Announcements

HarperCollins presents Crypto Crimes: Inside India’s Best-Kept Secret

 

HarperCollins

presents  

Crypto Crimes

Inside India’s Best-Kept Secret

by Mitali Mukherjee

Crypto Crimes uncovers the murky underbelly of cryptocurrency and traces its mercurial spread across India. With exclusive stories and first-person accounts, Crypto Crimes goes deep into the dark web to reveal the truth behind the crypto bubble, which is red-hot, unregulated and spells trouble.

Paperback | 352 pp | Rs 499

Available wherever books are sold | Releasing 26th April 2024

 

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‘This book moves effortlessly between hard numbers and data on cryptocurrency’s rapid spread on the one hand and the startling proliferation of criminal cabals growing around it on the other.’

—Nandan Nilekani

‘A must-read for academics, practitioners and policymakers alike, as it paints a cautionary picture of this new financial innovation.

—Viral Acharya

Mitali Mukherjee, says, ‘Crypto Crimes is a window to the power and threat that new technology can pose when it runs unchecked. Through my research and extensive interviews with voices from the crypto world, in this book I have charted the depth and forms that criminal activity around crypto has taken on a global and national level. It is also a reflection of how India is both uniquely vulnerable but also holds the potential to build a reformist and pioneering policy around crypto currencies.’

Associate Publisher, Swati Chopra, says “With this book, Mitali Mukherjee brings her significant understanding of the worlds of business and finance to bear on the little-understood world of “crypto crimes”. With exclusive insights and an in-depth investigation, for the first time she conclusively unveils the phenomenon that has taken India by storm and yet remains virtually unregulated. Crypto Crimes should be read by everyone, from investors and financiers to policymakers and industry watchers, to anyone who loves a true crime read.”

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About the Book

Speed, volatility and easy money—a heady blend that has transformed cryptocurrency into a financial phenomenon worldwide. In India alone, the size of crypto investments stands at more than $10 billion, with over 15 million investors, most of whom are between twenty-two and thirty years old, and hail from Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 towns.

So where and when did the chase for fast money begin to take so many wrong turns?

Crypto Crimes uncovers the murky underbelly of cryptocurrency and traces its mercurial spread across India-from the interiors of UP, where crypto accounts are looted at gunpoint, to the small towns of Bihar, known for quick ‘black to white’ money switches, to Karnataka and the lure of drugs and parties. Even as law enforcement officials struggle to track them down, investigations reveal how cryptocurrency is allegedly being used for transactions in narcotics, drugs, smuggling, illegal betting and turning ‘black’ money to white. Social media influencers have cashed in on the crypto mania, entrepreneurs have milked the trading enthusiasm and critical data has been under siege for crypto ransom.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg.

With exclusive stories and first-person accounts, Crypto Crimes goes deep into the dark web to reveal the truth behind the crypto bubble, which is red-hot, unregulated and spells trouble.

 

About the Author

Mitali Mukherjee is the director of the Journalist Programmes at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.

She is a political economy journalist with more than two decades of experience in TV, print and digital journalism. In 2020, she was nominated for the prestigious Red Ink Awards in India. She is a Chevening South Asia Journalism Fellow 2020, a Raisina Young Fellow 2019, and a fellow and former Steering Committee member of the AustrIndiaIndia Youth Dialogue. Over the course of her journalistic career, Mukherjee has been associated with CNBC TV 18, TV Today, Mint, The Wire and Doordarshan.

She is a gold medallist in television journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), New Delhi, 2001, and a gold medallist, Political Science (Hons), Delhi University, 2000. She is also a TEDx speaker.

 

Praise for the book:

‘Over the past decade, cryptocurrency has been a technological innovation that has as many critics as supporters. With rigorous research and extensive interviews spanning major voices in the crypto industry, private industry, policymakers, crypto experts and law-enforcement officers, this book moves effortlessly between hard numbers and data on cryptocurrency’s rapid spread on the one hand and the startling proliferation of criminal cabals growing around it on the other. Mitali Mukherjee, an experienced financial journalist, makes an urgent case for clear and dynamic policy action to curb crypto crime and harness the potential of this technology for India’s benefit.’

—Nandan Nilekani

 

‘This is a fascinating look into the good, the bad and the ugly of the crypto ecosystem in India. Mukherjee has done a wonderful job of laying out the growth and the present state of crypto in India in great detail.’

—Nithin Kamath, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, ZERODHA

 

‘India has one of the world’s best digital payments and settlements system, developed over the past decade on the back of Aadhaar, bank accounts, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and related “India Stack” applications. It is difficult, therefore, to see why alternative currencies such as “crypto” serve any fundamental need in India as they might in other parts of the world. However, cryptocurrencies stand in part for these transactions being opaque, and therein perhaps lies their fundamental value. Mitali Mukherjee makes a compelling case in favour of this hypothesis, documenting crypto crimes in the first decade of cryptocurrency’s advent in India. The book is a must-read for academics, practitioners and policymakers alike, as it paints a cautionary picture of this new financial innovation. It is perhaps an even more important read for teenagers and youth who have been caught up in this fad, often giving up investing in their human capital for speculative froth that crypto assets offer. Like cash in circulation, crypto will sooner or later come under the regulatory scanner and anti-money-laundering rules, but that may take some time. In the meantime, let us heed the warnings offered in Mukherjee’s in-depth account of how crypto is used in India and why it is more a dark-sided “hawala” than a delicious “halwa”!’

—Viral Acharya, FORMER DEPUTY GOVERNOR, RESERVE BANK OF INDIA

 

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For reviews, excerpts, interviews, and more information, please contact Vandana Rathore at
vandana.rathore@harpercollins.co.in

 

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