Easy Money
Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES 2023 BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR
"A smart, savvy road map through the mayhem of the cryptocurrency madness."
—RON CHERNOW, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Alexander Hamilton
From “one of the crypto industry’s unlikely but most prominent critics” (Washington Post), an entertaining and well-researched account of the rise and fall of cryptocurrency.
At the height of the pandemic, TV star Ben McKenzie was the perfect mark for cryptocurrency: a dad stuck at home with some cash in his pocket, worried about his family, armed with only the vague notion that people were making heaps of money on something he—despite a degree in economics—didn’t entirely understand. Lured in by grandiose, utopian promises, and sure, a little bit of FOMO, McKenzie dove deep into blockchain, Bitcoin, and the various other coins and exchanges on which they are traded. But after scratching the surface, he had to ask, “Am I crazy, or is this all a total scam?”
In Easy Money, McKenzie enlists the help of journalist Jacob Silverman for an investigative adventure into crypto and its remarkable crash. Weaving together stories of average traders and victims, colorful crypto “visionaries,” Hollywood’s biggest true believers, anti-crypto whistleblowers, and government operatives, Easy Money is an on-the-ground look at a perfect storm of irresponsibility and criminal fraud. Based on original reporting across the country and abroad, including interviews with Sam Bankman-Fried, Tether cofounder Brock Pierce, Celsius’s Alex Mashinsky, and more, this is the book on cryptocurrency you’ve been waiting for.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Crypto is Vegas without the drinks, the dinner, or the show," contend Gotham actor McKenzie and journalist Silverman (Terms of Service) in this zippy polemic. McKenzie recounts reading up on crypto during a Covid-induced lull in his acting career and coming to the conclusion that digital currencies are "akin to gambling" because, unlike shares in a company, crypto is "uncorrelated with any actual asset." With Silverman, he examines major players in "one of the greatest frauds in history," detailing how confidence men around the globe convinced ordinary people to make misguided investments that were wiped out after the spring 2022 crypto crash. The authors describe El Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele's disastrous rollout of a fraud-ridden, government-sponsored platform for exchanging Bitcoin, Sam Bankman-Fried's illegal strategy for artificially inflating the size of crypto exchange FTX, and South Korean entrepreneur Do Kwon's fall from grace after his Luna currency lost around $40 billion in value over the course of one week in 2022. The crypto-curious will appreciate the authors' accessible explanations of how digital currencies work, and the profiles illuminate how hype and irresponsible business practices inflated the crypto bubble for years before its inevitable burst. The result is a damning study of how and why the crypto market collapsed.