Jonah Robinson

What is it?

Number Go Up is a damning analysis of cryptocurrency that covers the dramatic rises and falls found across this speculative industry. Fauk delves into the history of how large numbers of regular people and investors became enamored with crypto and began assigning sky-high valuations to crypto tokens and startups. Fauk then deep dives into the tsunami of schemes, scams, and frauds that followed. He covers a diverse range of questionable and illicit activity from FTX’s embezzlement, the collapse of Terra, the implosion of Celsius, billion-dollar hacks, pump-and-dump schemes, NFT mania, money laundering, and Pig Butchering.

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Why it matters?

While cryptocurrency lacks the obvious utility found in traditional exchange-traded financial products its lofty claims have nonetheless fostered millions of cult-like devotees who have helped pump up cryptocurrency into a multi-trillion dollar asset class. Despite its seeming lack of intrinsic value or real-world use as a major currency, people have gotten spectacularly wealthy trading cryptocurrency causing FOMO and Dutch Tulip-like price bubbles. Many finance and technology professionals understand crypto to be little more than an entirely speculative asset, but it has been legitimatized in the wider market because there is a lot of money to be made facilitating the industry and the public’s confidence in it. Fauk exposes in great detail the haphazard and legally sketchy structure of the industry and the immense risk that crypto investors face from what is essentially a digital casino and house of cards of confidence. He also brings to light the horrific human cost cryptocurrency has inadvertently spurred due to its immense electricity usage and facilitating role in human trafficking in Southeast Asia.