Michael Lewis, best-selling author of The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine and Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, has revealed that he is nearing completion of his book on Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon is the title of Lewis’s upcoming book about Bankman-Fried. Lewis first met SBF in late 2021 after a friend asked him to meet the FTX founder and assess his character.
On May 19, at the Bitcoin 2023 conference in Miami, Lewis did not provide a specific publication date but indicated that he hopes the book will be available around the time that SBF’s trial begins in October.
A quick Amazon search reveals, however, that the book’s tentative release date is October 3.
Before FTX’s infamous collapse in November 2022, Lewis was reportedly close to completing the novel. The subsequent criminal charges against SBF added an entirely new dimension to the tale of the former crypto mogul and billionaire.
Lewis, while discussing the writing process at a Bitcoin conference, suggested that the FTX drama ultimately saved the book.
“I thought, ‘I don’t have a book,'” he said, adding:
“I had this conversation with a kind of person I used as a sounding board…and he said, ‘Your problem is you don’t have a third act. You have the first two acts, but you don’t have a third act.‘ And I said, ‘That’s absolutely right; I don’t know how to end it.‘ A week later, FTX blows up. I was so grateful.“
The author didn’t want to give too many details in the book, but he was able to witness FTX’s meltdown as it occurred.
“It aims to read like a piece of fiction,” he said, adding, “if you were unfamiliar with crypto. If you were unaware of Sam Bankman-Fried’s existence, You might believe that this is a fabrication.”
In addition, Lewis disclosed at the conference that he owns a small amount of Bitcoin that is currently frozen in the FTX bankruptcy.
Given that Lewis’s previous book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, provided an engaging and comprehensive overview of the key players and events surrounding the 2008 housing bubble crisis, his next book on SBF is likely to contain insightful observations.
Lewis disclosed during his presentation at the conference that he had conducted interviews with members of SBF’s inner circle, FTX employees, and government officials from the Bahamas and the United States.
In addition, he has had access to SBF for the past two years, as the FTX founder has continued to grant Lewis permission to interview him while he was under house arrest in Palo Alto, California.
