Dark Markets is a newsletter about technology fraud - not just financial chicanery, but also ideological manipulation and misleading technical hype. Author David Z. Morris is a longtime financial fraud investigator and crypto pioneer. In 2013 while writing for Fortune, he became one of the first reporters to ever cover cryptocurrency in a mainstream publication.
Dark Markets👁️ Bullish and EOS: “A Fraud in Plain Sight”
The team behind Bullish brutally rugpulled their earliest investors. They'll do the same to public markets.
Dark Markets👁️ The Metaverse is On Its Last Legs
Say goodbye to the Previous Thing. Also: Salesforce gets f*cked by AI, Tesla's Roadster scam, and more.
Dark MarketsThe Mormon Manson and the $Libra Fraud, Pt. 2: Hayden Davis' Family Murder Cult Was All About Money
The $Libra scammer's great-grandfather built a lasting empire of fraud, extortion, and theft, enforced by murder, brainwashing ... and elite government connections.
Dark Markets👁️ Bullish and EOS: “A Fraud in Plain Sight”
The team behind Bullish brutally rugpulled their earliest investors. They'll do the same to public markets.
Dark Markets👁️ The Metaverse is On Its Last Legs
Say goodbye to the Previous Thing. Also: Salesforce gets f*cked by AI, Tesla's Roadster scam, and more.
Dark MarketsThe Mormon Manson and the $Libra Fraud, Pt. 2: Hayden Davis' Family Murder Cult Was All About Money
The $Libra scammer's great-grandfather built a lasting empire of fraud, extortion, and theft, enforced by murder, brainwashing ... and elite government connections.
Dark Markets is a newsletter about technology fraud - not just financial chicanery, but also ideological manipulation and misleading technical hype. Author David Z. Morris is a longtime financial fraud investigator and crypto pioneer. In 2013 while writing for Fortune, he became one of the first reporters to ever cover cryptocurrency in a mainstream publication.
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Subscribe to Dark Markets
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Hello to a big bunch of new subscribers! I’m David Z. Morris, and I’ve been very humbled by the flood of interest in my work here. This email is intended to get all of you new subscribers caught up, with a (long) list of some of the most important work here at Dark Markets.
First, about me: I’m a former reporter for Fortune Magazine, where I investigated Nikola and other frauds, and a former columnist for CoinDesk, where I was part of the team that exposed and brought down Sam Bankman-Fried. I wrote a book about Sam that’s very, very good. I also have a Phd in the history of technology, and (among other C.V. entries) have served as a visiting scholar at Tokyo University of Fine Arts (Geidai).
Our work at CoinDesk was so effective that we blew up our parent company, which had loaned FTX a bunch of money. That made us the story for a moment, with writeups in the New York Times and a glorious photo spread in New York Magazine.
But because we killed CoinDesk (now a husk of its former self owned by actual fraudsters), I am now completely independent. That leaves me free to speak the truth here in blunt terms, and it means your support here is extremely valuable. Some of the below pieces are paywalled for paying supporters, who also get access to a subscriber chat and a few other benefits.
Dark Markets is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Subscribe
P.S. If you didn’t see my interview with Wajahat, you should.
The Left Hook with Wajahat Ali
Epstein's Genocidal Crypto Bros Are Willing to Kill Us All For Their Techno-Fascist Paradise
(Credit: Montage, Issie Yewman, ByTheLinesTimes.com…
5 days ago · 955 likes · 97 comments · THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali and David Z. Morris
And if you missed it, definitely catch up on my recent dive into the connections between Jeffrey Epstein and a pair of fraudulent PR firms, who I first started investigating in 2019:
·
Feb 11
Masha Prusakova and Masha Drokova were very bad at public relations. But they were very good at helping Jeffrey Epstein in other ways.
Second, please consider grabbing a copy of Stealing the Future, my book about Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX fraud, and how techno-utopian thought enables fraud.
·
June 9, 2024
An introduction to the work of Emill Torres and Timnit Gebru, coiners of the acronym for the obfuscated tech-authoritarian package: Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singulariatrianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism.
·
June 23, 2024
Eliezer Yudkowsky's "Rationalist" movement is, as you might guess, exactly the opposite of that name: A vector for madness, nonsense, compulsion, exploitation, and ignorance. No wonder Peter Thiel was his biggest champion.
·
January 28, 2025
This isn't even the only cult associated with Rationalism. It's just the only one that killed three or four innocent people in random acts of psychotic violence. So far.
