Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud

“Crypto is Vegas without the drinks, the dinner, or the show,” contend Gotham actor McKenzie and journalist Silverman (Terms of Service) in this zippy polemic. McKenzie recounts reading up on crypto during a Covid-induced lull in his acting career and coming to the conclusion that digital currencies are “akin to gambling” because, unlike shares in a company, crypto is “uncorrelated with any actual asset.” With Silverman, he examines major players in “one of the greatest frauds in history,” detailing how confidence men around the globe convinced ordinary people to make misguided investments that were wiped out after the spring 2022 crypto crash. The authors describe El Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele’s disastrous rollout of a fraud-ridden, government-sponsored platform for exchanging Bitcoin, Sam Bankman-Fried’s illegal strategy for artificially inflating the size of crypto exchange FTX, and South Korean entrepreneur Do Kwon’s fall from grace after his Luna currency lost around $40 billion in value over the course of one week in 2022. The crypto-curious will appreciate the authors’ accessible explanations of how digital currencies work, and the profiles illuminate how hype and irresponsible business practices inflated the crypto bubble for years before its inevitable burst. The result is a damning study of how and why the crypto market collapsed. (July)