Author Dov Preminger has created Tontine Coin (TON), the world’s first cryptocurrency based on a novel, the just-released crypto-thriller Glyph.
Tontine Coin revives the perilous concept of a 17th-century financial instrument known as a tontine. Historically, tontines involved pooling funds where, upon a member’s death, their share was redistributed among the surviving members. Tontine Coin is a modern-day twist on the concept—a digital currency that leads to some entertaining and macabre results in the novel.
After publishing Glyph, the author made Tontine Coin a reality by creating the cryptocurrency on the blockchain. “The novel is a crypto-thriller, and so the idea of creating a cryptocurrency based on it—one which actually features in the book—felt authentic to me,” says Preminger. “It blends fiction and reality, which is what I try to do in the novel.”
Glyph catapults readers into the life of a young journalist in L.A. who receives a cryptic call from the mysterious Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, plunging him into a vortex of events that begin with cryptocurrency, but soon lead to hacking, surveillance, and cyberwarfare, in an explosive epic that threatens to swallow the world.
“I’m really excited to tell the story,” says Preminger. “It’s fresh, and unlike anything that’s been written before. It’s going to captivate you from the very first page, with a thriller’s pace, beautifully drawn characters, and a rich mix of drama, action, and humor. And if you follow me down the rabbit hole, I think you’ll find that the story is a lot bigger, and a lot deeper, than it first appears. It reflects a lot of things going on in the world right now, and you’re going to feel that resonance as you get into it.”
The actual Tontine Coin (TON) does not have the functionality of the coin in the book, and does not actually transfer on a holder’s death. Instead, it’s a simple ERC-20 coin hosted on the Arbitrum Layer 2 Ethereum network. It has a supply of 100 trillion coins, and can be bought on Uniswap. The Tontine Coin white paper is available www.tontinecoin.com.
