Book Review: Cryptomania is a strange but interesting read
It’s difficult to explain why I both enjoyed and disliked Cryptomania. On the one hand, it’s necessary to acknowledge that Andrew Chow, the author, and a TIME Magazine correspondent, is a very good, very experienced writer who knows how to move a story along in such a way that the reader is hardly aware that they’re engaging in the task of reading.
On the other hand, it’s odd that Chow decided that the best way to connect and explain the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research was through weaving together real-life tales of success and loss via NFTs.
Neither FTX nor Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) were widely engaged in the NFT space so to choose them as the main through line of a 40-chapter book seems like a real missed opportunity to delve into the murky worlds of offshore banks, money laundering, and international arbitrage in crypto.
Cryptomania is both an easy read and a — sometimes manic — discussion about all things crypto-related that transpired over a couple of tumultuous years. It’s worth the time and money for those not involved in the industry and who want to gain a basic understanding of 2021-2023 in crypto. But, for anyone who lived it, who followed the SBF trial and woke up in November of 2022 thinking only about FTX, it may not be for you.
Retread with a flair
The book serves mostly as a retread of what brought FTX, SBF, and NFTs into the spotlight, and then what brought them down.
The best parts are, without doubt, Chow’s summaries and explainers. The individuals used as examples, however, are good for a quote or two but many just appear far too often. At the end of the day, it’s not necessary to hear the stories of three or four people who made it through NFTs and then lost it all.
Read more: Book Review: The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan
No Mention of TIME Magazine NFTS
There are moments where the media at large is criticized, including in chapter 18 when Chow points out the failures of numerous outlets to ask pivotal questions about FTX and SBF. Understandably, in this section, he doesn’t speak about TIME Magazine’s own venture into the world of NFTs and crypto — a project that, like many of the other examples Chow lists, has been abandoned and forgotten by its parent company.
This isn’t to say that TIME was one of the worst contributors to the NFT craze but rather to say that a writer who works for a company that went head first into the deep end of the topic he’s writing about, at the peak of the mania, should probably bring it up.
Chow’s focus is less on corporate NFT cash grabs and instead on individuals, many in the third world, who were initially met with success and then lost almost everything (sometimes by placing the money they earned from NFTs onto FTX). I must say again, however, that being a writer from a company that minted over a thousand NFTs should get mentioned.
As a strong critic of effective altruism, it was also nice to hear the story of Christine Chew, a woman who worked at a private equity firm, got into effective altruism, was a cryptocurrency advocate who ended up briefly employed at FTX, became disillusioned, and now works at an actual charity, trying to change the world through work and service as opposed to by making increasingly more money and donating it.
Read more: So you don’t have to: Catching Up to Crypto by Ben Armstrong
So, what is Cryptomania?
Cryptomania is a satisfying summary of what transpired as FTX and the broader cryptocurrency market collapsed a couple of years ago. But if you were hoping to discover new secrets about SBF, the end of 3AC, the Celsius Ponzi, or Do Kwon’s antics, you’ll be disappointed.
It’s also worth pointing out that the connection running throughout this book — namely the suggestion that there’s a link between the disintegration of the NFT markets and the end of FTX and Alameda Research — is spurious at best.
As Chow points out, SBF didn’t get NFTs or care about art, and while FTX hoped to capture a chunk of the NFT market, that was only because it was where crypto liquidity was, briefly, fleeing.
There are many stories of fraud, rug pulls, and exit scams in crypto that have yet to be told: no one can explain why Do Kwon is still languishing in a small Balkan nation, detailed writing has yet to be done on how Celsius, Luna, and 3AC all contributed to the death of FTX, a real biography of numerous big-name players has yet to occur, and no one has even bothered to write about QuadrigaCX and the death of its founder, Gerald Cotten.
I’m not sure the public is clamoring for another explainer of what happened in crypto in 2022. I certainly know that most people in the industry lived through it and can’t be bothered to go through all the details again. But if you’re one of the few who haven’t yet heard about failing cryptocurrency exchanges and JPEGS on the blockchain, this light read is absolutely perfect — and this isn’t a dig at Chow: someone needs to write this type of book for those uninvolved with the industry.
However, if you’re looking for the next Number Go Up (by Zeke Faux), the latest details of creepy international fraud, or exciting stories of globetrotting scammers and fraudsters, Cryptomania isn’t for you.
Alternatively, if you’re a writer like myself, know that there’s endless fodder for storytelling yet to be discovered or written about in cryptocurrency. In fact, even the FTX, Alameda Research, SBF story has yet to be fully fleshed out, so if you’re up for it, maybe you can write the next great American fraud novel.
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