Laura Shin is a writer, podcaster, and cryptocurrency journalist. A former senior editor at Forbes, she left the magazine in 2018 to commit to her podcast, Unchained, which has had more than seven million downloads. Shin now also hosts a second podcast, Unconfirmed, and has spoken about and led discussions on cryptocurrency at places such as TEDx San Francisco, the IMF, Singularity University and the Oslo Freedom Forum. She lives in New York City.
A financial journalist and podcaster looks into the tangled rise of cryptocurrency. Imagine the internecine politics that Alexander Hamilton had to endure in piecing together a dollar-based treasury. Amplify it with backchannel drama, dark web intrigues, and head-butting mad scientists. --Kirkus Reviews A story of high drama played out in the big stakes world of crypto currencies and cutting-edge technologies with a cast of characters worthy of a thriller novel. Except: this incredible tale is all true and the hero of the story--Ethereum--has gone on to even greater things. --Raoul Pal, cofounder and CEO of Real Vision Deeply researched, this book is an important body of work and must-read for the inside story of Ethereum, complete with all of its grit and drama. --Willy Woo, Bitcoin analyst Shin's compelling, blow-by-blow account of the remarkable birth and growth of Ethereum shows that its spectacular wealth generation was not without struggle. By Shin's telling, the story of Ethereum is a grand human drama. For all the talk of decentralized, code-based 'virtual machines, ' a successful crypto project's biggest challenge is surviving internecine conflicts and the egos of its brilliant but humanly flawed founders. --Michael J. Casey, chief content officer at CoinDesk and coauthor of The Age of Cryptocurrency and The Truth Machine The most authoritative account yet of Ethereum. Laura Shin is deeply sourced in the crypto world and this is reflected on every page. The Cryptopians also casts new light on Vitalik Buterin, showing the human side of Ethereum's founding genius as never before. --Jeff John Roberts, executive editor of Decrypt and author of Kings of Crypto