This book tells the largely untold story of digital cash and the people who sought to build it - some to bring down states and nations and create a utopia of ciphers, some to be rewarded by the collapse of global order, and some to spur the genesis of amachine by which they could live forever. It explains how cryptocurrencies came to be: the preconditions, the technologies and subcultures, and the ideas, fantasies, fictions, and models of the future behind Bitcoin’s first announcement.