Kindle Price: $15.00

Save $9.95 (40%)

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Audiobook Price: $18.80

Save: $11.31 (60%)

eBook features:
  • Highlight, take notes, and search in the book
  • In this edition, page numbers are just like the physical edition
Read with our free app
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy for others

Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

Buying and sending eBooks to others

  1. Select quantity
  2. Buy and send eBooks
  3. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs

Follow the author

Matthew Leising
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist that Almost Destroyed It All 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Matthew Leising (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 226 ratings
See all formats and editions
Great on Kindle
Great Experience. Great Value.
iphone with kindle app
Putting our best book forward
Each Great on Kindle book offers a great reading experience, at a better value than print to keep your wallet happy.

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.

View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.

Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.

Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Get the free Kindle app: Link to the kindle app page Link to the kindle app page
Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.

Discover how $55 million in cryptocurrency vanished in one of the most bizarre thefts in history

Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist that Almost Destroyed It All tells the astonishing tale of the disappearance of $55 million worth of the cryptocurrency ether in June 2016. It also chronicles the creation of the Ethereum blockchain from the mind of inventor Vitalik Buterin to the ragtag group of people he assembled around him to build the second-largest crypto universe after Bitcoin.

Celebrated journalist and author Matthew Leising tells the full story of one of the most incredible chapters in cryptocurrency history. He covers the aftermath of the heist as well, explaining the extreme lengths the victims of the theft and the creators of Ethereum went to in order to try and limit the damage. The book covers:

  • The creation of Ethereum
  • An explanation of the nature of blockchain and cryptocurrency
  • The activities of a colorful cast of hackers, coders, investors, and thieves

Perfect for anyone with even a passing interest in the world of modern fintech or daring electronic heists, Out of the Ether is a story of genius and greed that’s so incredible you may just choose not to believe it.

Previous page
  1. ISBN-13
    978-1119602934
  2. Edition
    1st
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Wiley
  5. Publication date
    September 9, 2020
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    8913 KB
  8. See all details
Next page

From the Publisher

A Closer Look at Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the Heist that Almost Destroyed It All

out of the ether, ethereum

out of the ether, ethereum

out of the ether, ethereum

Mihai Alisie walking up the stairs to the hack lab at the compound at Calafou.

Source: Roxana Sureanu

Remnants of the destruction from the fire that burned when the factory at Calafou was struck by lightning.

Source: Roxana Sureanu

Vitalik Buterin is mobbed by people asking questions after giving his Ethereum presentation at the Miami Bitcoin conference. Joe Lubin and Antony Di Iorio are to his left.

Source: Taylor Gerring

out of the ether, ethereum

out of the ether, ethereum

out of the ether, ethereum

The Ethereum booth at the Miami Bitcoin conference, January 2014. Staffing the booth are Paul Paschos (left) and Stephan Tual (right).

Source: Taylor Gerring

Stephan Tual (left) and Mathias Grønnebæk (right) (on the laptop screen) during a video call with Mihai Alisie (left) and Richard Stott (right) at the Spaceship House. This is the call where Tual warned the Ethereum crew in Switzerland that Gavin Wood was making moves against them.

Source: Taylor Gerring

Christoph Jentzsch in Brooklyn with a slock before the DAO hack had occurred.

Source: Andrew Keys

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

In June of 2016, $55 million worth of the cryptocurrency ether vanished in one of the biggest hacks in the history of crypto. By exploiting a bug in a contract that held $250 million, hackers stole the funds in the digital equivalent of broad daylight, siphoning off the money in full view of anyone with an internet connection.

Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist that Almost Destroyed It All tells the compelling tale of the cryptocurrency heist that shook the world of blockchain as well as the early history of the brilliant and often eccentric coders and hackers who created Ethereum, the second most-valuable blockchain after Bitcoin.

Author and reporter Matthew Leising paints vivid portraits of the inventor of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, and many of the cofounders he gathered around him. While the hackers who made off with the $55 million have never been caught, Leising reveals here a person associated with the 2016 attack, whom he identified using blockchain forensics, encrypted messages, and insider sources. The book details the dramatic and, to some, unthinkable "fix" to the hack dreamt up by Buterin and others in the Ethereum community. A fix so controversial, many predicted that it, and not the attack itself, would prove to be the undoing of Ethereum.

Out of the Ether provides in-depth coverage not only of the massive heist that forms the core of the narrative, but also the technological, social, and economic questions raised by Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. The book examines questions of decentralization, anonymity, and privacy in light of the actions of the larger-than-life coders, developers, and hackers in the story.

Perfect for anyone with even a passing interest in daring heists, digital financial technologies, or blockchain, Out of the Ether is a thriller so cutting-edge you may just choose not to believe it.

