I wandered over to Goodreads to read reviews of Zeke Faux's "Number Go Up," and I was not disappointed to find one reviewer who accused Faux of FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
I knew there were going to be crypto bros or at least bro-adjacent reviews of the book, and there it was in all its glory. One star.
The reviewer decried Faux's lack of looking at how crypto were helping the poors -- pretty much glossing over how crypto wasn't helping the poors at all as reported in Faux's book.
And yeah, I don't really see banks helping the poors either. Banks are a sucky system. But after reading Faux's book, I don't expect crypto is any better. In fact, with the slavery, human trafficking and fraud that appears rampant in the crypto-adjacent world, it's probably a worse system.
I can't even type out the sentence "Maybe they started crypto with altruistic motives" without laughing inside. Because no, they're in it for the money. I mean, they can say they want to help the poor, but Faux provides ample example that no, the poors are getting screwed by crypto just as they are by the banks.
We'd all be better off investing in Homer's pumpkin futures than in fake money.
If you're going to this book to learn about crypto, you're not the audience for it. Faux admits his crypto knowledge is pretty basic, and admits that for most of us -- especially those of us who FUD all over the place -- the details are unimportant. What's important are the scams, the scamps, the idiocy and the altogether terrible things that crypto are enabling.
And yes, there are frauds and schemers in regular business too; I won't deny that. But the majority of that is happening in a regulated world. Crypto, not for me.
A note on style: Each chapter ends with a "cliffhanger" for the next chapter, making me wonder if Faux attended the Louis L'Amour School of Writing.
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