After writing some of the most notable books about business and economics, including Moneyball and The Big Short, Michael Lewis is taking on crypto in an upcoming book focused on the multibillion-dollar collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
The book, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, relies on Lewis’s experiences shadowing former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried for nearly a year before his arrest in the Bahamas in December.
Although Lewis already had done extensive reporting, the moment SBF was arrested obviously changed the tenor of the book.
“My first thought was, ‘Oh my God’—it was like a lock clicking into place—‘now I have the story,’” he told the New York Times.
As Bankman-Fried’s trial approaches, Lewis said he may be able to tell an even better story than what will be revealed in court.
“In October, there’s probably going to be a trial, and the two sides are each going to take a bunch of facts and tell completely different stories,” Lewis told the Times. “I think I can tell a story that’s a better story than either side, that includes all the facts and will put the reader in a position of being the juror.”
Lewis said he’s had unfettered access to Bankman-Fried, and that although before his arrest they talked for maybe 40 minutes, they now routinely speak for hours. While Bankman-Fried is out on bail at his parents’ house in Palo Alto, Calif., Lewis, who lives nearby, has been able to visit him about every two weeks.
“He’s the ideal subject,” Lewis said. “He’s locked up in his house an hour from my house with an ankle monitor. He can’t go anywhere. It’s unbelievably convenient, as long as they keep him there.”
Lewis said he’s still wrapping up some interviews with subjects in the Bahamas to add to the story and that ever since SBF’s arrest, they have been getting “looser and looser” with what they tell him.
The book is set to be published in October—the same month SBF’s trial begins.