Laura Shin

While I wouldn't call it a great book, The Cryptopians is nevertheless a valuable addition to the growing literature on cryptocurrency and DeFi. Shin appears have distilled interviews and correspondence with a wide variety of players in the ecosystem into a more-or-less coherent account of the founding and early years of Ethereum. Shin's impartial treatment of the subject sometimes devolves into simple recitation of contradictory accounts without much to help the reader adjudicate between them. But even this tiresome "he said, she said" approach does eventually add up to an eye-opening portrait of the charlatans, toxic personalities, and shenanigans behind Ethereum's development. In the end, I could only marvel at how powerful the ideas behind Ethereum are to have allowed the project to survive years of spectacular mismanagement and greed.

The audiobook is read by Shin herself. While her voice is sometimes annoying, and her performance often overdramatic, I enjoyed her reading more than I would have enjoyed a performance by a professional voice actor who might have mispronounced names and jargon.

[2022-10-03]… (more)