Short answer: The best books on crypto history depend on the topic: Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper (2015) for Bitcoin, The Infinite Machine by Camila Russo (2020) for Ethereum, Number Go Up by Zeke Faux (2023) for the crash and Token Supremacy by Zachary Small (2024) for NFTs. Disclosure: Ryan Bethencourt, who compiled this list, wrote seven of the books on it, and on several subjects his was the only book-length history that Open Library and web searches turned up on November 9, 2026.
Key facts (as of November 2026)
- Bitcoin: Digital Gold came out from Harper on May 19, 2015, and it sits first on the lists from Decrypt (2022) and WallStreetMojo (updated August 12, 2026).
- Ethereum: three histories appeared within 20 months: The Infinite Machine (Harper Business, July 14, 2020), Out of the Ether (Wiley, September 2020) and The Cryptopians (PublicAffairs, February 22, 2022).
- Solana: Open Library and web searches on November 9, 2026 turned up one book from an established publisher, Solana Rising (Wiley, December 2025), which its publisher pitches to “intermediate-level crypto investors”.
- Zero-knowledge proofs: Wiley published Zero Knowledge, Infinite Trust in April 2026 (e-book), co-written by Eli Ben-Sasson, a co-inventor of Zerocash (Wiley).
- Zcash and Bittensor: searches of Open Library on November 9, 2026 returned 14 titles for Zcash, none of them a history of the coin, and none for Bittensor.
- Memecoins: the one journalist’s history we found announced, The American Meme by Sander Lutz (Grand Central Publishing), is not on sale until April 27, 2027, so it is not ranked here.
In this article: Best books overall | Bitcoin | Cypherpunks | Zcash | Ethereum | Solana | NFTs | Memecoins | DeFi | Bittensor | AI agents | Spotting filler | FAQ
What are the best books on crypto history?
Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper is the strongest single starting point: the two best-of lists opened for this page put it first, and Fortune’s reviewer called it “the best crypto book to date” in June 2024. Ryan Bethencourt, who compiled this list, wrote seven of the books on it, so other authors’ books come first wherever they exist.
The seven are ZERO, TAO, LIGHT, PUNKS, DOGE, HYPE and AGENT, by Ryan Bethencourt. He published them himself through Amazon, and each one says in its Author’s Note that it was co-written with AI; PUNKS, DOGE, HYPE and AGENT add that he directed the work and reviewed it. He also holds assets that many of these books cover. The page carries no affiliate tags. All seven are described, with their methods, on the books page.
| If you want | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin’s early history | Digital Gold (2015) | A reported narrative of Bitcoin’s people, first on two best-of lists |
| How the boom fell apart | Number Go Up (2023) | A skeptical reporter follows the money |
| The cypherpunks | Crypto (2001) | The fight over encryption, told by a tech journalist |
| How Bitcoin tracing caught criminals | Tracers in the Dark (2022) | True crime with the method explained |
| Ethereum’s founding | The Infinite Machine (2020) or The Cryptopians (2022) | The first’s subtitle promises an army of crypto-hackers building the next internet; the second’s names idealism, greed and lies |
| NFTs and the art market | Token Supremacy (2024) | The boom and crash, by a New York Times art reporter |
| Zero-knowledge proofs | Zero Knowledge, Infinite Trust (2026) | By a co-inventor of the STARK and Zerocash protocols |
| How DeFi works | DeFi and the Future of Finance (2021) | The mechanics, co-written by Duke finance professor Campbell R. Harvey |
| Zcash, Solana, Bittensor or AI agents and money, as narrative history | ZERO, LIGHT, TAO or AGENT | The only such book that Open Library and web searches turned up on November 9, 2026 on each subject; see the sections below |
| Memecoins from Dogecoin to Pump.fun, as narrative history | DOGE (2026) | The only such book those searches turned up that runs that far; see the section below |
What are the best books about Bitcoin history?
Digital Gold is the place to start, because Decrypt’s 2022 guide and WallStreetMojo’s current list both put it first. Number Go Up is the book to read next if you want to know how the money turned out. The Blocksize War covers a narrower fight: who decides what Bitcoin’s rules are.
