Number Go Up
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3.4 • 7 Ratings
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR WIRED | LA TIMES | FINANCIAL TIMES | WASHINGTON POST | GLOBE AND MAIL
USED IN EVIDENCE IN THE TRIAL OF SAM BANKMAN-FRIED
In 2021, cryptocurrency goes mainstream. Giant investment funds are buying it. Politicians endorse it. TV ads hail it as the future of money. Hardly anyone knows how it works - who cares when everyone is getting rich? But financial crime reporter Zeke Faux cares: even in fraud, there are standards.
In the Bahamas, schlubby billionaire wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried tells him how he will use his fortune to save the world. In Cambodia, a spam text unearths a horrifying slavery ring fuelled by crypto. Faux buys a $20,000 cartoon of a mutant ape to gain access to a festival headlined by Snoop Dogg, and talks his way onto the yacht of a riddling crypto founder/former child actor (The Mighty Ducks, 1992) who was among the first to see the power of imaginary treasure. In search of an elusive cash reserve at the foundation of the whole system, the incredulous Faux finds himself crossing three continents, as well as the boundaries of law, taste and economic rationality. Shocking and uproarious, Number Go Up is the essential chronicle of a $3 trillion delusion, the greatest bubble in history.
Customer Reviews
It’s a wild ride
Brilliantly told (and nicely read) tale of a journalist trying and ultimately succeeding to prove the crypto-boom is basically a ponzi scheme. He is gas lit the whole way but he persists.. a dogged chaser of the truth. Really gripping and funny too.
Biased and lacking in crypto comprehension
The author makes continuous technical mistakes, is heavily biased against crypto which further detracts from the accuracy of his writing.