The “rollicking” ( The Economist ) “masterfully written” ( The Washington Post ) account of
the crypto delusion and how Sam Bankman-Fried and a cast of fellow nerds and hustlers turned
useless virtual coins into trillions of dollars—hailed by Ezra Klein in The New York Times as
one of the “Books That Explain Where We Are” FINALIST: the Edgar Award (Fact Crime) t he
Macavity Award (Nonfiction) t he Porchlight Business Book Award the SABEW Best in Business
Book Award A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times DealBook The Washington Post Los
Angeles Times Financial Times The Globe and Mail Irish Examiner Morningstar The Verge
Wired 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 worked—but why bother with the particulars when everyone was making a
fortune from Dogecoin Shiba Inu or some other bizarrely named “digital asset”? 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 curiosity—with a dash of FOMO—would
morph into a two-year globe-spanning quest to understand the wizards behind the world’s new
financial machinery. Faux’s investigation would lead him to a schlubby frizzy-haired
twenty-nine-year-old named Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF for short) and a host of other crypto
scammers utopians and overnight billionaires. Faux follows the trail to a luxury resort in
the Bahamas where SBF boldly declares that he will use his crypto fortune to save the world.
Faux talks his way onto the yacht of a former child actor turned crypto impresario and gains
access to “ApeFest ” an elite party headlined by Snoop Dogg by purchasing a $20 000 image of a
cartoon monkey. In El Salvador Faux learns what happens when a country wagers its treasury on
Bitcoin and in the Philippines he stumbles upon a Pokémon knockoff mobile game touted by
boosters as a cure for poverty. And in an astonishing development a spam text leads Faux to
Cambodia where he uncovers a crypto-powered human-trafficking ring. When the bubble suddenly
bursts in 2022 Faux brings readers inside SBF’s penthouse as the fallen crypto king faces his
imminent arrest. Fueled by the absurd details and authoritative reporting that earned Zeke Faux
the accolade “our great poet of crime” ( Money Stuff columnist Matt Levine) Number Go Up is
the essential chronicle by turns harrowing and uproarious of a $3 trillion financial
delusion.
