The Cryptopians: The Best Crypto Book on the Origin Story of Ethereum
If you’re looking for a book that covers a reliable account of the true history of Ethereum, you might be hard-pressed to find too many reputable sources that have been published.
Indeed, there are many sources on the history of Bitcoin, or even on learning materials such as how to learn the programming language Solidity (the native language used to develop Ethereum smart contracts). There are even more books that are centered on the crypto industry in general — but a book on the history of Ethereum? There aren’t too many out there, being that Ethereum is still quite young.
But that’s exactly what you find in The Cryptopians — Idealism, Greed, Lies and the making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze by Laura Shin. In the last few years, the author has catapulted to absolute legend status within the crypto community. On top of releasing The Cryptopians, Shin runs one of the most listened to crypto podcasts, has doxed the infamous DAO hacker that stole 60 million dollars, has interviewed the biggest names in the industry, and is now currently working on a second book deal. She’s right up there with the Ethereum creator himself — Vitalik Buterin.
Laura Shin is a journalist first, and like Laura, one of the things that I learned while reading this book is that Vitalik Buterin also started off as a journalist at Bitcoin Magazine. He isn’t the “Mark Zuckerberg” coder type that many still believe him to be.
But that’s just one of the many things you may learn while reading.
Historically accurate, technically savvy
The Cryptopians is a culmination of several years of high-intense interviews, thorough research, fact-checking, and countless hours of documenting historical events (of which many take place online). Laura was able to establish the entire Ethereum timeline using a suite of crypto tools like CoinMarketCap for price checking, various block explorers (for transactions), and multiple third-party companies to dive into blockchain analytics.
At times, this book seems like it was carved into an ancient stone for historical record-keeping; so much so that this book should be considered “Crypto Cannon” in my opinion, and in the opinion of many living and tweeting on crypto twitter. Her deep knowledge of the subject matter is incredible, but what’s even more astounding is the fact that she’s able to relay that information without being too technical or going over a person’s head.
This is one of the facets that make it the perfect read for both beginners and experts. The audience will learn a whole new suite of crypto terms, including jargon, slang, and technical terms. But despite this technical savvy, it tells a unique real-life story that’s so captivating that it also reads like fiction.
Like a crypto movie.
That fact bears repeating: this story is so good the book reads like fiction and there are many that believe that it will one day be turned into a movie about crypto. It has all the inner workings of a book-based movie.
Maybe one of the reasons why is because one of the most entertaining features of this book is the array of a very diverse set of movie-like characters.
Aside from the 5 to 8 original co-founders of Ethereum (probably depending on who you ask), this book also features the likes of Andrey Ternovskiy (CEO of the once-viral webcam site Chat Roulette), Mihai Alisie (founder of Bitcoin Magazine), Gavin Wood (the lead developer of Ethereum), and as stated even dives into everyone that was involved in The DAO hack.
Like a movie, each character gets introduced seamlessly, and one learns about each of them in-depth. You’ll find out what makes them tick, how they got involved in the crypto industry, how they like to work (and play), and even how they travel together as well as live as a bunch of roommates together in an apartment in Zug, Switzerland (known as “Crypto Valley”). And like any good story, there is a ton of drama involved with Vitalik Buterin at the center of it.
Does the book shine a good light on the crypto industry?
Overall, I would say that The Cryptopians shines a bright light on the crypto industry in general, but some of the characters (or just the fans of the characters) might be a little bit upset about how they were portrayed.
We learn about some of the exciting qualities of these characters that make them all human, and Vitalik is really the only character that comes away unscathed.
Not many seem to care, and not many seem to care that the DAO hacker was doxxed either. It’s a story that must be told, and as Laura states in an interview with CoinDesk TV: it seems like the fact that Vitalik comes away unscathed is the only thing that matters.
This book is a great introduction to the crypto industry and is consistently rated as a great source to learn about Ethereum. It has all the key ingredients including events, players, definitions, and information, that you would need to catapult your interest in the crypto space into an actual career. There’s even a crypto glossary at the end of the book with about 6 pages of defined terms.
Many people have already credited their start in the industry to this book, myself included.
