An excellent deep-dive into the murky world of crypto

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.

An excellent piece of long-form journalism, Easy Money is a must-read for anyone who has looked at the crypto world and thought, “That doesn’t seem legit” — a category in which I very much include myself. I came away from Easy Money better and more informed on the workings of crypto and all the ways in which it is used and abused by a growing number of grifters. This is a very good book, and as the authors write: it’s a “parable of money and lying, or rather a parable of fake money and lying for money.”.

McKenzie and Silverman have written a very accessible and engaging book. Easy Money begins with McKenzie’s own experiences with crypto, and his early forays into the “seemingly lonely world of crypto skepticism”; and follows McKenzie as this skepticism turns into early investigations and his eventual connecting with Silverman. And from there, the authors really start to dive deep into the sketchy world of crypto. It’s a smart move, entering McKenzie’s experiences, as his history in the entertainment industry and name-/face-recognition was a very useful tool that he deployed to gain access to a variety of players — many of whom were startlingly unfiltered.

The collapse of FTX and Alameda, Sam Bankman-Fein’s arrest (and ongoing court case), as well as Michael Lewis’s new book and podcast about SBF have put some of Easy Money into interesting context. (A benefit of reviewing this late — purely an accident — means there’s some buzz-worthy current events that Easy Money has helped to explain.) Both Lewis & SBF are mentioned in Easy Money, in a section that discusses the Big Names who have been taken in by the rampant growth and “sparkle” of the crypto-industry:

“… even Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker and The Big Short, was in thrall with the boy wonder, according to reporter Zeke Faux of Bloomberg. Interviewing him onstage at the event, he marveled: ‘You’re breaking land speed records. And I don’t think people are really noticing what’s happened, just how dramatic the revolution has become,’ before openly wondering how long it might be before crypto swallowed Wall Street itself. As someone who is a big fan of his work, I grimaced. It seemed even Michael Lewis was buying the bullshit.”

The authors are particularly frustrated by and critical of the tech-illiteracy or outright hypocrisy of certain politicians (throughout Congress, and on both sides of the aisle), as show how the “revolving door” of business and politics now includes former employees of large crypto exchanges and companies.

[I’ll be reading Lewis’s Going Infinite very soon (starting it later this week), and will write a review as soon as I can. I imagine Easy Money should be read by everyone who will also be reading Lewis’s latest.]

It’s not just the players who are featured in the book. The authors also spend a lot of time on the many people who have been taken in by crypto-bros and the celebrity-endorsement commercials (Matt Damon’s “fortune favors the bold” ad is a particularly egregious example). They present a damning and devastating accounting of the number of people whose wealth or savings vanished via various crypto crashes, scams, and more. The authors are sympathetic to these people, and lay all the blame at the feet of the crypto-bros and hucksters who have flocked to the industry.

“Cryptocurrency had lured in folks from all walks of life with the oldest and simplest con in the book, the get-rich-quick scheme, cloaked in the language of innovation.”

There were a couple of instances when Easy Money pinged a personal bugbear of mine: that is, businesses’ inability to let any fad go by without trying to harness it for their own ends, even if they have no clue what it is or how it works — after all, “most people who own Bitcoin can’t accurately explain it (although they will swear they can).”

“Since at least 2016, hundreds of enterprises have tried to incorporate it into their business models, only to later scrap it because it didn’t work any better than what they were already using. Ask yourself a simple question: If blockchain is so revolutionary, after thirty years, why is its primary use case gambling?”

Another thing that slowed down my review of the book (in addition to current events) was the fact that McKenzie’s Twitter account has been a font of additional reporting, commentary, and links to reportage that bolsters the authors’ arguments and observations in Easy Money, as well as shedding additional light on some of the people, topics, and issues surrounding crypto.

Very well-researched, sourced, and written, it’s engaging and compelling from start to finish. Easy Money is a must read for any crypto-skeptic, as well as anyone who just wants to learn more about the tech-business nexus and how it has been manipulated and emboldened by unscrupulous hucksters. While better informed after reading the book, I nevertheless still couldn’t tell you how blockchain, minting crypto, and all that actually works — this is no fault of the authors, though (I finished Lewis’s excellent Flash Boys not particularly clear on how the various “advantages” sought high-frequency traders actually worked, either).

Very highly recommended book.

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Ben McKenzie & Jacob Silverman’s Easy Money is out now, published by Abrams Books in North America and in the UK.

Follow the Author (McKenzie): Website, Goodreads, Instagram, Twitter
Follow the Author (Silverman): Website, Goodreads, Instagram, Twitter
Review copy received via Edelweiss