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Podcast: New Books in Economic and Business History
Episode: Zeke Faux, "Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall" (Currency, 2023)
Description: In 2021 cryptocurrency went mainstream. Giant investment funds were buying it, celebrities like Tom Brady endorsed it, and TV ads hailed it as the future of money. Hardly anyone knew how it workedâbut why bother with the particulars when everyone was making a fortune from Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, or some other bizarrely named âdigital assetâ? As he observed this frenzy, investigative reporter Zeke Faux had a nagging question: Was it all just a confidence game of epic proportions? What started as curiosityâwith a dash of FOMOâwould morph into a two-year, globe-spanning quest to understand the wizards behind the worldâ...