Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall (Paperback)

Combines sharp analysis, intrepid reporting and punchy writing - Wall Street Journal

Boisterous and masterfully written . . . Faux's cast of misfits and con artists never fails to entertain - Washington Post

An excoriating attack on crypto and all who sail in her . . . It's enough to drive the observer slightly nuts. You can find that energy in Faux's funny, furious book - John Lanchester, LRB

Offers a shrewdly sceptical view of crypto where [Michael Lewis's] Going Infinite is stubbornly credulous - New York Times

Definitely the best book to read for anyone who wants to understand what happened with SBF and FTX; I'd argue it's also the best book to give any general-interest reader who wants to learn more about why crypto has crashed and burned - WIRED, 'The 16 Best Books of 2023'

Number Go Up is a globe-trotting nonfiction picaresque that's as much fun as you can have reading about financial malfeasance and blockchain scams. It's a crisp primer that effortlessly ties the overinflated promise of bitcoin not just to the fraudsters like Sam Bankman-Fried who peddle it, but to the places in the Global South, like the Philippines and Cambodia, that are steamrolled by the fallout when that promise dies, often in spectacular fashion. It's scathing; it made me snort rage chortles aloud as I read. I would have finished it in a single sitting if I didn't have to sleep. - LA Times, 'The 10 Best Tech Books of 2023'

Of all the books you could read about the pandemic-driven crypto and NFT pyramid-scheme madness, this is the one. It is fantastically funny, sceptical, thoughtful and he's willing to pursue every part of the story. The chapter in which he investigates the effects of crypto-based gaming in the Philippines is devastating. The sequence where he risks his savings by buying an extremely ugly Bored Ape in order to get into a party is laugh-out-loud hilarious. - Naomi Alderman

An appalled, Wolfe-ian look at the barely concealed cynicism and grift that fuelled and continue to fuel cryptocurrency's vast speculative bubble . . . No one comes out of this well, from Tony Blair and Bill Clinton cosying up to Bankman-Fried to an endless parade of celebrities shilling for crypto . . . Recount[s] the end of an era - Spectator

Faux demonstrates his incisive grasp of the story with the very first words of his prologue . . . In telling his story, Faux has one major advantage over [Michael] Lewis: almost from the start, he had crypto's number - LA Times

Funny, enraging, racy and profound. We were waiting for the first great crypto book and Zeke Faux has written it - Oliver Bullough, author, Butler to the World

The superior guide to understanding the FTX debacle and Bankman-Fried himself . . . This is the strength of Number Go Up: it doesn't pretend there's something inside, just beyond our reach. Instead, Faux explores how flimsy the whole crypto industry really is - Wired

Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the mass delusion that was crypto - Bethany McLean, bestselling co-author, The Smartest Guys in the Room

Laugh-out-loud funny . . . An often hilarious courtside view of the recent mania - and a useful reminder to blockchain evangelists about the many, many sleazy characters who inhabit their realm. Well worth a read - Jeff John Roberts, Fortune

This often funny, often tragic analysis of the rise and fall of cryptocurrencies and their champions shows human vanity and weakness at their most destructive . . . It is hard to think of any book or film with a cast as odious, as indifferent to the consequences of their shakedowns, as arrogant, or as voracious as the hustlers launching one ICO 'opportunity' after another . . . This well-written, pacey book is difficult to put down because you wonder how the swizz of the previous chapter might be surpassed - as it nearly always is - Irish Examiner

It's terrific. Each chapter, each scheme somehow stranger, funnier and more enraging than the last. A whole economy layered like a French pastry of Ponzi schemes - Scott Tobias, The Next Picture Show

The funniest financial journalist in America takes on the funniest story in modern finance - Matt Levine, author of Businessweek’s Money Stuff

Unlike every other crypto book . . . I just couldn't put it down . . . The real beauty of this book is in the little details. It's what makes it read like fiction, even though it's all unfortunately horrifyingly real - Off Topic with Molly Jane, Blockworks.co

[In his book Going Infinite, Michael] Lewis reveals little about the inner workings of crypto . . . For those wanting a rollicking - albeit jaundiced - examination of crypto's underbelly, read Mr Faux's book - The Economist

The best book yet written about cryptocurrency - Patrick McKenzie, Bits about Money

Not only a breath of fresh air but quite possibly the best book ever written about the cryptocurrency industry - Cas Piancey, Protos

Both a serious financial investigation and incredibly entertaining ... Faux seems to be the only one asking uncomfortable questions - Sarah Frier, FT/McKinsey award-winning author, No Filter

Ludicrously compelling. I, quite literally, couldn't put it down - and I don't even care about crypto. Zeke Faux writes about this world with such clarity, humor, and perspective that the portrait captures something even larger: a moment in time that we can't afford not to understand - Evan Osnos, author, Joe Biden: American Dreamer

A dizzying safari of the surreal ... Zeke Faux takes readers behind the velvet rope and onto the mega yachts and multimillion-dollar tropical compounds of the billionaire crypto schemers, hustlers, and evangelists who may all be headed to prison, but are having a riotously good time - Joshua Green, #1 NYT bestselling author, The Devil’s Bargain

Business journalists are not usually lauded for their bravery, but it takes guts to gaze into the abyss of late-stage capitalism, never mind parachute directly into it. [Number Go Up] is a kind of hero's journey . . . Riveting - Jessica Pressler, special correspondent at Vanity Fair, producer, Inventing Anna

An instant classic: Liar's Poker for the era of digital monkey tokens - Kit Chellel, co-author, Dead in the Water

The definitive book about crypto and the only one you'll want to read - Max Chafkin, author, The Contrarian

Faux does an excellent job [of] digging into the personalities and hype . . . A lot of things about crypto finally clicked into place for me after reading this book - The Verge

Eye popping . . . one of the tensest things I've ever read - Jenny Colgan, Herald Scotland