We’re thrilled to welcome Jake Adelstein back to Skylark to discuss his new book, The Devil Takes Bitcoin, the wild, true story of cyber-era commerce, crime, cold-hard cash, and one of the greatest heists in history. This will be a fascinating evening which you will not want to miss!
Even in hell, Bitcoin talks. This modern take on an old Japanese saying still holds true. Cryptocurrency was supposed to do for money what the internet did for information, but it didn't work out that way. Its virtual existence unleashed real-world chaos--especially in the homeland of its mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Tokyo was the center of the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, until that company collapsed with nearly half a billion dollars' worth of Bitcoin gone missing. It might be the greatest heist in history. If it was a heist.
So what really happened? The Devil Takes Bitcoin tells the true story of the humble-to-hot commodity, from the former geek website that launched the boom to an inside world of absent-minded CEOs, hucksters, hackers, cybercrooks, drug dealers, corrupt federal agents, evangelical libertarians, and clueless techies. You'll discover Bitcoin's connection to the infamous Silk Road, learn why hell has nothing on Japan's criminal justice system, and get the lowdown on the high cost of betting with the Devil's dollars. All of this for less than the price of a single Bitcoin.
The book is described by Amy Gray of The Saturday Paper as: “A whirlwind account of crypto’s rise and rot. Reading Adelstein’s tale is like listening to the best storyteller at the pub, full of outrageous anecdotes, pithy takedowns, and a clear-eyed account of how crypto’s true lifeblood was always crime … The Devil Takes Bitcoin is a weirdly successful vibe check from what may be the internet’s last Wild West: funny, chaotic, horrifying, and deeply revealing of how belief and greed blur until they’re indistinguishable … If you want to be entertained, informed, and a little appalled, pull up a bar stool.’
Jake Adelstein has been an investigative journalist in Japan since 1993, reporting in both Japanese and English. His podcast about the mysterious deaths at the Harry Truman VA hospital in Columbia, Missouri—Witnessed: Night Shift won 🥇 Gold (True Crime) at the 2025 Signal Awards—the Oscars of podcasting.
From 2006 to 2007 he was the chief investigator for a U.S. State Department-sponsored study of human trafficking in Japan. He has been writing for The Daily Beast, The Japan Times and other publications since 2011, and was a special correspondent for The Los Angeles Times. Considered one of the foremost experts on organized crime in Japan, he works as a writer and consultant in Japan and the United States. He co-hosted and co-wrote the award-winning podcast about missing people in Japan, The Evaporated: Gone with the Gods in 2023. He is the author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (Vintage), which is now a series on Max, and also The Last Yakuza: Life and Death in the Japanese Underworld (2023). He has appeared on CNN, NPR, the BBC, France 24, and other media outlets.
