Books
Jake Adelstein
The Devil Takes Bitcoin
If nature abhors a vacuum, crime abhors unexploited technology. Jake Adelstein works this frame in The Devil Takes Bitcoin, a whirlwind account of crypto’s rise and rot. Reading Adelstein’s tale is like listening to the best storyteller at the pub, full of outrageous anecdotes, pithy takedowns and a clear-eyed account of how crypto’s true lifeblood was always crime.
The Devil Takes Bitcoin operates as a quasi-oral history, with the author and experts sharing stories about the development of bitcoin, how Mt. Gox became one of the largest trading platforms, how people such as Mark Karpelès stumbled chaotically into power, and the Silk Road, the dark web’s crime-riddled Amazon equivalent. For armchair experts always up for speculation on the identity of cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, Adelstein ranks the common suspects and shades Craig Wright. At its best, the book makes you feel like you’re getting the inside word: “Crime pays,” he notes dryly, “if you’re getting paid in bitcoins”.
Like any pub raconteur, Adelstein’s occasional rambles could benefit from editing. While it makes sense to delve into the history of the Silk Road, it reads like a long-form essay disconnected from the first third of the book. This could have been strengthened by introducing other characters as a through line or threading more references to the marketplace earlier. As it stands, this section is perhaps the weakest, with laboured and disorienting framing devices underselling the revelatory relationship between bitcoin, Mt. Gox and the Silk Road – there’s even a bizarre detour into cat furries. The result is a book that is consistently entertaining, and occasionally brilliant, but uneven: it’s riveting, exhausting yet worth sticking around for, if only for its satisfying epilogue.
As a collection of character studies – including Karpelès (Mt. Gox), Ross Ulbricht (Silk Road), Adelstein himself, the Japanese legal system and the opportunists, criminals and believers who made bitcoin a global phenomenon – Jake Adelstein captures something greater than just the facts. The Devil Takes Bitcoin is a weirdly successful vibe check from what may be the internet’s last Wild West: funny, chaotic, horrifying and deeply revealing of how belief and greed blur until they’re indistinguishable.
Adelstein makes the case that bitcoin’s true value was its ability to facilitate crime. If you want a clean tech history, look elsewhere. If you want to be entertained, informed and a little appalled, pull up a bar stool.
Scribe, 224pp, $35
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on September 13, 2025 as "The Devil Takes Bitcoin".
For almost a decade, The Saturday Paper has published Australia’s leading writers and thinkers. We have pursued stories that are ignored elsewhere, covering them with sensitivity and depth. We have done this on refugee policy, on government integrity, on robo-debt, on aged care, on climate change, on the pandemic.
All our journalism is fiercely independent. It relies on the support of readers. By subscribing to The Saturday Paper, you are ensuring that we can continue to produce essential, issue-defining coverage, to dig out stories that take time, to doggedly hold to account politicians and the political class.
There are very few titles that have the freedom and the space to produce journalism like this. In a country with a concentration of media ownership unlike anything else in the world, it is vitally important. Your subscription helps make it possible.
Purchase this book
The Devil Takes Bitcoin
BUY NOW
When you purchase a book through this link, Schwartz Media earns a commission. This commission does not influence our criticism, which is entirely independent.
Subscriber exclusive
Send this article to a friend for free.
Share this subscriber exclusive article with a friend or family member using share credits.
