Book.io and the Algorand Foundation are collaborating to bring e-book NFTs of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to the Algorand blockchain. 10,000 e-books, each with 500 AI-designed covers of varying rarity, are being distributed at the Consensus 2023 conference, which is described as “the world’s largest, longest-running, and most influential gathering that brings together all sides of the cryptocurrency, blockchain, and Web3 community.”
The NFTs can be read on Book.io’s web reader or mobile app and can be gifted, sold, or traded.
Book.io co-founder Ben Illian says that Algorand was chosen for its scalability, minimal transaction fees, decentralized platform, and near-zero carbon footprint. “Algorand is a partner who shares our ethos,” said Illian. “At Book.io we believe that books should be unchangeable, immutable, and live forever across borders—we want the whole world to be able to own their digital assets and digital books, making it impossible for central authorities to ban or censor books at their discretion.”
Book.io has been growing steadily since its founding in 2022. It now has 70 titles available, which have collectively sold some 120,000 NFT digital copies. Most of the books are public domain titles like Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. An April release, The Taternomicon, an anthology of stories from a eight of Book.io’s living authors, is described as “a perfect mashup of horror, fantasy, and nonsense.”
The company's investors include Bertelsmann and Ingram. A new investor is Radical Investments, owned by billionaire celebrity investor Mark Cuban.
