In the space of a few years Bitcoin has gone from an idea ignored or maligned by almost everyone to an asset with a market cap of more than 12 billion Venture capital firms Goldman Sachs the New York Stock Exchange & billionaires such as Richard Branson & Peter Thiel have invested more than 1 billion in companies built on this groundbreaking technology Bill Gates has even declared it better than currency' The pioneers of Bitcoin were twenty-first-century outlaws
- cryptographers hackers Free Staters ex-cons & drug dealers teenage futurists & self-taught entrepreneurs
- armed with a renegade ideology & a grudge against big government & big banks Now those same institutions are threatening to co-opt or curtail the impact of digital currency But the pioneers some of whom have become millionaires themselves aren't going down without a fight Sweeping & provocative How Money Got Free reveals how this disruptive technology is shaping the debate around competing ideas of money & liberty & what that means for our future