·
Feb 3
Years after Sam Bankman-Fried blew up, we can connect his ideas to Jeffrey Epstein through figures including Nick Bostrom.
·
June 18, 2024
The line from FTX to outright techno-fascism ran, in part, through the Rose Garden Inn and its Festival of Eugenics.
·
January 17, 2025
Subscribe
·
July 1, 2025
Jeffrey Epstein's overriding goal was to eliminate accountability for the very wealthy. He strongly approved of Peter Thiel's attacks on education and the media - and the broader agenda of destroying institutions to foment social chaos.
·
October 23, 2024
·
October 21, 2025
·
September 23, 2025
Yudkowsky's blinkered critiques of Stephen Jay Gould, of all people, again link TESCREALism to race science and genocidal logics.
·
December 18, 2024
Far from a left-winger obsessed with inequality, Mangione's path started in the more brightly-lit parts of the "intellectual dark web."
·
July 14, 2024
In which one of Effective Altruism's many rigorous critics absolutely bodies its lazy, self-satisfied, pro-corporate intellectual godfather.
Many of these posts are paywalled. To gain access to all Dark Markets articles, including previews of future book projects, as well as other benefits including member chat, consider becoming a supporting member.
Subscribe
·
March 21, 2023
In March of 2023, I saw all of this bullshit coming.
·
May 11, 2025
The hilarious thing about Rationslists and AI bros is they are completely blinded to their own biases by the sight of money.
·
October 7, 2025
·
September 16, 2024
The very concept of artificial intelligence is only legible if you regard humans themselves as simple (and disposable) machines.
·
October 5, 2025
·
June 18, 2025
·
June 10, 2025
·
March 13, 2025
The myth of genius is often a huge warning sign of fraud.
·
May 4, 2025
The pitch that led Sam Bankman-Fried into finance is most appealing to people who have absolutely no talent, desire, or sense of purpose.
Subscribe
·
July 1, 2024
Sam Bankman-Fried's rise was driven by the desires of influential people around him. His fall cleansed them of their sins.
·
February 2, 2025
·
February 9, 2025
How painting 30-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried as a child helped sell his fraud.
·
August 20, 2024
·
February 16, 2025
The CIA's favorite law firm was hip-deep in FTX. Why?
·
October 14, 2024
A dive into Jean Baudrillard, whose economic theories explain how gambling and fraud took over our society.
·
December 28, 2025
“Inorganic demons are parasitic by nature – they produce their effects out of a human host.”
Subscribe
·
April 2, 2025
One of the things I’ve learned over ~15 years investigating technology and investment fraud is this: Fraud is mostly committed by people too incompetent to succeed without it.
·
August 31, 2025
The publicly traded "crypto exchange" has its origins in a $4 billion fraud.
·
September 15, 2025
·
September 7, 2025
·
August 30, 2025
·
May 26, 2025
·
November 25, 2025
Hello and welcome to your (usually) weekly Dark Markets financial fraud news roundup. I’m David Z. Morris, longtime tech, finance and crypto investigator.
Subscribe
·
February 17, 2025
Part 1 of my dive into one of the most bizarre connections I've ever unearthed - and the possible role of a colony of Mormon polygamists in laying the groundworth for the kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro.
·
Jan 5
Hello to a big bunch of new subscribers! I’m David Z. Morris, and I’ve been very humbled by the flood of interest in my work here. This email is intended to get all of you new subscribers caught up, with a (long) list of some of the most important work here at Dark Markets.
First, about me: I’m a former reporter for Fortune Magazine, where I investigated Nikola and other frauds, and a former columnist for CoinDesk, where I was part of the team that exposed and brought down Sam Bankman-Fried. I wrote a book about Sam that’s very, very good. I also have a Phd in the history of technology, and (among other C.V. entries) have served as a visiting scholar at Tokyo University of Fine Arts (Geidai).
Our work at CoinDesk was so effective that we blew up our parent company, which had loaned FTX a bunch of money. That made us the story for a moment, with writeups in the New York Times and a glorious photo spread in New York Magazine.
But because we killed CoinDesk (now a husk of its former self owned by actual fraudsters), I am now completely independent. That leaves me free to speak the truth here in blunt terms, and it means your support here is extremely valuable. Some of the below pieces are paywalled for paying supporters, who also get access to a subscriber chat and a few other benefits.
Dark Markets is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Subscribe
P.S. If you didn’t see my interview with Wajahat, you should.