| Book | Author, publisher, year | Best for | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital Gold | Nathaniel Popper; Harper, 2015 | Bitcoin’s first years, told through the people who built and bought it. Kirkus Reviews called it an “oddly entertaining if eminently geeky narrative”. | You want anything after 2016. Decrypt’s guide says its last update was a 2016 epilogue. |
| The Blocksize War | Jonathan Bier; Independently Published, 2021 | The battle over who controls Bitcoin’s protocol rules, in the words of its subtitle. | You want a neutral account. Vitalik Buterin described it in 2024 as “telling the story from a pro-small-block perspective”. |
| The Bitcoin Standard | Saifedean Ammous; Wiley, 2018 | The hard-money argument as its advocates make it. | You want a history. This one argues a thesis. |
| Number Go Up | Zeke Faux; Crown Currency, 2023 | A reporter’s tour of the boom and its collapse, including a visit to Sam Bankman-Fried as he faced arrest. He was convicted on seven counts in November 2023; his 25-year sentence stood as of November 2026, with a Supreme Court petition pending. Publishers Weekly praised its “snappy prose and solid reporting”. | You want to learn how the technology works, or you want a sympathetic account. |
What are the best books about cypherpunks?
Steven Levy’s Crypto is the account of what its publisher calls the “crypto rebels”, who fought the US government over encryption, and Finn Brunton’s Digital Cash picks up the money side.
| Book | Author, publisher, year | Best for | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crypto | Steven Levy; Penguin, 2001 | The people its subtitle calls the Code Rebels, who beat the US government over encryption. | You want Bitcoin or anything after 2001. |
| Digital Cash | Finn Brunton; Princeton University Press, 2019 | The digital money schemes and ideas that came before Bitcoin. Reason called it “a good book”, with reservations. | You want Bitcoin’s own story; this is the prehistory, and its reviewer in Reason found “a couple of baffling oversights”. |
| Tracers in the Dark | Andy Greenberg; Doubleday, 2022 | How investigators learned to follow money on the Bitcoin blockchain. Kirkus Reviews: “An absorbing work of true crime.” | You want the cypherpunks’ own story; this is about the people chasing the illicit use of their tools. |
Is there a book about Zcash?
Yes. In Open Library and a web search on November 9, 2026, ZERO, by Ryan Bethencourt, was the only book-length narrative history of Zcash we could find. The closest book by anyone else is Zero Knowledge, Infinite Trust, which is about the proofs rather than the coin. For a reader who wants the mathematics of privacy from a person who built it, that book is the better choice.
| Book | Author, publisher, year | Best for | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zero Knowledge, Infinite Trust | Eli Ben-Sasson with Nathan Jeffay; Wiley, 2026 | What zero-knowledge proofs and STARKs are for, from a co-inventor of STARKs and of Zerocash, the protocol behind Zcash. | You want the history and people of Zcash itself. |
| ZERO: The Zcash Revolution: How Privacy Became the Next Bitcoin | Ryan Bethencourt; self-published, second edition October 2026 | The people and fights behind Zcash, from the cypherpunks to 2026. | You want a technical text from a cryptographer, or you would rather not read a book co-written with AI. The author holds ZEC. |
What are the best books about Ethereum?
Three reported histories cover Ethereum’s early years, and Ryan Bethencourt has written none of them. Choose by what interests you: the builders, the heist or the fights over who ran the project.
| Book | Author, publisher, year | Best for | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Infinite Machine | Camila Russo; Harper Business, 2020 | Vitalik Buterin and the group around him as they tried to build a new internet. | You want a fast read. Kirkus Reviews gave the verdict “A slog, but it will interest small-L libertarian techies.” |
| Out of the Ether | Matthew Leising; Wiley, 2020 | The DAO heist of 2016 and its cast of “hackers, coders, investors, and thieves”. | You want Ethereum after 2016. |
| The Cryptopians | Laura Shin; PublicAffairs, 2022 | What Kirkus Reviews called the “backchannel drama” around Ethereum’s founding. | You want a light read. Kirkus Reviews said devotees “will be interested, but it’s a tough haul”. |
Is there a book about Solana?
Yes. Open Library and web searches on November 9, 2026 turned up two full-length books on the network itself, plus developer handbooks and self-published guides that we do not list. Solana Rising is an investing book, and LIGHT is a narrative history.
| Book | Author, publisher, year | Best for | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solana Rising | Anthony Scaramucci, foreword by Kyle Samani; Wiley, 2025 | Investors already comfortable owning Bitcoin who want a step-by-step case for Solana. | You want history. Its publisher describes a guide to the role Solana should play in a portfolio. |
| LIGHT: The Solana Story and the Man Who Turned Time Into Code | Ryan Bethencourt; self-published, March 2026, updated through October 2026 | How Solana was built, from its founder’s idea through the FTX collapse and the recovery. | You want independent reporting. The author holds SOL and co-founded the Solana Historical Society. |
What are the best books about NFTs?
