From renowned financial and technology journalist Nathaniel Popper the dramatic story of a new generation of financial strivers, living online and playing the stock and crypto markets by a new set of rules. Following a cast of young, all male characters, who went from the fringes of the internet to the front pages of newspapers, The Degenerate Generation tells the tale of how social media, crypto and startups like Robinhood and Reddit allowed for the formation of a powerful online movement in which the most unlikely participants took on the old guard—and each other.   In The Degenerate Generation, journalist Nathaniel Popper charts the evolution from the idealism of Occupy Wall Street in 2011 to the anarchic chaos of online outrage leading to the market crash of 2022. Showing how a combination of new technology and broader cultural and economic forces created an online revolution led by bands of predominantly young men, who gathered on Reddit and proudly referred to themselves as “degenerates.� This unlikely online gang took their frustration at the current economic system and social climate and created a powerful cultural movement that upended global financial markets and set in motion far reaching changes to how money flows through the economy—all of this just a decade after a financial crisis that most people assumed would forever kill interest in the stock markets. A character driven, human story of kids who made and lost millions, battled with each and with Wall Street for power, and ultimately upended the economy, The Degenerate Generation is a fast moving, suspenseful, and sobering account of how millions of young Americans became obsessed with money and the markets and how that has affected politics, popular culture, finance and more.

Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award A New York Times technology and business reporter charts the dramatic rise of Bitcoin and the fascinating personalities who are striving to create a new global money for the Internet age. Digital Gold is New York Times reporter Nathaniel Popper's brilliant and engrossing history of Bitcoin, the landmark digital money and financial technology that has spawned a global social movement. The notion of a new currency, maintained by the computers of users around the world, has been the butt of many jokes, but that has not stopped it from growing into a technology worth billions of dollars, supported by the hordes of followers who have come to view it as the most important new idea since the creation of the Internet. Believers from Beijing to Buenos Aires see the potential for a financial system free from banks and governments. More than just a tech industry fad, Bitcoin has threatened to decentralize some of society's most basic institutions. An unusual tale of group invention, Digital Gold charts the rise of the Bitcoin technology through the eyes of the movement's colorful central characters, including an Argentinian millionaire, a Chinese entrepreneur, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Bitcoin's elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Already, Bitcoin has led to untold riches for some, and prison terms for others.