Crypto Confidential
Winning and Losing Millions in the New Frontier of Finance
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
THE WILD INSIDE STORY OF CRYPTO'S GET-RICH-QUICK UNDERBELLY
Nat Eliason had six months to make as much money as possible before his first child was born. So, he turned to where countless others did in 2021: Crypto.
Within a year, he'd made millions writing code holding hundreds of millions of dollars of other people's money. He'd been hacked. He'd sold a picture of a monkey for two hundred grand. He'd become an influencer, speaking at conferences, and writing a weekly newsletter to tens of thousands of fans. Best of all, Nat had amassed a small fortune. But how much of this money was even real? And how many times can someone double down before they eventually lose everything?
Crypto Confidential is Nat's unfiltered, insider's account of the hyperactive, hyper-speculative, hyper-addictive, nearly unregulated, completely insane world being built on the blockchain. A behind-the-scenes exposé of the bull runs and breakdowns, revealing exactly how the crypto-sausage gets made. A story of getting rich, going broke, scamming and getting scammed— and how we can all be more educated participants during the inevitable next bull run.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Eliason debuts with a conflicted memoir recounting his efforts to get rich quick with cryptocurrency. In 2021, Eliason was unemployed and worried about providing for his first child, who was due by the end of the year. Dazzled by acquaintances who had won big on crypto, he began day-trading Dogecoin and writing code for a video game based around crypto tokens. He describes how his anxiety over the possibility that his increasingly valuable holdings would lose their worth or get hacked kept him glued to his devices and left his wife feeling isolated. Though Eliason aims to position his story as a cautionary tale, the takeaway is complicated by the fact that he made a healthy sum after selling most of his crypto assets in early 2022, even if his unspecified final profit was significantly less than the $10 million his holdings were nominally worth at their peak. Further confusing the volume's stance are interstitial chapters offering tips on investing in crypto ("You can create a simple rule, like: if goes down 50 percent, sell; if it doubles, sell half to cover the initial investment"). This is a head-scratcher.