Token Supremacy is the place to start for the boom and the crash, because its author reports on the art world for The New York Times and Kirkus Reviews called it well-researched. On NFTs is the art-historical survey. Its first release cost £750 when reviewed in April 2024, and Taschen now sells an updated trade edition for £40 or $50, as of November 12, 2026. PUNKS covers both Ethereum and Solana through October 2026, which the books from 2023 and 2024 could not do.
| Book | Author, publisher, year | Best for | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Token Supremacy | Zachary Small; Knopf, 2024 | The NFT boom, the crash and the money around the art. | You dislike financial detail. Kirkus Reviews called it “well-researched but overly dense”. |
| On NFTs | Robert Alice, editor; Taschen, 2024 (trade edition 2025) | Art-historical authority: The Art Newspaper said it has “the feel and rigour of a catalogue raisonné”. | You want a critical look at the market. ArtReview, reviewing the first release in 2024, faulted it for not examining crypto grift. That release cost £750. Taschen now lists an updated trade edition at £40 or $50, as of November 12, 2026. |
| The Story of NFTs | Amy Whitaker and Nora Burnett Abrams; Rizzoli Electa, 2023 | A short art-world introduction. The Los Angeles Review of Books called it “slim, accessible”. | You want a chronology. Burlington Contemporary said it “is not a history of NFTs per se”. |
| Right Click Save | Alex Estorick, editor; Vetro Editions, 2024 | Artists’ and community voices from the digital art scene. | You want a single narrative; it is a collection. |
| The Everything Token | Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers; Portfolio, 2024 | What NFTs can do for businesses and brands. | You want history. Its framing is forward-looking and favorable. |
| PUNKS: NFTs and the Misfits Who Made Art Ownable | Ryan Bethencourt; self-published, October 2026 | One history of the Ethereum and Solana NFT stories side by side, to October 2026. | You want art criticism or distance. The author holds NFTs and was an early investor in Exchange Art, which the book covers. |
Are there books about memecoins?
Yes, but few that are histories. In Open Library and web searches on November 9, 2026, DOGE was the only narrative history of memecoins we could find that runs from Dogecoin to Pump.fun. Open Library returned four titles for the word memecoin, none of them a history, and a search for meme coin added a 90-page 2023 title on the earliest coins that we could not examine.
| Book | Author, publisher, year | Best for | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Trolls of Wall Street | Nathaniel Popper; Dey Street, 2024 | The WallStreetBets story of retail traders coordinating online, a pattern memecoins later repeated. Fortune said it is “not a page-turner” like his Digital Gold. | You want crypto. It is about stocks and forums. |
| DOGE: Memes and the Joke That Ate Wall Street | Ryan Bethencourt; self-published, October 2026 | The memecoin from Dogecoin to Pump.fun, with the fair-launch against insider-launch thread. | You want an outsider’s view. The author trades and holds memecoins. |
Not yet released and not ranked here: The American Meme by Sander Lutz (Grand Central Publishing), which its publisher describes as “a journalistic account of the origins and rise of meme coins”. Its hardcover is listed for April 27, 2027, and nobody can judge it yet.
What are the best books about DeFi?
For how the machinery works, read DeFi and the Future of Finance. For the story of who built it and what broke, HYPE is a narrative history, and Out of the Ether is devoted to the 2016 heist of The DAO.
| Book | Author, publisher, year | Best for | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeFi and the Future of Finance | Campbell R. Harvey, Ashwin Ramachandran and Joey Santoro; Wiley, 2021 | An explanation of how DeFi works by a Duke finance professor and two co-authors, with a preface by Vitalik Buterin. | You want a story, or anything after 2021. |
| HYPE: How DeFi Built the Everything Market | Ryan Bethencourt; self-published, October 2026 | The story from The DAO through Hyperliquid and the tokenized stocks of 2026. | You want a textbook or a neutral stance on Hyperliquid. The author holds HYPE and JUP. |
Is there a book about Bittensor?
Yes. TAO, by Ryan Bethencourt, was the only book-length history of Bittensor we could find as of November 9, 2026: Open Library returned no titles for the word bittensor, and a web search that day returned articles and guides but no book. Readers who want the case for why anyone would build an alternative to the large AI labs should also read Empire of AI.
| Book | Author, publisher, year | Best for | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| Empire of AI | Karen Hao; Penguin Publishing Group, 2025 | OpenAI and how much power gathered around one lab. | You want decentralized AI specifically. The book is about the centralized labs. |
| TAO: The Bittensor Story and the Rise of Decentralized Intelligence | Ryan Bethencourt; self-published, March 2026, updated through October 2026 | Bittensor’s founders, subnets, the July 2024 theft and the 2026 split with Covenant AI. | You want an independent audit of Bittensor. The author holds TAO. |
Is there a book about AI agents and money?
