HackerNoon and Bitcoin are both chaining together their constant publications-for-profit.
While HackerNoon publishes articles every 10 minutes, Bitcoin publishes blocks.
I hereby compare and contrast them.
Note: No AI was exploited nor consulted in the making of this article.
Editor’s note: This story represents the views of the author of the story. The author is not affiliated with HackerNoon staff and wrote this story on their own. The HackerNoon editorial team has only verified the story for grammatical accuracy and does not condone/condemn any of the claims contained herein. #DYOR
HackerNoon
Welcome to HackerNoon Decoded: The Best of 2024 Tech Blogging reports that
HackerNoon articles published (or mined) in 2024 alone clocked 44 YEARS, 6 MONTHS, AND 18 DAYS of reading time!
Given that 2024 had 52,704 intervals of 10 minutes each, every 10 minutes, HackerNoon clocked
(44*365*24*6 + 6*30*24*6 + 18*24*6) / 52704 = 44 minutes of reading time.
How many readers are these, on average?
The research on the average reading time for online articles and blog posts isn’t decisive. But if we take the words of masterblogging.com + a 0.25% error, most internet users read for about 2 minutes before going on with their day.
44/2 = 22 readers every 10 minutes.
Assume all these readers contribute to the bottom line,
Then,
From State of the Noonion 2025: Scaling Business Blogging and The Technology Publishing Network,
Business Blogging seems to have been the secret sauce to HackerNoon’s massive success.
While HackerNoon does not disclose its profits, it is open enough to tells us something from this redacted graph.
Coupled with this State of the Noonion from 2021, we can infer simplistically thus:
From the above graph, the difference between 2023 and 2024 is about 6x the one between 2020 and 2021, so let’s say they made at least $6million in profit.
$6m / 52704 = $113 every 10 minutes as paid for by their 22 readers.
$113/22 ~ $5 per reader.
Nice.
But also, well, how?
Last I checked, reading doesn’t cost anything.
But did you make any online purchase last year?
Yeah?
With a recommendation from HackerNoon heh?
I bet you did.
More importantly, I bet you you profited more, you just haven’t tracked it like HackerNoon.
While the above data shows HackerNoon’s business capabilities, something pretty impressive for a company ranked 2747, readers are the reason it happened.
Spending time with good content makes money in this day and age.
I am not adept at the targeted advertising technicalities, but look here, I’ll show you.
Using some simplistic inverse proportion maths:
If No. 2747 is raking in $6m then No.1 — Facebook, raked in 2747 * $6m > $16 billion!
Have you ever paid for your Facebook or Instagram subscription?
No.
Paid to post?
No.
Bought anything on recommendation … hmm.
I was way off. In the fourth quarter alone they raked in $16 billion.
Ah, the power of a bigger exponential than y = k/x with k = 1. (Is k something like 0.25? Looks like it).
It certainly is no simplistic inverse proportion.
This Graph of Profitability vs Ahrefs ranking.
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I will now compare HackerNoon to Bitcoin.
Assume blogging is like building a blockchain of useful information.
Transactions involve writers, readers and publishers.
For Bitcoin’s case the information in each block looks pretty useless, but it is useful because it prevents double spending.
Boring, heh.
Well the power, remember, is in the ad revenue.
So let’s follow the ads.
Bitcoin has been advertised pretty well, I’d say.
Here are some latest ads.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin, as per the new usual, is mining 3.125 bitcoins and 1 block every 10 minutes, to add to its blockchain.
While we may never get a perfectly clear picture of how many people have transacted it (thanks to privacy-protecting super fast L2 payments rails like the Lighting Network ), we can know how much more value it has gained over the past year.
Qtn: If 113.36% of Old_Market_Cap = 105,950 * 21 million, find Old_Market_Cap / OMC.
After crunching we see that OMC = 93,463 * 21 million.
Profit = (105,950 – 93463) * 21 million = $262 billion.
Yeah. Bitcoin won the profit game.
Per 10 minutes:
$262 billion / 52704 = $4.9 million per bitcoin block.
Omg.
I seriously think HackerNoon should start publishing Bitcoin blocks as articles.
Some of that revenue might rub off of them.
Seriously, look at all that money!!
What.
For things that don’t make much sense, mind you.
But of course, these blocks are mined (published) in an entirely different way from HackerNoon articles.
Firstly, it is a very serious mining (block-writing-with-correct-hash) competition before getting published on Bitcoin’s blockchain.
If Bitcoin mining / Block publishing was a HackerNoon writing competition, it would really be intense.
It would even warm the climate (imagine that).
Secondly, anybody can get lucky. Not just the guys with the super powered machines worth billions.
Who doesn’t want a $330,000 prize given out every 10 minutes, to publish a 2MB string of text not very interesting for humans to read, but worth $4.9 million dollars.
And climbing.
(Nobody reads blocks. But what if they did?!)
Bitcoin, such an enigma.
It is modern alchemy indeed.
Isaac Newton would be jealous.
While the Alchemists of old struggled to turn lead into gold, the alchemists of today struggle to turn electrified economic competition into Bitcoin blocks.
(Some like Alchemist Saylor instead “mine” fiat loans to buy up mined bitcoins faster than they can be mined.
Very interesting.)
Strangely enough, anybody can succeed. They just have to set up an App (Bitcoin node), Get the right auto-writers that are super savant AI bots (Miners), working with pre-released prompts (power it up with core software and all), and hit Go.
Then go away.
Mind other important business.
What a rad publishing machine.
***
P.S. >> HackerNoon should try to model various aspects of Bitcoin for their current / future features, imo.
Copying something from a $262-billion-in-profit world-leading publishing giant might not be a bad idea.
