Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall is a book by Zeke Faux which tells the story of FTX, Teether, Sam Bankman-Fried and other players in the crypto industry.
It’s not a complete history of crypto: digital currencies are already well established when the book begins but it does take you through Bankman-Fried’s rise and fall. Is is heavily critical of crypto, asking where any of the supposed benefits are (fair point) and examining its use in money laundering with the journalist visiting sites in Cambodia where victims are human trafficked and forced to run crypto scams for gangs.
It seems a little unfair to make crypto the villain, rather than global inequality or lake of regulation in these states. They did the same thing with cash or fake fiat bank accounts before crypto, and better money laundering controls would work with crypto, too. It also ignores the idea that maybe the true value of crypto is the blockchain, regardless of whether crypto turns out to be useful.
But it was a fun read, and at the same time, brings some attention to human trafficking which is sorely needed.
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Tags: bitcoin, cryptocurrency
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 10th, 2024 at 11:00 am and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.