Chris Dixon’s Campaign to Overhaul Crypto’s Grifty Reputation

On a chilly day in March, Chris Dixon arrives at Green Apple Books, an independent bookstore in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood, ready to sign books. In Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of Internet, Andreessen Horowitz’s lead crypto investor argues for the virtues of blockchain, the technology that powers cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The book is an attempt by one of the industry’s biggest boosters—he’s pumped billions of dollars into startups including Coinbase Global Inc. and Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs—to rehab crypto’s tarnished image in the wake of a year that included rock-bottom prices and prison sentences for its biggest stars.

When Dixon’s book first hit the stands, in January, reviews didn’t exactly catapult it to Shoe Dog status. Crypto researcher Molly White skewered it with the delight of Pete Wells after downing an Almond Joy cocktail at Guy Fieri’s Flavortown. “Dixon fails to identify a single blockchain project that has successfully provided a non-speculative service at any kind of scale,” she wrote. Dixon tells me that White is “a professional anti-crypto person.” (White wrote an article about the state of crypto for Bloomberg Businessweek on May 2.) In February, Read Write Own earned a spot on the New York Times Best Sellers list, edging out Britney Spears’ memoir. But a dagger appeared next to its title, indicating that large bulk orders were helping boost its sales. The press made the most of the discovery, and after only two weeks the book dropped off the list.