But here are some good starting points for the avid reader. This post is crypto-specific; the next part will deal with more general books on finance and fraud. (You can save a bit of time by just buying both the UK<\/a> and US<\/a> editions of Lying For Money<\/i><\/a> right now.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Robinson’s mostly retired now, but he had a lengthy career writing about financial shenanigans \u2014 most notably The Laundrymen<\/i> in 1994 (UK<\/a>, US<\/a>), about how crooks cover up the trails left by their money. This made him the perfect person to write the first skeptical book about Bitcoin.<\/p>\n It’s a short book, and an easy read. It’s a snapshot of Bitcoin in 2014, so it\u2019s a bit dated. But the people still act the same \u2014 many are literally the same individuals \u2014 and the main difference is new labels on the old scams. The psychology of cryptocurrency hasn\u2019t changed in the slightest: any handwaving excuse to pretend there\u2019s something there, when there clearly isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n The second solidly skeptical book on Bitcoin. This is one of those books I loudly and repeatedly recommend to anyone in hearing range. For Attack,<\/i> I knew I had to explain the libertarian origins of Bitcoin, and Golumbia\u2019s book supplied my reference list.<\/p>\n This is a book written by a staunch leftist, to explain to other leftists why blockchains aren\u2019t in fact liberatory, and why the \u201canarchism\u201d is anarcho-capitalism \u2014 an unrelated political position, bitterly opposed to anything even slightly leftist.<\/p>\n The only people who claim Bitcoin has anything \u201cleftist\u201d to it are Austrian schoolers who think Keynes, the successful capitalist investor, was a commie. This attitude continues to the present day \u2014 in which bitcoiners classify Keynes with Marx.<\/a><\/p>\n Satoshi wasn’t a gung-ho ranting internet libertarian, but every one of the assumptions he built into the structure of Bitcoin was on Austrian School economic principles. If you start by assuming what Bitcoin wants is good, and not stupid, that’s what you’ll be working to. The Bitcoin 0.1 release notes make Satoshi’s embrace of ancap economics explicit \u2014 there’s a political rant in the middle<\/a> about central banks, espousing lightly recycled End The Fed conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n Golumbia was partly inspired by activists he knew who heard talk of blockchains subverting governments, thought that blockchains might therefore work for their social purposes … and promptly transmuted into conspiracy theorists, muttering darkly of international bankers and being unhealthily concerned with their altcoin portfolio.<\/p>\n The political currents that went into Bitcoin include several strains that are now accepted as the normal Silicon Valley position \u2014 the \u201cCalifornian ideology<\/a>.\u201d Bitcoin shares an ancestry with Silicon Valley startup culture, internet free speech movements, the right wing of transhumanism, and neoreaction. Bitcoin adds older far-right economic conspiracy theories.<\/a><\/p>\n All of this is uncontroversial historical fact \u2014 but I still get bitcoiners trying to claim that \u201cBitcoin was founded by libertarians\u201d is somehow a wild and outrageous statement. Occasionally a Bitcoin libertarian will say it is.<\/p>\n I can only boggle, and suggest they read this book\u2019s sources \u2014 I did \u2014 since they\u2019ll almost certainly choke on the book itself, and tweet something like \u201cI stopped reading when I got to [basic historical fact<\/i>]\u201d.<\/p>\n A history of Bitcoin up to early 2014, from the New York Times\u2019 main correspondent on cryptocurrencies. This was another book that was essential for Attack,<\/i> and I recommended it in Attack<\/i> as further reading.<\/p>\n Popper is pretty sympathetic \u2014 the book\u2019s largely character-focused \u2014 but the history is good and useful. You\u2019ll see some players who showed up again in later years \u2014 such as David Marcus of PayPal, who showed up as the executive in charge of Facebook\u2019s Libra project.<\/p>\n (Mark Karp\u00e8les has disputed some claims about the collapsed Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange that first showed up in Popper\u2019s book. [Tumblr<\/i><\/a>])<\/p>\n OK, this isn\u2019t light summer reading. But it\u2019s early Bitcoin history from someone who absolutely knows his stuff. The book’s a bit dry in its presentation \u2014 but it’s relentless in its solid factual content and knowledge. Also, it\u2019s cheap.<\/p>\n The contents are collected reports to Swanson’s consulting customers. He goes deep into precisely how the Bitcoin industry worked in the early days, and how the economics of it would stand up.<\/p>\n If you need to look up precisely what Bitcoin was like and how it worked back in the day, this is your go-to source. Worth a place in your reference pile.<\/p>\n Tim says: \u201cparts of it have become outdated due to how things have moved along. iirc there were some decent debunkings of what later became touchstones of maximalism.\u201d [Twitter<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/bitcoin-on-the-beach.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nJeffrey Robinson: BitCon<\/h3>\n
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David Golumbia: The Politics of Bitcoin<\/h3>\n
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Nathaniel Popper: Digital Gold<\/h3>\n
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Tim Swanson: The Anatomy of a Money-like Informational Commodity<\/h3>\n
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