US Book Tour! 📕 The Devil Takes Bitcoin 😈 (**UPDATED with preview**)
The Devil Takes Bitcoin: Cryptocurrency Crimes and the Japan Connection is out October 14 in the US. Get an early look with two pre-release events in Seattle and Philadelphia!
‘The Devil Takes Bitcoin is a wild ride through the glitchy, glorious mess that is crypto history. Jake Adelstein connects the dots like a conspiracy theorist with actual receipts. Read it. Laugh. Cringe. Maybe even HODL (Hold on for dear life).’
Tigran Gambaryan, former IRS Special Agent also known as ‘The Crypto Wizard’
‘It is, of course, brilliant. A twisting, complex, international true-crime thriller involving Bitcoin, The Silk Road, and the cutting edge of Cryptocurrency malfeasance.’
David Hayter, award-winning screenwriter
After a few events in Japan (thank you to everyone who came to the Shimokitazawa launch and who visited us at the Osaka World Expo!) I am kicking off my USA book tour in October with events in Seattle, Philadelphia, NYC, and Washington, DC. More information to come and additional locations may be announced in the future.
Seattle, WA
October 9: Elliott Bay Books, 7pm
Philadelphia, PA
October 13: UPenn, 5:15-7:00pm
October 14: Barnes & Noble (Penn Books) 5:30-7:00pm
New York, NY
October 15: Japan Society (NY), 8pm
October 16: Columbia University, 12:00-1:10 pm
Washington, DC
October 17: Japan-American Society (DC), 5 pm
Los Angeles, CA
Palo Alto, CA
November 6: Northern California Japan Society (Palo Alto), 3 pm
Boston, MA
November 8: Japan Society and Boston University with BU’s Center for the Study of Asia
If you’re interested in reading excerpts we’ve published already, here they are at your convenience — and no paywall!
The Devil Takes Bitcoin--"Down Dark Roads of Silk and Cyberspace"
The first Bitcoin purchase may have been for a pizza, but it didn’t take long for people to find out that Bitcoin was extremely valuable for purchasing guns, illegal drugs, legal drugs, magic mushrooms, hardcore pornography, and all the other things that you might not want people to know you’re buying or selling.
Paging Satoshi Nakamoto, inventor of Bitcoin—you have a call on line #2!
The Devil Takes Bitcoin, a deep dive into the birth of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency crimes, and their relation to Japan, is finally coming out in English in October this year. You can pre-order, even!
Even in hell, Bitcoin talks. This modern take on an old Japanese saying still holds true. Cryptocurrency was supposed to do for money what the internet did for information, but it didn’t work out that way. Its virtual existence unleashed real-world chaos — especially in the homeland of its mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Tokyo was the centre of the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, until that company collapsed with nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of bitcoin gone missing. It might be the greatest heist in history. If it was a heist.
So what really happened? Here’s the true story of the humble-to-hot commodity, from the former geek website that launched the boom to an inside world of absent-minded CEOs, hucksters, hackers, cybercrooks, drug dealers, corrupt federal agents, evangelical libertarians, and clueless techies. You’ll discover Bitcoin’s connection to the infamous Silk Road, learn why hell has nothing on Japan’s criminal justice system, and get the lowdown on the high cost of betting with the Devil’s dollars. All of this for less than the price of a single bitcoin.
Wish you were stopping in MSP. We do have a sweet direct flight into Haneda. And, we actually spend lots of time reading here in flyover country :).
Excited to see you in Boston!! 🙏