Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall

Review

Combines sharp analysis, intrepid reporting and punchy writing ― Wall Street Journal

Boisterous and masterfully written . . . Faux's cast of misfits and con artists never fails to entertain ― Washington Post

An excoriating attack on crypto and all who sail in her . . . It's enough to drive the observer slightly nuts. You can find that energy in Faux's funny, furious book -- John Lanchester ― LRB

Offers a shrewdly sceptical view of crypto where [Michael Lewis's] Going Infinite is stubbornly credulous ― New York Times

An appalled, Wolfe-ian look at the barely concealed cynicism and grift that fuelled and continue to fuel cryptocurrency's vast speculative bubble . . . No one comes out of this well, from Tony Blair and Bill Clinton cosying up to Bankman-Fried to an endless parade of celebrities shilling for crypto . . . Recount[s] the end of an era ― Spectator

Faux demonstrates his incisive grasp of the story with the very first words of his prologue . . . In telling his story, Faux has one major advantage over [Michael] Lewis: almost from the start, he had crypto's number ― LA Times

Funny, enraging, racy and profound. We were waiting for the first great crypto book and Zeke Faux has written it -- Oliver Bullough, author ― Butler to the World

The superior guide to understanding the FTX debacle and Bankman-Fried himself . . . This is the strength of Number Go Up: it doesn't pretend there's something inside, just beyond our reach. Instead, Faux explores how flimsy the whole crypto industry really is ― Wired

Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the mass delusion that was crypto -- Bethany McLean, bestselling co-author ― The Smartest Guys in the Room

Laugh-out-loud funny . . . An often hilarious courtside view of the recent mania - and a useful reminder to blockchain evangelists about the many, many sleazy characters who inhabit their realm. Well worth a read -- Jeff John Roberts ― Fortune

This often funny, often tragic analysis of the rise and fall of cryptocurrencies and their champions shows human vanity and weakness at their most destructive . . . It is hard to think of any book or film with a cast as odious, as indifferent to the consequences of their shakedowns, as arrogant, or as voracious as the hustlers launching one ICO 'opportunity' after another . . . This well-written, pacey book is difficult to put down because you wonder how the swizz of the previous chapter might be surpassed - as it nearly always is ― Irish Examiner