"The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze" by Laura Shin is a crucial read for those onboarding to ETH and the broader crypto industry.

The book chronicles the major figures who drove blockchain, decentralization, and cryptocurrencies to their current prominence.

It traces Vitalik Buterin's journey from his early days as a writer for Bitcoin Magazine to launching and promoting Ethereum, which became the second-largest decentralized network by market capitalization.

My takeaway: None of these individuals are your average Alice and Bob. Most have a chip on their shoulder, operate on the spectrum, and are deeply paranoid.

For instance, here's a quote from the book about Ming Chen, the Ethereum Foundation's first Director:

Ming's marathon phone calls were notorious. She would call pretty much any staffer and talk for hours. One hour, two hours, four. Some developers tolerated it, like Christian Reitwießner, who would clear at least an hour for every meeting with Ming. At least he stayed informed about the foundation's goings-on, unlike under Gavin. Another developer found the calls friendly but meandering. She would start by saying, "I have no time for this. I've barely slept in three days. I had to do Christmas with my family and my dog is dying, and I have to spend the whole Christmas night writing documents." Then she'd veer into the history of China and her family's exodus to Switzerland during the Cultural Revolution. He found these conversations interesting, but eventually, he'd have to find a polite way to end the call.

Others were less patient. "You could literally put her on mute and unmute her 30 minutes later and just say, 'Yeah, uh-huh, hm,' occasionally," one developer recalled.

The content of her monologues wasn't exactly professional. She would sometimes vent about people for an hour or more. She often cried, talking about how stressful and tough everything was, how bad the state of Ethereum and its finances was, freaking out about regulators and how everyone had made a mess of everything. She would say her job was uniquely hard, no one appreciated her, and if her colleagues didn't start valuing her more, she would quit so people would realize she had saved the foundation. Because she was constantly unloading her problems, the staff felt that phone chats with Ming were therapy for her and emotional labor for them. One person observed to Ming's boyfriend, Casey, that she complained about other people a lot. He was surprised when Casey agreed that she got into crazy spin mode and it was hard to get her out. He thought to himself, well, you're banging her. (Casey, a developer, worked on Ethereum but was paid nothing or a nominal amount like $1 a year.) In general, she couldn't separate the personal from the professional, so when employees wanted to tell her something in a professional capacity, she wouldn't hear it because she would be so focused on her feelings or how someone was supposedly wronging her. Because she was their boss, they couldn't tell her that her behavior was inappropriate. One C++ developer described her as 'the least professional person I've ever seen.'

The book also delves into the infamous events the Ethereum network has experienced - DAO hack, ETC fork, etc.

I recommend this book for those interested in the business side of cryptocurrency and the people who shaped it.