Laura Shin Book Tour Event Great Example Of Why Miami Beach Is A Hub For Crypto

On April 5th, the city of Miami Beach & venture capital firm Future Perfect Ventures’(FPV) hosted a book signing event for The Cryptopians; crypto & blockchain tech reporter Laura Shin’s new book, which covers the early years of Ethereum, when it was just an uncertain startup.

FPV Founder & CEO Jalak Jobanputra MC’d the event. FPV has a sharp track record of success with startups in blockchain and decentralized tech, including massive names such as Polkadot, Blockstream, and others, so it makes sense to find Jobanputra and FPV involved with this event.

The April 5th event is a sign of changing times, like Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, and Southern Florida have recently become boomtowns for crypto-related business with numerous companies across the U.S. and the globe moving there to set up shop. Jobanputra is a prime example of this trend, as she is newly relocated from N.Y.

As for the content of April 5th itself; for those unaware, Laura Shin is a mega-heavyweight reporter at the forefront of cryptocurrency and blockchain tech, and has been for years. 

If you’re just starting into the space, Shin’s podcast ‘Unchained’ isn’t a bad place to start because she frequently features mind-blowing guests from the cryptocurrency space. The topics discussed are always on the cutting edge of crypto and therefore often complex, but Shin is efficient at breaking these topics down so everything makes sense.

Specifically, however, the April 5th talk focused on Shin’s new book The Cryptopians. The book is a detailed examination of everything going into Ethereum’s early development, but during the talk, Shin highlighted that although she hadn’t set out writing the book with this in mind, The Cryptopiansended up turning into a coming of age story for Ethereum founder & Ethereum Foundation executive Vitalik Butarin. 

But Shin is a heavyweight investigative reporter, and look no further for proof of her chops in this regard than the fact The Cryptopians was delayed from publication when Shin believed she’d identified the 2016 DAO hacker, which had been a mystery complete until then. 

Back in Ethereum’s early days, the DAO (an acronym for Decentralized Autonomous Organization) was one of the first Dapps built on the Ethereum Network, and by far the most popular at the time. 

‘The DAO’ of 2016 also went on to become hugely influential. Although now defunct, ‘The DAO’ of 2016 has gone on to serve as a prototype for countless other DAOs, which have become a popular community governance structure in the crypto space, but this future was far from certain in 2016 due to the infamous hacking incident.

The 2016 DAO hacker exploited a flaw in ‘The DAO’s’ withdrawal mechanism, and ‘stole’ a whopping 31% of the DAO’s ETH tokens, today worth approx. $11.5 billion with the ETH price at about $3200.00 per token. The ‘theft’ sent shockwaves through the Ethereum and crypto communities, and to ensure the hacker was prevented from withdrawing more funds, Ethereum took the dramatic and controversial step of hard-forking the blockchain; creating an entirely new cryptocurrency that still exists today as the stunted Ethereum Classic (ETC).

“… This would be the equivalent of Apple doing something to Apple because someone had hacked one of the most popular apps in the app store,” Laura Shin said at the Miami Beach event, on the topic of Ethereum’s hard-fork. 

The DAO attack represents one of the most significant events in Ethereum’s history, and so in this light Shin’s most likely identification of the hacker must be seen as highly impressive. 

All the gritty details of the book, the DAO attack saga, and how Shin identified the attacker goes beyond the possible scope of this article, however, Shin is a skilled writer and the DAO saga is some of the best financial, cyber and true crime writing you’ll come across, so you should order the book if this is up your alley. 

If you want a taste of what you’ll get from The Cryptopians, here’s an interview of Shin with Forbes’ Steven Ehrlich where they discuss the book and also go into detail on the DAO attack and Shin’s ID of the hacker. 

Shin’s recent interview with three of the founding members of ‘The DAO’ is also fascinating. In it, Shin discusses the DAO’s founders’ experience with the DAO while it was under attack/conducting defensive operations, their thoughts on Shin’s identification of the hacker, and whether they view the hack as a crime or not (interestingly, some of ‘The DAO’ founders see the event as complex). 

In final review: the April 5th event was a terrific success, and by shining a spotlight on Laura Shin, her new book and Jalak Jobanputra’s Future Perfect Ventures, the City of Miami Beach really is proving they want to attract people who are serious about crypto. 

Here’s to the future success of Laura Shin, Jalak Jobanputra & FPV, and the city of Miami Beach in their pursuit of making crypto more competitive, although they’re already clearly on the right track.