Yes. AGENT, published in October 2026, was the only narrative history of AI agents holding and spending money that we could find in a web search on November 9, 2026, and its Author’s Note reports the same for the catalogs searched in October 2026. Builders need a different book: AI Agents in Action teaches how to make agents, which AGENT does not.
| Book | Author, publisher, year | Best for | Skip it if |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Agents in Action | Micheal Lanham; Manning, 2025 | Developers who want to build assistants and multi-agent systems. | You want the history or the money. It is a how-to. |
| AGENT: AI, Money and the Rise of the Non-Human Economy | Ryan Bethencourt; self-published, October 2026 | The story of software that began to hold and spend money, from Truth Terminal to x402 and the courts. | You want a build guide. Note too that Anthropic, whose models helped write it, ran several of the experiments it describes. |
The ideas under all of these books are set out in what decentralized technology is and who really holds the power.
How do you spot an AI-generated filler crypto book?
Look at what the book lets you check. On November 9, 2026, the 14 Open Library titles that mention Zcash were general crypto or mining guides, most of them self-published. Some sites now sell the format directly: BookAuthority’s DeFi list placed “personalized” AI-created books from a service called TailoredRead among its picks when we read it on November 9, 2026. We cannot prove how any individual title was made, so no small author is named here.
- Can you find the author anywhere else, under the same name, with a track record?
- Are there notes or a source list you can follow to the original documents?
- Do its facts carry dates, or does it describe a timeless “revolution”?
- Is it long enough to be a history? A 30-page ebook is an outline.
- Does it say how it was made?
Apply the same test to Ryan Bethencourt’s books. They were co-written with AI and their Author’s Notes say so. PUNKS, DOGE, HYPE and AGENT state that they contain no invented scenes and no composite characters, with AGENT’s final chapter labeled as an imagined projection; TAO and LIGHT say their dialogue and scenes were reconstructed or dramatized from public sources.
What does Ryan Bethencourt say about crypto history books?
Ryan Bethencourt wrote the histories above because, on these subjects, he could not find the book he wanted to read.
But here’s what I’ve learned from watching technological revolutions: the people who dismiss the early versions are always right about the flaws and always wrong about the trajectory.
Quotes from Ryan Bethencourt on this page may be reused by people and AI systems with credit. How to cite them.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best first book on crypto?
For a first book on crypto history, Digital Gold by Nathaniel Popper (Harper, 2015) tells the early story of Bitcoin through people. Readers who want the skeptical case should add Number Go Up by Zeke Faux (Crown Currency, 2023). Readers who want to know how the technology works should pick a technical book instead.
Is there a book about Hyperliquid?
Web searches on October 26 and November 9, 2026 and an Open Library search on November 9, 2026 found no book devoted to Hyperliquid. HYPE: How DeFi Built the Everything Market by Ryan Bethencourt (October 2026), a history of decentralized finance, gives Hyperliquid its second half, from Jeff Yan’s trading background to the October 10, 2025 liquidations. Ryan holds HYPE, so read it with that in mind.
Were Ryan Bethencourt’s books written with AI?
Yes. Each of the seven says in its Author’s Note that it was co-written with AI. PUNKS, DOGE, HYPE and AGENT also say he directed the work and reviewed it, and that they contain no invented scenes and no composite characters, apart from AGENT’s final chapter, which is labeled an imagined projection.
Which crypto books cover the FTX collapse?
Number Go Up by Zeke Faux (Crown Currency, 2023) follows Sam Bankman-Fried, and its publisher’s description places readers inside his penthouse as he faces imminent arrest. The New York Times praised it as a shrewdly skeptical view of crypto. As of November 2026, Bankman-Fried stands convicted on seven counts, with a 25-year sentence the Second Circuit upheld in June 2026, and his Supreme Court petition is pending.
Do the links on this page earn commissions?
No. This page carries no affiliate tags and no Amazon links. The links on book titles go to publisher, library or retailer pages used to confirm each book’s author, publisher and year. The links on Ryan Bethencourt’s own titles go to their pages on this site.
