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Reviews
Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg
neuroqueer_af's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Pedophilia, and Sexual violence
madqueeen's review
4.0
I first came across this book from reading excerpts of it on Wired, and it intrigued me. It intrigued me for a couple of reasons: 1) I had a very rudimentary understanding of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, and I wanted to learn more, and 2) it was true crime, and the way it was written made it hard to put it down.
Overall, the book delivered what I was expecting - a fast-paced, hard-to-put-down story of the crypto-crime lords of the dark web. It did a great job of explaining technical terms and providing analogies to help my understanding. I've come out of this book knowing more about crypto and Bitcoin than before I read it, albeit, still only a beginner's understanding. The way the overarching story weaved between each key player and event over the decade was some of the best I've read. I was never confused because the author was always adding little reminders of who each person was (for example, if they hadn't been mentioned in several chapters and for a different event).
The reason I could not give it 5 stars is because of the lack of alternate perspectives. The author ended the book with several chapters that went through differing viewpoints from the book's theme of pro-law enforcement/government and pro-using Bitcoin tracing software. And I loved hearing those perspectives because I was able to see both sides of the debate over the ethics of tracing Bitcoin/cryptocurrency. I wish the author had incorporated these other views throughout the book to give readers the opportunity to think about the pros/cons of both sides. I understand why because the entire book is focused on hunting crime lords of cryptocurrency, and I fully expected that to be the main focus. Knowing the author is a reporter, though, has me putting more onus on them to have added those alternate perspectives throughout rather than just tacking them on at the end of the book. (To summarize, I think the book praised law enforcement and government intervention by circumventing laws around citizens' privacy _too_ much for my liking. While the actions these agencies did helped take down horrible sites that were hurting people around the globe, I think it's important to consider the human rights that can be violated when governments use these tools to go _beyond_ just hunting pedophiles and drug kingpins.)
Either way, I enjoyed it. Even if I disagreed with several of the folks who were interviewed/involved in the story.
Overall, the book delivered what I was expecting - a fast-paced, hard-to-put-down story of the crypto-crime lords of the dark web. It did a great job of explaining technical terms and providing analogies to help my understanding. I've come out of this book knowing more about crypto and Bitcoin than before I read it, albeit, still only a beginner's understanding. The way the overarching story weaved between each key player and event over the decade was some of the best I've read. I was never confused because the author was always adding little reminders of who each person was (for example, if they hadn't been mentioned in several chapters and for a different event).
The reason I could not give it 5 stars is because of the lack of alternate perspectives. The author ended the book with several chapters that went through differing viewpoints from the book's theme of pro-law enforcement/government and pro-using Bitcoin tracing software. And I loved hearing those perspectives because I was able to see both sides of the debate over the ethics of tracing Bitcoin/cryptocurrency. I wish the author had incorporated these other views throughout the book to give readers the opportunity to think about the pros/cons of both sides. I understand why because the entire book is focused on hunting crime lords of cryptocurrency, and I fully expected that to be the main focus. Knowing the author is a reporter, though, has me putting more onus on them to have added those alternate perspectives throughout rather than just tacking them on at the end of the book. (To summarize, I think the book praised law enforcement and government intervention by circumventing laws around citizens' privacy _too_ much for my liking. While the actions these agencies did helped take down horrible sites that were hurting people around the globe, I think it's important to consider the human rights that can be violated when governments use these tools to go _beyond_ just hunting pedophiles and drug kingpins.)
Either way, I enjoyed it. Even if I disagreed with several of the folks who were interviewed/involved in the story.