Bitcoin Billionaires

Bitcoin Billionaires • Ben Mezrich

⭑ 7.6 Stars

I found this story intensely interesting for a number of reasons. First, my perception of the Winklevoss twins had largely been shaped by their portrayal in The Social Network, and I was fascinated by the fact that Mezrich pursued a follow up to his source material for that film, not only because a natural sequel wasn't obvious, but because he felt obligated to correct that invalid portrait of the brothers. Second, I'm a cryptocurrency fanatic and the opportunity to learn more about the origin and evolution of the technology held merit as a story, regardless of the protagonists.

Needless to say, it's hard to go wrong when you conjoin (pun intended) two subjects like these, and even harder when Ben Mezrich is at the helm. Like all of his books, the narrative was captivating, revealing, and a hell of a roller coaster ride that had me scribbling notes throughout, most interesting (given the natural volatility of a cryptocurrency like bitcoin) were the amounts of bitcoin purchased by people like the Winklevoss in the coins infancy, with references to value increase in the book are already far outdated (and much, much higher) just a few years following the original publication.