Hype Machine: Inside the Cult of Crypto

On 2 November 2023, in one of the largest fraud trials in history, Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of stealing billions of dollars from the customers of his crypto-exchange, FTX.

How did this 31-year-old Californian in flip-flops, board shorts and a T-shirt manage to become one of the most famous CEOs in the world? How did greed, fear and free money inflate the crypto bubble until it finally popped with devastating consequences for millions of people who lost money in the crash? Who were the enablers, investors and innovators who transformed the original promise of crypto into a digital Wild West?

Hype Machine is the definitive story of the boom and bust of crypto, written by award-winning Financial Times journalist Joshua Oliver. Expansive, nuanced and eminently entertaining, it demystifies the crypto circus by following the journeys of its most influential participants and the trajectory of SBF, its enigmatic ringmaster.

Oliver, who reported on the crypto crash with extensive access to SBF himself, introduces listeners to the people and ideas that shaped crypto's wild rise and fall, including Arthur Hayes, Changpeng Zhao and the coterie of acolytes who surrounded FTX. Through exclusive interviews, compelling research and with ringside seats at the trial of the decade, he paints a vivid, detailed and tragi-comic picture of this defining financial moment of our times.