The Truth About Crypto

Ric Edelman is a futurist. Yes, he’s also one of the most successful financial advisors in America, but what he’s really passionate about is the intersection of how we’ll live our lives in the future and the current technologies that will get us there.

The first time I ever saw him speak at a live event, he had the whole room in thrall to the ideas he had about robotics and the singularity. The next time I saw him on stage he was explaining how the next generation would be more likely to have two or even three separate careers during their lifetime rather than ever fully retire. He sees a new world where the last remaining diseases of the 20th century are stamped out by science and software-driven innovation unlocks the potential for people to spend more of their time how they’d like. In this version of the future, wealth management firms and financial advisors would be radically shifting their service priorities from retirement planning to life planning.

And blockchain technology figures prominently into the story.

I spoke with Ric yesterday (we’re planning our chat for his live Vision event in Austin next month) and we got to talking about his new book, The Truth About Crypto. Ric didn’t write it for technologists or crypto industry experts. He wrote it for the rest of us. For people who want to understand it enough so that they can keep up. Or people who would like to become experts but, for now, simply need a background and a good grasp of the basics.

The biggest challenge, he told me, was that he didn’t want to write a book about an emerging technology that could become easily outdated. So The Truth About Crypto keeps it high-level and fits in a lot of detail on the broader concepts that will be applicable now and a year from now. Ric has written ten books, many of them bestsellers and he is a great communicator. He knows how to explain this stuff.

This is not a book about anarcho-capitalist ideologies or the latest crypto-libertarian utopian fever dreams spreading on Twitter. This is a book with purpose and practicality. It’s for investors, advisors, asset managers and other professionals in related fields. A glance at the chapter listing makes it clear you’re going to learn some essential stuff here: Major Base Layer Protocols, Digital Assets Exchanges, Qualified ITA Custodians That Hold Digital Assets, Digital Assets Portfolio Tracking Services, Tax Record Keeping and Reporting Services for Digital Assets, etc. 

If you’re looking for an easily readable book about the current state of investing in crypto, this is the one I’d grab. I’m in chapter 4 and learning something on every page so far.

The Truth About Crypto (Amazon)