Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall - Zeke Faux

[Saluki]

I'm just finishing up the audiobook on this and I highly recommend it to see a first hand account of the crypto mania during its peak.  Like Michael Lewis, he was in the Bahamas and had extensive interviews SBF and the FTX people.  He also spoke to a lot of the bankers, the Tether people, the doubters and the crypto bros.  At one point he even got permission from his wife to buy a Bored Ape NFT so that he could get admittance to a party for NFT weirdos.  

 

The amount of money and delusion is staggering. Some of the business models appear to be less well thought out than the South Park underpants Gnomes episode where they Step 1 is steal the underpants, Step 2 is "?" and Step 3 is "Profit". 

[Luke]

28 minutes ago, Saluki said:

I'm just finishing up the audiobook on this and I highly recommend it to see a first hand account of the crypto mania during its peak.  Like Michael Lewis, he was in the Bahamas and had extensive interviews SBF and the FTX people.  He also spoke to a lot of the bankers, the Tether people, the doubters and the crypto bros.  At one point he even got permission from his wife to buy a Bored Ape NFT so that he could get admittance to a party for NFT weirdos.  

 

The amount of money and delusion is staggering. Some of the business models appear to be less well thought out than the South Park underpants Gnomes episode where they Step 1 is steal the underpants, Step 2 is "?" and Step 3 is "Profit". 

Haha yes agree with everything, it was and still is madness. Ironically my GF bought some gambling bitcoin a year ago on one of these online banking apps, i didnt even know. She came to me a few days ago and said that she made 50% gain on like 300€ or so. I told her to sell it and never look back and she did...

[Longnose]

95% of the crypto mania was a scam. 

 

But i am still a fan of the technology and I believe it will continue to be influential in the future. 

 

BTC is the only one crypto I consider to be truly decentralized and potential to be an alternate currency. 

 

I think most proof of stake tokens including (ETH, SOL, AVAX, Etc..) are not truly decentralized. But I think the most interesting applications of crypto in future will occur in theses tokens.

 

And acknowledging the stuff in the podcast. The stuff that was going on during the crypto mania was 100% whacky 

[Fly]

On 1/3/2024 at 1:29 PM, Longnose said:

95% of the crypto mania was a scam. 

 

But i am still a fan of the technology and I believe it will continue to be influential in the future. 

 

BTC is the only one crypto I consider to be truly decentralized and potential to be an alternate currency. 

 

I think most proof of stake tokens including (ETH, SOL, AVAX, Etc..) are not truly decentralized. But I think the most interesting applications of crypto in future will occur in theses tokens.

 

And acknowledging the stuff in the podcast. The stuff that was going on during the crypto mania was 100% whacky 

Agree with the Bitcoin vs crypto sentiments. 
 

regarding future developments of smart contracts I just don’t see any reputable company using a blockchain they have zero control over. These chains are centralized as you stated, so just adds so much risk for a corporation to rely on something they have little influence over. 
 

private blockchains run by the company using them might make more sense, or perhaps niche industry chains where a few companies can share the control. And definitely won’t be a platform token required like ETH/SOL/etc

[Stuart D]

Yeah, great book. I listened to the audiobook after hearing the author being interviewed on the Grant’s podcast. Well worth a listen/read.