Blood of the Bitcoin books

Diamond Rhino

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Blood of the Bitcoin books

Molly J Zuckerman joins to take on the literature of the cryptocurrency world, particularly Michael Sullivan's self-published 'Blood of the Bourgeoisie'

Brady Dale

Mar 15, 2026

Illustration from *The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen* (1895, drawn by William Strang)

How many novels have we seen so far about some numbnuts taking a job at a Silicon Valley startup? Lots.

But what we haven’t seen nearly so much of, proportionally, have been books that deal with the world of blockchains. That despite the fact that nonces, hashrates and memes have powered a whole hell of a lot of real-world drama. From scams to billionaires to nation-state meltdowns to cyber-robbery, crypto has veered wildly into the edgy zones where fiction breathes.

A part of the problem may be that, as Alex Perez pointed out in 2022, the only books that can get a deal in American publishing focus on the sort of subjects that make an NPR listener say “so important” and “thank you” in that hushed tone of the yes-very-concerned.

I think that’s part of the story. “Crypto” is definitely poisonous among that set. (I may or may not know something about trying to get bookstores — which have the same sensibility — to give the author of a book about cryptocurrency some attention.)

But there’s another problem: The crypto world barely cares about reading books about itself.

This is something that Molly J. Zuckerman and I have been discussing, privately, for some time. Molly is a long time crypto journalist, and she used it in a very real and daily way before she ever started writing about this technology.

So I asked Molly to come talk to me about a new crypto novel that has hit the virtual shelves of Amazon, Blood of the Bourgeoisie, by Michael Sullivan.

One problem with crypto fiction might be the fact that, as Molly points out in our conversation, most of the drama on chain, at the end of the day, is about pushing buttons on a laptop.

A lot of inanity has gone down in crypto, but I can’t think of any swordfights. And everyone knows that swordfights are crucial for good fiction.

But, there is this new novel. It’s about Bitcoin. In the world of this book, there is only Bitcoin. So Molly and I both read it (I confess that I was skimming pretty hard by the end) and we talk about it on today’s episode.

We also talk about some other books, too, so here is the complete list of the crypto books discussed in what follows, in the order that we give them appreciable attention: