Today I had a very old friend send me a link to an interview with the author of an interesting new book called Number Go Up with the tagline "Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall". I was curious and felt immediately compelled to sit through the interview so that I could give him an intelligent comment. It goes for 1 hour 12 minutes but I found it to be quite amusing so if you want to have a look it’s on Youtube HERE
This post isn’t really a book review, because I haven’t read it yet. It’s more of an interview review because there was a lot of interesting and funny moments that I think might make this book a good read. The premise is that the writer is a journalist who seems to have a penchant for writing about scams and fraud. The author has ventured into the Crypto space just a couple of years ago, seemingly without really understanding the technology (or its appeal) and immediately has been drawn to some of the worst elements of Crypto...as many newbies are.
There is a lot of talk about the Bored Ape NFT phenomenon which is interesting because I personally never paid it any attention. I kind of knew the useless NFT thing was an obvious bubble and had my own experience with it via Crypto Kitties back in 2017 (the previous cycle), but the author describes the Bored Ape scene in some detail. He’s obviously rubbed shoulders with a lot of the Crypto Bros - who anyone with experience in this space would know are full of shit….but he went and spent $20K USD on a Bored Ape to get access to a party with Snoop Dog so that he could research his book. I found these anecdotal stories to be very amusing!
The interview moves on to talk about Sam Bankman-Fried and it seems like this author had some first hand experience with probably the most infamous scammer of the most recent Boom-Bust Cycle. He was along for the ride during some of the key developments so his insight into how the FTX debacle unraveled and the characters involved is very interesting too.
Of course it is obvious that these two guys in the interview are total No-Coiners and while the fun they make of Crypto is certainly amusing it is also very clear that they don’t really understand the space or the problems it’s trying to solve. This is an aspect that can be got past though. I generally try not to judge people who haven’t really had that light-bulb moment. So if you can suspend that disdain then I think there is probably some value in this book from the perspective of a new-to-crypto journalist trying to go down the rabbit hole at the back end of the last Bull Market and (deliberately or not) falling in with the wrong crowds. It might be worth a laugh. You can buy the book on Amazon HERE
My final comment to my No-Coiner friend after watching the interview was that "Writing off Blockchain Technology today because of people like SBF would be kind of like writing off Email Technology in the 1990s because of the Nigerian Prince". We were a lot tighter back in the 90s and he experienced the Internet boom alongside me so I am confident that he will understand that reference...