Name: Number Go Up
Rating: 4 (4 reviews)
ISBN: 9780593728222

Zeke Faux

Number Go Up

Fred Rivett

From the beginning, I thought that crypto was pretty dumb. And it turned out to be even dumber than I imagined.

It was hard to believe that people had sent $55 billion in real U.S. dollars to a company that seemed to be practically quilted out of red flags.

I tried to keep a straight face as I imagined him telling that to the congressmen and prosecutors investigating FTX. His supercilious attitude and slovenly appearance reminded me of the disagreeable know-it-all Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. His answer was so bad, it felt almost unfair to ask him tough questions.

By 2023, the hot spots for crypto billionaires had shifted from the Bahamas and Miami Beach to the courthouses of Washington, D.C., and Manhattan.

Haley Park

 being internet slang for an alpha male, and by the standards of the conference, in which reckless day-trading counted as manliness, he was. 

A more accurate description would be that Saylor was the biggest loser in the room. 

"Stablecoins are basically just a digital version of the U.S. dollar, right?" he said. "There's no monkey business."

  But then he described what sounded very much like monkey business. 

The “endlessly entertaining” (Matt Levine) and “ludicrously compelling” (Evan Osnos) 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 “One of the greatest business stories of all time.”—A.J. Jacobs, bestselling author of The Puzzler 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.

Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall

Patrick Book

Total schadenfreude read. It’s equal parts hilarious and devastating how gobsmackingly, planet-breaking my stupid the world is now.

In 2021, cryptocurrency goes mainstream. Giant investment funds are buying it. Politicians endorse it. TV ads hail it as the future of money. Hardly anyone knows how it works - who cares when everyone is getting rich? But financial crime reporter Zeke Faux cares: even in fraud, there are standards. In the Bahamas, schlubby billionaire wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried tells him how he will use his fortune to save the world. In Cambodia, a spam text unearths a horrifying slavery ring fuelled by crypto. Faux buys a $20,000 cartoon of a mutant ape to gain access to a festival headlined by Snoop Dogg, and talks his way onto the yacht of a riddling crypto founder/former child actor (The Mighty Ducks, 1992) who was among the first to see the power of imaginary treasure. In search of an elusive cash reserve at the foundation of the whole system, the incredulous Faux finds himself crossing three continents, as well as the boundaries of law, taste and economic rationality. Shocking and uproarious, Number Go Up is the essential chronicle of a $3 trillion delusion, the greatest bubble in history.

Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall

Adam Goehrig-Bawany

Aptly named, as playfully written as insightful, the subtle digs had me chef kissing.

The story behind it all is scarcely believable and goes to show where unbridled human ambition can lead when returns that seem to good to be true are embraced by those with flexible grasps of truth and logic.

Whether those who were at the heart of it like SBF were intentionally neglectful or overly ambitious in their haphazard approach to digital rocket ship assembly is hard to say, but whatever the truth of their motivations the story of the mid air explosions are worth reading both as a cautionary tale and as a form of barely believable entertainment.

Aptly named, as playfully written as insightful, the subtle digs had me chef kissing.

The story behind it all is scarcely believable and goes to show where unbridled human ambition can lead when returns that seem to good to be true are embraced by those with flexible grasps of truth and logic.

Whether those who were at the heart of it like SBF were intentionally neglectful or overly ambitious in their haphazard approach to digital rocket ship assembly is hard to say, but whatever the truth of their motivations the story of the mid air explosions are worth reading both as a cautionary tale and as a form of barely believable entertainment.

Number Go Up

Reviews

Highlights