Ethan Lou - Once a Bitcoin Miner (2021) ENG

When Ethan Lou’s early cryptocurrency investments pay off spectacularly, he leaves his job to build a blockchain start-up, riding into a nearly trillion-dollar frontier of open-bar pool parties, wealth-flaunting money giveaways, psychedelics, scams, scandal, and turmoil. He finds himself crossing paths with the likes of the late Gerald Cotten of QuadrigaCX and the Ethereum co-founder Anthony Di Iorio. Somehow, he ends up in North Korea, at the very conference at which the Ethereum computer scientist Virgil Griffith is accused by the FBI of breaking sanctions — and Ethan sees everything. Nothing lasts, calamity comes in waves, Bitcoin plunges. Overhead, vultures circle, and in the tall grass, lawmen lurk. Ethan and his fellows seek fortune and new beginnings amid the harsh unpredictability of their new world.

Once a Bitcoin Miner is accessible literary journalism, painstakingly researched through official records, interviews, and confidential files and sources. This richly told first-person narrative contains exclusive revelations and delves deep behind the scenes of major events from this prominent, yet shadowy domain.