Crypto-Capitalism (The New Financial Dystopia)

From the author of A People’s Guide to Capitalism, a clear-eyed look at cryptocurrencies from the left, cutting through the glitz and the scams to reveal how crypto mirrors and exacerbates the crises of capitalism.

Cryptocurrencies have gone from being fringe investments relevant only to hardcore adherents to a $3.7 trillion industry with a direct line to Donald Trump’s White House. The promises of crypto are wide-ranging, preying on a basic reality: people are disaffected by an economic and financial system that has excluded them and wonder if cryptocurrencies can offer a more transparent and inclusive alternative.

Challenge any of these notions, or raise concerns about crypto’s associations with money laundering, the speculative bubbles ballooning around these assets, or the disastrous climate implications of the technology behind crypto, and you’ll be told by proselytizers that you simply don’t understand. That complexity is often intentional, serving as a shield from critical scrutiny.

Enter Crypto-Capitalism, Hadas Thier’s deft, accessible examination of the rise and fall and rise again of crypto. Drawing on years of reporting on the industry, its insiders, and the ordinary people impacted by its wild peaks and busts, Thier explains how cryptocurrencies work, elucidates the context and implications of their rise, and debunks the utopian mythology that animates their boosters.

By showing that systemic exploitation and domination are inherent in a crisis-ridden capitalist economy and are matters of class power, not technology, Thier convincingly cuts through the froth and the lies of financial dystopia. Along the way, she opens up alternative avenues for imagining what economic democracy could actually look like.