On October 3, when Sam Bankman-Fried, once vying to be the multi-billionaire ruler of the crypto world, faced the judge on his first day in court, Michael Lewis released his extraordinary close-up part-biography, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon. This book has generated scads of hostility since its release, especially during Lewis’s book tour of interviews, and any reader can examine this high-profile case at length and decide whether Lewis in some way wrote a hagiography, but let me tell you, Going Infinite is not a judgement on crypto or indeed on Bankman-Fried’s guilt. It is a high-spirited, closely observed, rollicking tale of Lewis’s fortuitous year spent with the crypto magnate in America, Hong Kong, and the Bahamas, a year of unparalleled access and so a precious window into a most different human being. An “ethical altruist” (that’s a technical term) with zero empathy and a wide-ranging, analytical mind, Bankman-Fried is, in a storytelling sense, an “amazing character,” and Lewis’s account is his narrative of the man’s pinnacle and fall. As ever, Lewis is a consummate stylist, combining a light-touch prose style and wonderful technical elucidation with gritty mud-digging journalistic skills. Going Infinite is a farce or a tragedy or a triumph, you take your pick, but above all, it is exhilaratingly enjoyable to read. One sitting is all it takes to marvel at a true story too wild for fiction.
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