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The name of the exchange BTC-e, which after the closure was relaunched under the name WEX, is on the lips of most members of the Russian-speaking cryptocurrency community. At the peak of its popularity in the fall of 2016, it was the world’s third-largest exchange by trading volume: 15% of all bitcoin purchases came from this site (about $10 million a day at the exchange rate at the time).</nbsp;<br
In terms of the number of affected users, its closure is comparable in importance to the collapse of the infamous MtGox, which was transferred to trust management and is systematically approaching the beginning of payments to its creditors. In the case of BTC-e/WEX any payments are out of the question, but the main question where is “Winnik’s treasure”, not the first year is asked by thousands of owners of crypto assets.
In his book, investigative journalist Andrei Zakharov tried to answer this question, since 2021 he has been included to the extensive registry of foreign agents, which is constantly updated by the Ministry of Justice. By his own admission, he was not associated with the crypto-world until 2017, when, at the request of the editorial board of RBC, he began to engage in a story about BTC-e;
In 2018, he published several extensive investigations into the exchange and its beneficiaries. These articles brought attention to the history of the site and revealed previously unknown details about those interested in buying it. As Zakharov notes in his book, investigations about WEX indirectly sparked a wave of reports of pseudomining that lasted from December 2019 through the spring of 2020, and interrupted when the pandemic began.
About
The extent of Zakharov’s immersion in the crypto-world is reflected in the way he approached creating the book. “Crypt” is divided into three parts, corresponding to time periods in the development of the cryptocommunity, in each of which, block by block, Zakharov describes three interrelated chains of events. Blockchain-1 – “Mir”, blockchain-2 – “Russia” and blockchain-3 – “Exchange. The chapter numbers correspond to the block number in each blockchain, the chapter name itself is “Hash” and the time of events is “Timestamp”.
Zakharov could have confined himself to the history of the stock exchange and published a book that would be a synthesis of his investigations. A narrow circle of readers would like such a concept, but such a format would not allow to comprehensively reveal the motives of the creators of BTC-e/WEX and all interested parties. The Exchange did not exist in a vacuum: its creators and creditors were products of time and society. This is why the chain of events “World” and “Russia” are so important. They not only give us the context, but also allow us to analyze how the Russian and global cryptocommunities developed in parallel, what are their similarities and differences.
In addition to the BTC-e/WEX story, the book covers iconic industry events: the creation of the Etherium blockchain, the first steps in cryptocurrency regulation in different countries, the ICO boom and its consequences, and the development of various cryptoprojects. A separate chapter of the book “Cryptopropaganda in the Bar” is dedicated to the creation of Bits.media and its founder Ivan Tikhonov.
“Crypta” skillfully combines several genres at once. This is a thriller: the story of Biliuchenko’s trip to the FSB, while reading it, it seems that the plot is about to break tragically. This is a detective story: an attempt to unravel the history of BTC-e/WEX and find out what happened to the money of the exchange and its investors, which catharsis in the best traditions of the genre is the last chapter. It’s a drama: the tragic story of Winnick, his shattered family, the death of his wife, and the mysterious death of a lawyer.
Above all, however, “Crypt” is a masterful investigation by Andrei Zakharov, which strikes with its meticulousness, desire to get to the truth and fearlessness;
For whom
The main drawback of the book – a soft cover, which greatly reduces the physical life of the paper copy. After reading it, you probably want to share it with your friends, relatives, and family. Due to the fact that Zakharov is a journalist, not a crypto-punk, he managed to tell the readers in understandable and accessible language, without drowning in complicated terminology, what is a cryptocurrency, blockchain and why they are needed. “Crypta” will be of interest not only to members of the crypto community, but also to anyone who is passionate about IT, the history of money development and appreciates quality journalism.
The book captures and reads in one breath, like a real detective, with the key difference from the works of this genre: “Crypt” deals with real, famous (and not very) people in the crypto community and not only. While reading you can experience a wide range of emotions: pity, sympathy, joy, disgust, bewilderment, and, of course, fear.. Both for the fate of some of the book’s characters and its author.
Zakharov is no stranger to the impulses of Dostoevsky and Berdyaev: a thin thread runs through the plot of the book’s discussion of the fate of Russia. Thoughts on how the Russian cryptoindustry would have developed if it had been under different conditions. If it had been given “the green light,” rather than a mixture of red and gray, that is, prohibition and uncertainty,” as Zakharov wryly points out in the afterword. If it were developed by cipherpunks and “IT geeks” without the active participation of the FSB, Donbass veterans and entrepreneurs from the nineties;
Zakharov does not engage in moralizing and ends his book on an optimistic note:
“… cryptocurrencies are with humanity forever, and one day Russia will be famous first and foremost for its “unicorn” cryptostarts, not just for the murky exchanges and exchanges in which FSB officers, State Duma deputies or veterans of the war in Donbass are implicated. Likewise, I believe I will return home one day: in the midst of working on this book, in the fall of 2021, the Russian authorities recognized me as a foreign agent, I found myself under surveillance, and I was forced to leave my homeland. For the book, oddly enough, the pause proved useful: the story of the BTC-e/Wex collapse continued to develop in 2022, although something – such as where the “Winnick treasure” has settled – remains a mystery even as of March 2023, as I write this afterword. But someday the final answer block will certainly be generated in this blockchain.”
You can buy the book “Crypt” at Kiosk with promo code bitsmedia for a 15% discount. The discount is valid until July 15, 2023.