If it’s not obvious by now, I’m obsessed with emerging technologies and scientific discoveries: trash-eating bacteria, hyper-realistic virtual reality, the human brain, addiction science, artificial intelligence, big data — the list goes on. I’m fascinated by how all these new elements intersect to create a future that’s at once more compelling and more alienating than anything we know today. It’s scary to think about, but I guess I’m an optimist. I believe humanity will evolve to deal with it.

I also love games. Matching wits with a clever opponent? Nothing better. Chess, murder mysteries (I’ll write one someday), crosswords, number puzzles, even standardized tests. My daughter’s prepping for one right now; I’m helping her while trying to get a perfect score on the practice tests. At this point, I can report that it’s harder than you think to get an 800 on the SAT.

The College Board (they make the standardized tests) is a very clever opponent!

Crafty puzzles and games that have messy outcome trees are my favorite. I’ve written before about my love of poker, which I view as the ultimate matchup of brains, strategy, wits and heart. So, it should come as no surprise that my next book is about a world-changing technology with an undoubtedly complex, imperfect and ever-changing outcome that came into existence as a result of an utterly confounding puzzle.

Clue in the title!!!

It’s about Bitcoin.

It’s too early to reveal much, but I’ll say this: I’m obsessed with Satoshi Nakamoto and the early days of Bitcoin. Utterly obsessed with discovering who he, she or they really were.

For the uninitiated: Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym of Bitcoin’s founder — author of the now-legendary white paper that defined the concept of cryptocurrency, the architect who built the network, immortalized it in code, handed it over to others, and then vanished, leaving billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin untouched. As time passes and the final messages from Satoshi fade into history, it becomes increasingly unlikely that we will ever know who they were, why they disappeared, or if they’re even alive. Of course there are many theories, but most fall into one of two camps:

1. Embarrassingly implausible. (See: Dorian Nakamoto, Peter Todd, Craig Wright.)
2. Totally unevidenced. (See: the long list of brilliant cypherpunks, cryptographers, and digital-cash visionaries accused of being Satoshi.)

The real issue with the commonly cited list of candidates? None had a compelling reason to hide behind a pseudonym in Bitcoin’s obscure early days — before the fame, before the fortune, before anyone cared.

Unless the did. 

And that’s where I come in — fictionally speaking, of course.

Since it killed me not to know, I made up my own story! Yup, that’s how it works when one is a writer (You should try it sometime. Loads of fun).

More to come soon about the new book. In the meantime, drop your Satoshi theories in the comments or email me. There’s a very good chance I already have opinions — strong ones — on every single one of them.