I've enjoyed reading Michael Lewis's books (Liar's Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short, Flash Boys), but am not particularly interested in crypto. In this 60 Minutes interview, Lewis says crypto was invented to eliminate the middleman. Just push a button to directly transfer money. But then FTX becomes the middleman. I've never quite understood the allure of crypto. Moneyball was my favorite: I played baseball, like math, and cheer for underdogs.

link:
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's rise and fall at center of new Michael Lewis book "Going Infinite"
"Michael Lewis: --the casino. He started as a gambler and he realized that, you know, building the better casino was actually gonna be more valuable.

Soon, roughly $15 billion a day in trades'were executed on his new exchange, FTX.

Michael Lewis: If you're sitting in the middle of those transactions and you're taking out even a tiny fraction of a percentage point, there's a lot of money to be made.

Jon Wertheim: Indifferent to the outcome of the trade, he's just'

Michael Lewis: You're taking no risk, you're taking no risk at all. It didn't matter to him, whether crypto went up or crypto went down; as long as people were trading crypto, it made money. It's the best business. I had one venture capitalist tell me that several of the venture capitalists thought that Sam might be the world's first trillionaire."
cbsnews.com - Ftx founder sam bankman fried michael lewis book minutes transcript

The science of why we love to root for underdogs
vox.com - Underdogs psychology