Nathaniel Popper

Nathaniel Popper is a San-Francisco-based journalist specialized in covering finance and technology. Popper worked for the New York Times and was the author of one of the best-selling books on Bitcoin, Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the inside story of the Misfits and Millionaires.

Who is Nathaniel Popper?

Nathaniel Popper was born in Chevy Chase, Maryland in 1979. He is a famous journalist working for the New York Times. Popper studied history and literature and graduated from Harvard University in 2002.

He is an experienced writer who dedicated himself to cover the field of innovation, finance and technology. Before that, he was covering the Wall Street action and mainly wrote about Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. Before joining the New York Times, he wrote for the Los Angeles Times, the Forward and Let’s Go Travel Guides.

He now lives in Oakland with his family, but while he was living in New York, Popper was mainly covering financial matters. It was when he got acquainted with Bitcoin that he started to write about cryptocurrency, blockchain and financial technology firms like Square, Credit Karma and Social Finance.

He then later authored one of the most popular books on Bitcoin – Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires. This is his only book on the digital currency subject, but along his career, he has published all sorts of articles on the matter.

Nathaniel Popper – contributions to Bitcoin

Apart from authoring one of the first and most popular books on Bitcoin, Nathaniel Popper has been a Bitcoin evangelist and has made a lot of contributions to the public understanding of digital currency. He generally provides basic knowledge of the concepts surrounding cryptocurrencies for The New York Times.

He has met with Terri Gross on Fresh Air to discuss the history of Bitcoin. He co-hosted an episode of Planet Money about Bitcoin’s recent struggles, and much of his reports are featured in a popular documentary called Banking on Bitcoin. Lately, Popper was the responsible for the production of a documentary series for TechCrunch, entitled, Trust Disrupted: Bitcoin and the Blockchain. Popper is also one of the figures featured in a Report documentary called the Future of Money.

Digital Gold – Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires

Trying to Reinvent Money is one of the first books ever written about Bitcoin, as well as his only book, though he has been writing a lot of articles on the subject.

Poppers first “met” Bitcoin after writing an article describing how the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, had managed to gather a significant amount of Bitcoins. This first article woke his curiosity leading him to spend time researching the true nature and origins of Bitcoin and the blockchain. The knowledge gathered gave him the push to write Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires. The book was edited and published in the UK by Penguin and in the U.S. by HarperCollins in 2015.

In the book, Poppers tells the history of Bitcoin – who the inventor was, and the whole mystery behind him. He also goes through the big players in the ecosystem, the early adopters, the developers and all the dramatic events throughout the years until 2015. Digital Gold was reviewed and praised by the Financial Times, Bloomberg, The New York Times among a few other places. The book was also pointed out for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year as well as the New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice.