Laura Shin (@laurashin) is a crypto journalist, host of the Unchained podcast, and author of “The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze” (PublicAffairs, 2022). During the course of writing her book, she and her sources uncovered who they believe was behind the biggest whodunnit in crypto — the 2016 DAO attack on Ethereum.

Formerly a senior editor at Forbes, she was the first mainstream journalist to cover crypto full-time, and her podcasts and videos have had more than 19 million downloads and views. Shin has spoken about cryptocurrency at places such as TEDx San Francisco, the International Monetary Fund, Singularity University and the Oslo Freedom Forum.

In this interview, Laura shares her original intention behind writing The Cryptopians, interviewing Vitalik, and her favourite moments from the book!

Show highlights:

[2:30] Laura's first piece of journalism

[6:00] Full-time Bitcoin reporting

[11:00] Staying updated on crypto

[14:00] Laura's favourite moment writing The Cryptopians

[17:00] Self-care in crypto

[23:00] The importance of writing

[25:30] First week writing The Cryptopians

[33:30] Interviewing Vitalik

[39:00] Difficult moments

[48:00] Remaining neutral while reporting

[56:00] What was left out of The Cryptopians

[57:00] Truth vs Consequences 

[63:00] Legal side of crypto

[68:30] Other professions Laura considered

[73:40] Blind spots

[79:00] Religion & Crypto

[85:00] Doing what you love

Links:

Laura's Book: The Cryptopians

Laura's Newsletter: Unchained

Laura's Podcast Channel

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