What I'm reading to understand FTX

Roundup 11/14/22

Greetings from Read Max HQ! Most weeks, this “roundup” post for paying subscribers consists of culture recommendations with only accidental relevance to the news cycle.¹ Every once in a while, though, something happens -- like, say, a Bahamian polycule misplaces $16 billion, or the world’s wealthiest man and some of his buddies accidentally buy a k-pop message board -- that’s so directly within the scope of the Read Max mission (“explaining the new weird future in a distinctly unprofessional manner”) that it seems worth focusing our recommendations there. Last week’s roundup newsletter, which featured some reading recommendations around Twitter, was popular enough that I’ll expand the concept this week, sharing a bunch of articles/newsletters/Twitter threads that I’ve been reading as I try to wrap my head around what’s going on with the FTX meltdown.

These roundups are bonuses for paying subscribers -- a “thank you” for people who support Read Max. If you appreciate the newsletter, have found it useful in some way, or if you simply want weekly recommendations for pretty good sci-fi books, forgotten action movies, inexplicable Twitter videos, etc., please consider paying to subscribe!

If you are a subscriber, and you know some people who would appreciate this email, please feel free to forward it and encourage them to subscribe!

We’ll start with some background about FTX.

Background and dramatis personae