Tech
Silicon Valley Crypto Investor Chris Dixon Wants to Disrupt the Industry
On a cold day in March, Chris Dixon arrives at Green Apple Books, an independent bookstore in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood, ready to sign books. In Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet, Andreessen HorowitzThe leading cryptocurrency investor is extolling the virtues of blockchain, the technology that powers cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. The book is an attempt by one of the industry’s biggest boosters, who has pumped billions of dollars into startups including Coinbase Global Inc. and the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club Yuga Labs—to rehabilitate cryptocurrencies’ tarnished image after a year of rock-bottom prices and prison sentences for its biggest stars.
When Dixon’s book first hit the shelves in January, the reviews didn’t exactly catapult it to success. Shoe dog state. Cryptocurrency researcher Molly White he skewered it with the joy of Pete Wells after the demolition an Almond Joy cocktail at Guy Fieri’s Flavortown. “Dixon fails to identify a single blockchain project that has successfully provided a non-speculative service at any scale,” he wrote. Dixon tells me that White is “a professional anti-crypto person.” (White wrote a piece on the state of cryptocurrency for Bloomberg Businessweek on May 2.) In February, Read Write Own earned a spot on the New York Times best-seller list, beating out Britney Spears’ memoir. But a dagger appeared next to the title, indicating that large wholesale orders were helping to boost sales. The press seized on the discovery, and after just two weeks, the book was dropped from the list.