For its boosters, crypto finance is a modern-day version of the California gold rush, with fortunes to be made. And it seems to have attracted as many crooks and fraudsters as the original Wild West.

Ramaa Vasudevan, professor of economics at Colorado State University and the author of Things Fall Apart: From the Crash of 2008 to the Great Slump, discusses the world of crypto from its beginnings as a "libertarian pipe dream" to the volatile situation today.

Read her piece for Catalyst, "Silicon Valley Bank and Financial Turmoil," here: https://catalyst-journal.com/2023/06/silicon-valley-bank-and-financial-turmoil

Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies. Music by Knxwledge.

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