Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall

Finally found a book that explained crypto & blockchains in clear language. Loved this, best description of the world of cryptocurrency at its height I have found. Fascinating read, incredibly well-researched. My sole issue with it is one of formatting in the Kindle version--the author annotated his chapters and claims extremely well, but there are no footnotes at all in the digital copy. None. When you finally reach the Notes section (surprise!) at the end, there's a hyperlink to "go to the section in book" but all it does is take you to the oage, which still has no indication where on the page that note is meant to reference. I like to pull up individual footnotes as I go, if I'm particularly curious about a statistic or claim, and footnotes I can click on and read, then return straight to the book, help immeasurably with that. I'm not sure if this was a choice or is simply a new standard, but I'm not a fan of this no-footnote fornat. The book itself is AMAZING. Loved absolutely everything else.

The book is very fast paced. Reminded me of a Michael Lewis book. I actually think I liked it even more than the Big Short and that is one of my favorite financial books of all time. What I like about this book compared to Michael Lewis' book of a similar topic is that Mr. Faux doesn't glorify crypto. He shows it for what it is not what it could be. People are using it to finance and commit horrible acts around the globe while billionaires and hedge funds are making millions off of platforms that are allowing scams and victimizing poor people around the world. The crypto bulls would tell you it is innovation, but any innovation that allows people to harm others can't be all that great IMO. Crypto technology will influence the world for sure, but for now it seems to be utilized primarily by scammers both small time and on wall street while the masses are left suffering and holding the bag.

Anyone having read Number Go Up will not be surprised when Sam Bankman-Fried is convicted of federal fraud charges and locked away for many many years (the trial is underway as off this writing). Although initially taken in by SBF's avowed commitment to "effective altruism", the author comes to the conclusion over time, as a result of interviewing SBF and his cronies, that it was all just a sham. The charitable giving that was the supposed reason for the very existence of SBF's two enterprises, FTX and Alameda Research, was tiny in proportion to the profits being manufactured (at least on paper) and, in the end, were paid for with customer funds fraudulently transferred from FTX to Alameda. Although SBF claimed to not care about personal monetary enrichment, he lived in a $30 million Bahamas penthouse (again, paid for with customer money) and he forked over millions of dollars for access to rich, famous, and influential people. This book has been contrasted favorably by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other book reviewers with Michael Lewis's recent book, Going Infinite. Having read those reviews and having seen Lewis on 60 minutes it was clear to me that he had been taken in by SBF. Instead of attributing the collapse of the two companies to the outright fraud that SBF's three top lieutenants have now testified to, Lewis appears to dismiss the whole thing as having been some kind of accounting snafu or perhaps SBF's failure to properly mind the store. It's clear from Number Go Up, however, that what happened was almost bound to occur, given that SBF played fast and loose with the rules, eventually approving actions that he had to know were illegal. As Faux shows, SBF's nerdy technobabble was really just a con game that many important people fell for. Faux was initially drawn in by the idea of a crypto "white knight" in the form of Bankman-Fried, but his detailed investigation of the crypto world and the shady underside of it (including human trafficking) opened his eyes to what was really going on. SBF gave Faux significant access, including after FTX went down and SBF was indicted for fraud. The author saw what Lewis failed to see, and this book leads the reader to the inevitable conclusion that FTX's fall was not the result of some bad timing or an unfortunate series of circumstances. It was the result of fraud. I highly recommend this book because it is not a fairy tale: it does not treat the principals as being anything other than what they have turned out to be. Read Lewis's book if you want the other version: the one where a brilliant and altruistic guy who only wanted to do good in the world makes some mistakes--unfortunate for him and everyone else.

In his first book veteran Bloomberg Businessweek investigative reporter Zeke Faux takes us on a wild journey through the Wild West that is crypto as he travels to Italy, the Bahamas, the Philippines, Cambodia, El Salvador and Switzerland to try to unravel the murky world of the stablecoin Tether.Bitfinex, Celsius, Axie Infinity, NFTs, Terra-Luna, Three Arrows Capital and FTX serve as sideshows as he talks to Tether co-founder and former child actor Brock Pierce of The Mighty Ducks fame, Celsius co-founder and CEO Alex Mashinsky and of course the infamous FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. He also goes to Cambodia to investigate to use of Tether in a human trafficking ring.Number Go Up is an important lesson on how not to fall victim to a scam which is just as, if not more important, than how to make money. In the end as crypto platform after crypto platform collapses all that remains is Tether murky as ever.

Very good history of cryptocurrencies, very frightening account of pig butchering using them. I thought that I was telling my Chinese teacher something new about the latter, but there is already a movie about it in China. And I still wonder what is Tether, how can these people make so much money from it? And interesting anecdotes about a lot of abhorrent people involved in the business.

At the end you ask yourself how so many people could trick themselves into giving their own money to the most incredible scams.

Muito bem escrito, leitura fácil, leitura interessante para aprender alguns esquemas com criptomoedas

Très bien écrit, dans un anglais très moderne et “urban” nécessitant un usage intensif du nouveau dictionnaire Kindle pour un lecteur non natif.Excellent historique et éclairage sur les personnalités et les événements récents dans le petit monde des billionnaires ++ de la crypto.