideas, discussing implementation methods, or documenting the process. As a result, the subject matter of the newsletter will have a strong bias and does not aim for comprehensiveness. For example, the biggest industry event in the past six months has undoubtedly been Ethereum 2.0, which I personally pay close attention to, but have never written about. Instead, I have discussed in details the issuance of new books with NFTs, from the conceptual stage to the implementation, and finally summarized into an experimental report and usage method.

Referendum on newsletter content

Having said that, you don’t have to worry about being bombarded with these stiff topics every week, for a simple reason: I am running out of ideas.

Although writing may seem like a process of turning a blank page into an article, in reality, it’s a process of input, digestion, and output. I have almost organized and output all the knowledge I’ve digested and actions I’ve realized in recent times, and lately, I feel empty inside. This is probably the fundamental reason why I always feel insecure when it comes to writing. I strongly feel that before writing more, I need to take time to read and get hands-on.

Therefore, while I will insist on publishing weekly, I must ask for your understanding in reducing the output of in-depth articles (and you don’t have the right to refuse :).

Instead, I have thought of several alternatives. Taking this opportunity, the newsletter will conduct its first referendum to collect your opinions:

  1. Interviews and summaries: regular sharing and interviews i do, organized into text drafts or other formats.
  2. Blockchain workshops: tutorials on various topics such as setting up wallets, issuing NFTs, and voting on proposals.
  3. Reading group: break down and re-embed the content already published in books for further discussion.
  4. Technology and entrepreneurship sharing: views and sharing not directly related to blockchain.
  5. chungkin Express: personal thoughts and unrelated anecdotes in a diary format.

Although I may not necessarily follow everyone’s opinions, I encourage you to participate and raise the voting rate. More importantly, you must not incite other readers to cast blank votes, otherwise, you will be accused of violating the newsletter security law I just established (Disclaimer: if the above sounds familiar, it’s purely a coincidence.)


《區塊鏈社會學》週報,金錢、媒體與民主的再想像,實踐出版自由、財務自由和民主自由。文章逢週四刊出,直接送到訂戶郵箱。



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