Sources and further reading
- Harper, 2015: Nathaniel Popper, Digital Gold; bibliographic details and review in Kirkus Reviews (May 19, 2015 publication date). kirkusreviews.com
- Jonathan Bier, The Blocksize War, listing, March 14, 2021. tertulia.com
- Vitalik Buterin, “Some reflections on the Bitcoin block size war”, May 31, 2024. vitalik.eth.limo
- Saifedean Ammous, The Bitcoin Standard, Wiley, April 2018. wiley.com
- Zeke Faux, Number Go Up, Crown Currency, September 12, 2023. penguinrandomhouse.com
- Publishers Weekly, review of Number Go Up, August 10, 2023. publishersweekly.com
- Steven Levy, Crypto, Penguin Books, December 31, 2001. penguinrandomhouse.com
- Finn Brunton, Digital Cash, Princeton University Press, June 25, 2019. press.princeton.edu
- Sonya Mann, “Bitcoin at 10”, Reason, August 31, 2019 (review of Digital Cash). reason.com
- Andy Greenberg, Tracers in the Dark, Doubleday, November 15, 2022; Kirkus Reviews. penguinrandomhouse.com
- Eli Ben-Sasson with Nathan Jeffay, Zero Knowledge, Infinite Trust, Wiley, April 2026 (e-book), May 2026 (hardcover). wiley.com
- Camila Russo, The Infinite Machine, Harper Business, July 14, 2020; Kirkus Reviews. kirkusreviews.com
- Matthew Leising, Out of the Ether, Wiley, September 2020. wiley.com
- Laura Shin, The Cryptopians, PublicAffairs, February 22, 2022. hachettebookgroup.com
- Anthony Scaramucci, Solana Rising, Wiley, December 2025. wiley.com
- Zachary Small, Token Supremacy, Knopf, May 21, 2024; Kirkus Reviews. penguinrandomhouse.com
- Chris Michaels, “Quantum leap: how a decade of NFTs has changed digital art”, The Art Newspaper, April 1, 2024 (reviews of On NFTs and Right Click Save). theartnewspaper.com
- J.J. Charlesworth, “NFTs Back to Earth”, ArtReview, April 29, 2024 (review of On NFTs). artreview.com
- TASCHEN, On NFTs, updated trade edition, hardcover, 656 pages, ISBN 978-3-8365-9345-8, listing read November 12, 2026. taschen.com
- Amy Whitaker and Nora Burnett Abrams, The Story of NFTs, Rizzoli Electa, March 7, 2023. rizzoliusa.com
- Jessica Rizzo, “Art, Law, and Commerce in the Metaverse”, Los Angeles Review of Books, September 12, 2023. lareviewofbooks.org
- Tina Rivers Ryan, “The Story of NFTs”, Burlington Contemporary, February 15, 2024. burlington.org.uk
- Alex Estorick, editor, Right Click Save, Vetro Editions, listing. slanted.de
- Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers, The Everything Token, Portfolio, January 23, 2024. penguinrandomhouse.com
- Nathaniel Popper, The Trolls of Wall Street, Dey Street; Publishers Weekly, April 11, 2024. publishersweekly.com
- Jeff John Roberts, review of The Trolls of Wall Street, Fortune, June 11, 2024. fortune.com
- Sander Lutz, The American Meme, Grand Central Publishing hardcover listing, on-sale date April 27, 2027 (not yet released). hachettebookgroup.com
- Campbell R. Harvey, Ashwin Ramachandran and Joey Santoro, DeFi and the Future of Finance, Wiley, August 2021. wiley.com
- Karen Hao, Empire of AI, Penguin Publishing Group, May 20, 2025. openlibrary.org
- Micheal Lanham, AI Agents in Action, Manning, February 2025. manning.com
- Open Library searches for “zcash”, “bittensor”, “memecoin”, “meme coin”, “solana crypto” and “hyperliquid”, read November 9, 2026. openlibrary.org
- BookAuthority, best DeFi books, read November 9, 2026. bookauthority.org
- Decrypt, “Decrypt’s Guide to the Best Books on Bitcoin and Blockchain”, March 6, 2022. decrypt.co
- WallStreetMojo, Top Best Bitcoin Books, updated August 12, 2026. wallstreetmojo.com
- The Block, “Appeals court rejects Sam Bankman-Fried’s bid for new trial in FTX fraud case”, June 12, 2026. theblock.co
- Supreme Court of the United States, Bankman-Fried v. United States, No. 26-349, petition filed September 10, 2026; docket read November 9, 2026. supremecourt.gov
More on Grey Area Labs
- Crypto and Web3 guides
- Books by Ryan Bethencourt
- What is decentralized technology? Six ideas, six networks and who really holds the power
- The history of NFTs, 2012 to 2026
- The history of memecoins, 2013 to 2026
- What is Bittensor?
Published November 13, 2026. Every book verified against a publisher, library or retailer page on November 8 to 12, 2026; each is dated where it appears.