The Left Hook with Wajahat Ali
Epstein's Genocidal Crypto Bros Are Willing to Kill Us All For Their Techno-Fascist Paradise
(Credit: Montage, Issie Yewman, ByTheLinesTimes.com…
5 days ago · 955 likes · 97 comments · THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali and David Z. Morris
And if you missed it, definitely catch up on my recent dive into the connections between Jeffrey Epstein and a pair of fraudulent PR firms, who I first started investigating in 2019:
·
Feb 11
Masha Prusakova and Masha Drokova were very bad at public relations. But they were very good at helping Jeffrey Epstein in other ways.
Second, please consider grabbing a copy of Stealing the Future, my book about Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX fraud, and how techno-utopian thought enables fraud.
·
June 9, 2024
An introduction to the work of Emill Torres and Timnit Gebru, coiners of the acronym for the obfuscated tech-authoritarian package: Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singulariatrianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism.
·
June 23, 2024
Eliezer Yudkowsky's "Rationalist" movement is, as you might guess, exactly the opposite of that name: A vector for madness, nonsense, compulsion, exploitation, and ignorance. No wonder Peter Thiel was his biggest champion.
·
January 28, 2025
This isn't even the only cult associated with Rationalism. It's just the only one that killed three or four innocent people in random acts of psychotic violence. So far.
·
Feb 3
Years after Sam Bankman-Fried blew up, we can connect his ideas to Jeffrey Epstein through figures including Nick Bostrom.
·
June 18, 2024
The line from FTX to outright techno-fascism ran, in part, through the Rose Garden Inn and its Festival of Eugenics.
·
January 17, 2025
Subscribe
·
July 1, 2025
Jeffrey Epstein's overriding goal was to eliminate accountability for the very wealthy. He strongly approved of Peter Thiel's attacks on education and the media - and the broader agenda of destroying institutions to foment social chaos.
·
October 23, 2024
·
October 21, 2025
·
September 23, 2025
Yudkowsky's blinkered critiques of Stephen Jay Gould, of all people, again link TESCREALism to race science and genocidal logics.
·
December 18, 2024
Far from a left-winger obsessed with inequality, Mangione's path started in the more brightly-lit parts of the "intellectual dark web."
·
July 14, 2024
In which one of Effective Altruism's many rigorous critics absolutely bodies its lazy, self-satisfied, pro-corporate intellectual godfather.
Many of these posts are paywalled. To gain access to all Dark Markets articles, including previews of future book projects, as well as other benefits including member chat, consider becoming a supporting member.
Subscribe
·
March 21, 2023
In March of 2023, I saw all of this bullshit coming.
·
May 11, 2025
The hilarious thing about Rationslists and AI bros is they are completely blinded to their own biases by the sight of money.
·
October 7, 2025
·
September 16, 2024
The very concept of artificial intelligence is only legible if you regard humans themselves as simple (and disposable) machines.
·
October 5, 2025
·
June 18, 2025
·
June 10, 2025
·
March 13, 2025
The myth of genius is often a huge warning sign of fraud.
·
May 4, 2025
The pitch that led Sam Bankman-Fried into finance is most appealing to people who have absolutely no talent, desire, or sense of purpose.
Subscribe
·
July 1, 2024
Sam Bankman-Fried's rise was driven by the desires of influential people around him. His fall cleansed them of their sins.
·
February 2, 2025
·
February 9, 2025
How painting 30-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried as a child helped sell his fraud.
·
August 20, 2024
·
February 16, 2025
The CIA's favorite law firm was hip-deep in FTX. Why?
·
October 14, 2024
A dive into Jean Baudrillard, whose economic theories explain how gambling and fraud took over our society.
·
December 28, 2025
“Inorganic demons are parasitic by nature – they produce their effects out of a human host.”
Subscribe
·
April 2, 2025
One of the things I’ve learned over ~15 years investigating technology and investment fraud is this: Fraud is mostly committed by people too incompetent to succeed without it.
·
August 31, 2025
The publicly traded "crypto exchange" has its origins in a $4 billion fraud.
·
September 15, 2025
·
September 7, 2025
·
August 30, 2025
·
May 26, 2025
·
November 25, 2025
Hello and welcome to your (usually) weekly Dark Markets financial fraud news roundup. I’m David Z. Morris, longtime tech, finance and crypto investigator.
Subscribe
·
February 17, 2025
Part 1 of my dive into one of the most bizarre connections I've ever unearthed - and the possible role of a colony of Mormon polygamists in laying the groundworth for the kidnapping of Nicholas Maduro.
·
Jan 5
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