Book Review: Digital Gold (Nathaniel Popper)

I read this book over many cups of tea that eventually turned cold before I remembered to take another sip. Digital Gold is an incredibly well-organized timeline of events on Bitcoin’s founding fathers and their pseudonymous friends. The story involves a complicated network of people made up of mostly libertarian males.

Expect to read about 30 different names in the book, remember 5 of them, but come out with an understanding of how Bitcoin came to be the controversial currency, er, commodity it is today.

Popper tells the story in a style that reminds me of Mr. Robot or Digital Fortress. In other words, it was a very fun non-fiction book, at least for someone who never would have read non-fiction if it weren’t for history class. There may or may not be DEA agents

*spoiler alert*

masquerading as hitmen, and a ransomer placing a hit on extorters, who were the agents themselves.

Stealing Mark Twain’s words: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.”