David Honigmann

Has crypto finally had its day?

It was a born of a specific macroclimate of low interest rates following the global financial crisis – but all that is melting away and, in the case of crypto, not before time

Sam Bankman-Fried in Hong Kong in May 2021. [Getty Images] 
issue 14 October 2023

If you run an organisation, there are some reporters you definitely don’t want around: Ronan Farrow asking for comment; Madison Marriage or Dan McCrum with a couple of questions; Michael Wolff hanging out on a sofa taking notes. Michael Lewis is not one of those reporters. If he wants to spend time with you, you are about to be lionised as a decent person who sees just a bit more clearly than the fools who run the system of which you are a part, which will make you wildly rich (unless you’re an academic or a public servant) and famous. When Michael Lewis calls, people answer.

Lewis raises enough questions for one to finish the book less sure of Bankman-Fried’s guilt than at the start

When Zeke Faux calls, they often don’t. A reporter for Bloomberg, Faux spends a lot of Number Goes Up being given the runaround by the management team of Tether, a stablecoin (a crypto token pegged to the US dollar) that he suspects of misleading customers about the depth of its reserves.

Get Britain's best politics newsletters

Register to get The Spectator's insight and opinion straight to your inbox. You can then read two free articles each week.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in