Fortune Crypto 2022 Jealousy List

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What a year it’s been, said a Fortune Crypto team member at least once a week.

Every month seemed to bring a new Hollywood-ready crisis in the volatile industry, from the $625 million hack of controversial game Axie Infinity in March to the downfall of larger-than-life peddler Do Kwons TerraUSD in May to the staggering collapse of Sam Bankman. -Fried and FTX in November.

Needless to say, existential threats have led to terrific journalism (and in some cases, been precipitated by reporting).

While readers should, of course, turn to Fortune for all things business and crypto, we’ve long enjoyed Bloomberg Businessweeks’ annual jealousy list and, well, we got a little jealous. So here is ours, highlighting some of the best stories we’ve read in 2022, both crypto and non-crypto:

New York Magazine: The Crypto Geniuses Who Vaporized a Trillion DollarsBy Jen Wieczner

In this lengthy article, Jen Wieczner shed some light on the breakup of hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, one of the biggest crypto meltdowns of the year. Through a series of harrowing examples that show founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies’ hubris, including the purchase of a $50 million yacht called Much Wow, Wieczner sheds light on how one of most notable crypto hedge funds went bankrupt. Filled with sourcing and personal accounts, Wieczner leaves nothing to chance and no journalist without a hint of envy.

Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, journalist

Bloomberg: FTX’s Record Was BadBy Matt Levine

It’s nearly impossible to pick a single Matt Levine column on any topic, let alone FTX, but this one, with over 5,000 words plus even more words on Elon Musk and Twitter and a few other things, was probably the best and certainly the most thorough of FTX and SBF. .

Justin Doom, editor

Financial Times: A Brief History of Crypto AuditsBy Bryce Elder

This Financial Times story, which has been ignored by much of the crypto world, examines Binance CEO Changpeng Zhaos in 2014 at the Beijing-based OKCoin exchange, which released one of the first proof of reserve audits. . The article offers new insight into the career of the most important figure in crypto today, and also shows how the industry has always struggled to produce financial documents that meet the demands of traditional accounting. .

Jeff John Roberts, Editor

Reuters: How crypto giant Binance became a hub for hackers, fraudsters and drug dealersBy Angus Berwick and Tom Wilson

After a tweet from Changpeng Zhao sparked a collapse of the FTTand Sam Bankman-Frieds empire, all eyes turned to Binance and CZ, which took the undisputed crown of the crypto kingpin. As the media seeks to uncover details about the secret society, Reuters has been producing in-depth reports for months, including details about government investigations and insider dealings. This June article provided some insight into the shady activity on the exchanges, but I would recommend reading the subsequent work of reporters, especially after FTX.

Leo Schwartz, journalist

Rest of the world: They have built a Minecraft crypto empire. Then it all fell apartBy Neirin Gray Desai

Neirin Gray Desai digs deeper into what happened when, overnight, Microsoft and Mojang banned NFTs from Minecraft. As Desai details, a thriving economy of NFT-enabled servers like Critterz and NFT Worlds had appeared in one of the world’s most popular games to allow people to buy and sell virtual goods like wool and dirt, earning some players real income until the ban. . The article cleverly shows how NFTs have given people ways to earn money by playing games despite the fact that the technology is still not fully accepted in the traditional gaming industry.

Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, journalist

Bloomberg: 11 AM with Sam Bankman-Fried: Inside the Bahamas Penthouse After FTX FallsBy Zeke Faux

Many great stories have been written about SBF’s exploits in the Bahamas, but this one really stood out because of the following exchange between Bloomberg News reporter Zeke Faux and SBF: You didn’t have 8 billion cash dollars you thought you had. That’s right. Yes. You lost $8 billion?

Justin Doom, editor

Today in the Tabs: Sam Bankman-Detained-Awaiting ExtraditionBy Rusty Foster

Rusty Foster is a hilarious genius. Full stop. Subscribe to his newsletter to read beautiful sentences like this describing SBF as a starry-eyed boy of thirty summers, with dreams as big as the great outdoors and a promising life ahead of him

Justin Doom, editor

WIRED: Meet the Lobbyist Next DoorBy Benjamin Wofford

WIRED’s account of the burgeoning world of influencer-lobbyists built by Trump’s former social media director is a telling window into a new trend that feels like Instagram and Twitter on steroids. We learn how today’s political and social media economy entails recruiting everyone from doctors to physical trainers who share subtle partisan messages with their niche fan communities.

Jeff John Roberts, Editor

New York Times: How McKinsey Got Into the Addiction BusinessBy Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe

Consulting firm McKinsey has long been a mainstay of American capitalism, but its secretive nature means the public rarely gets a glimpse of its elite operations. Investigative journalists Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe gained unprecedented access to the company through documents and employee interviews, producing stories about McKinsey’s impact on everything from opioids to baseball sabermetrics . This article is a great example of what was compiled into the 2022 reporters book When McKinsey Comes to Town.

Leo Schwartz, journalist

New York Times Magazine: This Isnt the California I MarriedBy Elizabeth Weil

Elizabeth WeilsNew York Times Magazinepiece on California’s devastating wildfires and accompanying photographs will haunt your dreams. Humans have completely failed to prevent or even manage fires, and it’s time for a whole new mindset about how to co-exist with them. We need to stop thinking that a dashing rescuer in a red raincoat or a yellow fire-retardant shirt should come to save us from wildfires, Weil writes. We don’t fight hurricanes. We don’t fight tornadoes. Nobody assumes that there will be an armed defense against an earthquake or a flood. Instead, we bolt our houses to our foundations. We raise our houses on stilts. Now we Californians in the Anthropocene need to grow up, take responsibility, and stop hoping to be saved.

Justin Doom, editor

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