Tom Callahan, The Bitcoin Conspiracy (Kindle 2023)
The mysterious ‘Sakashi Nakamoto’ introduced the world to Bitcoin in 2008. But will it change the world, overthrow global capitalism, bring down corrupt governments and corporations? Or is it just one more new technology?
Zhang Wei of China and V V Petrov of Russia strike a devilish conspiracy to challenge the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, the offspring of two US heroes—Laura Roberts and Tom Michaels—connect. Laura teaches at Johns Hopkins and researches cryptology and espionage; Tom is chief of the China desk at Langley and learns Mandarin.
Nakamoto’s hoard of bitcoin reaches 70 million USD, but he doesn’t emerge to claim it—the ‘Satoshi Hoard’.
The story plays on the popular myth that cryptocurrency could undermine hegemony of the dollar, if not bring down global capitalism, and the Sinophobic conspiracy theory of Wuhan laboratories developing the C-19 coronavirus as a biological weapon. It also works in references to real history. As well as the history of money, currency and cryptocurrency, we have the now-familiar picture of a moronic US president and a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
We spend a good few chapters just getting to know the characters, who all have extraordinary backgrounds and impossibly wonderful talents. Full of sumptuous metaphors (e.g. the US is a ‘captivating starlet’ with ‘geopolitical finesse’), over-generous with adjectives. I loved the idea of encoding secret words into the blockchain.
A great Concept, good Plot—which gets quite exciting in the latter third—and well structured, though not quite techy enough nor thrilling enough to be a techno-thriller. The tantalising ‘Chekhov’s gun’ of the Wagner PMC insignia is left hanging, as are the Johnson family. I wanted to read action and dialogue-packed scenes of how one ‘channels vast quantities of nuclear power into [an] illicit Bitcoin mining enterprise’; how one ‘[weaves] a thick web of misinformation and deception’; how one ‘uncover[s] a chilling trail of collusion and corruption’.
Susie Helme 
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