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR OUT OF THE ETHER

"Matthew Leising writes here the definitive book on the early history of Ethereum, a fascinating story about crypto in the early 'wild west' years. It filled in some gaps for me. Fun to look back at how it all began now that cryptocurrencies are stable, trusted, and so needed for the global economy ahead."―TIM DRAPER, Founder, Draper Fisher Jurveston

"This is the fascinating story about the early days of Ethereum, a cryptocurrency and virtual computer that is shaping, and will continue to shape, the future of the internet for decades to come. Its growing value has attracted hackers looking for a virtual payday like moths to a flame. Leising takes it upon himself to try and solve one of the biggest hacks in the history of crypto using a combination of sources and breadcrumbs on the blockchain. A must-read crime procedural for the Age of Crypto."―CAMERON WINKLEVOSS, Co-Founder and President, Gemini Cryptocurrency Exchange

"Matt Leising has written a real page-turner. Proving that real life is much stranger than fiction, he lays out the true story of the $55 million heist that threatened to undermine the Ethereum blockchain and its place in the next internet revolution. It's a great ride and a great read. Leising explains the technicalities in concepts that we can all understand while recounting the dramatic 2016 DAO hack and the extraordinary counter measures that prevented it from being far, far worse. I couldn't put this book down." ―J. CHRISTOPHER GIANCARLO, Former Chairman, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08HSRLSCB
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wiley; 1st edition (September 9, 2020)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 9, 2020
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 8913 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 311 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 226 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Matthew Leising

Matthew Leising
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
226 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

otto pohl
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating book of breakthrough technology
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2020
Verified Purchase
Matthew Leising does an amazing job of recreating the chaotic birth of a technology that holds the incredible promise of shaping our future. You owe it to yourself to understand this history! Imagine how smart you'll sound in a few years when everything is running on Ethereum and you'll be able to share your knowledge. Characters come to life with telling detail and the narrative is imbued with drama and suspense. With his reporting and writing skills, Leising manages to lift the story beyond blockchain and ether--in his hands, the story becomes an epic tale of the messy, driven, and often deeply personal history behind inventions that change the world.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
Report
Irakli
4.0 out of 5 stars Great story
Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2021
Verified Purchase
Well-written background on the founding of Ethereum and its creator Vitalik Buterin. Ethereum seeks to be something like a global internet and was the first major attempt to use blockchain technology for something other than currency. Different platforms can be built on the Ethereum protocol, each with their own native currency, or "utility token", and fulfilling different functions. This opens the door for the first time to an entirely different type of economy, with its own forms of rewards and incentives outside of the official cash nexus. Incredibly enough Buterin started to get the ball rolling on coding this as a teenager.

There is a lot of inside baseball about the relations between the different Ethereum founders, including Charles Hoskinson who was fired and now heads a competitor platform known as Cardano. The mystery behind the DAO hack is woven throughout the narrative, but to be honest it didn't hold my interest across the entire book. Effectively its likely that they know who did it but that its not revealed to the public at present. It was cool to me personally to see how much of Ethereum's origins tie back to my hometown of Toronto. There were many familiar places in this book.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
Report
CJ
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and Informative Story about the Development of Ethereum
Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2020
Verified Purchase
The book is a page-turner and a very easy read. I couldn’t put it down. I found it fascinating how a very talented but sometimes fractious group of international software engineers were able to work together to create a system that would be an improvement over bitcoin. I really enjoyed reading about the extraordinary counter-measures that were employed, after it was hacked of $55 million, to save the system and find the culprit. It’s a great mystery story.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
Report
Alberto Vargas
3.0 out of 5 stars Should have focused more on Ethereum, less on the DAO
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2022
Verified Purchase
Overall this book was a very mixed bag. I agree with other reviewers that interweaving the DAO theft with the history of Ethereum (every other chapter switches between the topics) was distracting. I did not find the story of the DAO theft itself compelling. It is far more interesting how the Ethereum leadership and community reacted, and what happened later with Ethereum classic, a topic which the author admits he did not even want to cover. The explanation of the DAO and the theft was very non-technical and drawn out too long. At the end there is also some uninteresting coverage of JP Morgan and Microsoft trying to build corporate blockchains, which at this point are probably technological and business dead ends.

The better half of the book is the history of Ethereum, which gives insights into the early days of Bitcoin, Vitalik Buterin's involvement in that, and then the early days of Ethereum with its hacker ethos. I was particularly interested to learn about the personalities of the leadership team. Some of them are still involved with Ethereum, and some have gone on to start competing blockchains or related companies. I wish we had learned more about Gavin Wood, the most technically strong co-founder of Ethereum who left to create the Web3 Foundation, Parity, and most recently the Polkadot blockchain. When and why did he leave? At least we get a good background on Charles Hoskinson who started Cardano later.

Overall it's a useful book about the early history of crypto blockchains.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
Report
Bob Haydock
5.0 out of 5 stars Great background for learning about crypto
Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2021
Verified Purchase
Crypto currency is moving from the shadows to more of a mainstream role in the global economy. I wanted to educate myself about the history and differences between the various crypto currencies - I was interested both from an investment point of view and also just to be informed. This book is a bit long winded but it offers a solid background on the history particularly on ethereum - worth a read if you want to learn about crypto.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
Report
Raghav
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly well researched and well written
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2021
Verified Purchase
Matt has not only covered the DAO attack in great detail, he has described the complexities that anyone would understand. Matt’s investigative reporting is stellar and you can follow the story along through all the countries he visited and how strikingly close he came. Matt further covers the genesis of Etherum, juxtaposed with the heist. Thorough research and very well written! Highly recommend the book for anyone with any degree of knowledge on crypto.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
Report
Brian Peace
5.0 out of 5 stars "Out of the Ether" is a creative miracle
Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2020
Verified Purchase
Thank you Mr. Leising for sharing your writing talents with us. You are helping to bring light to a subject which is new to many of us. In addition, you have successfully created an entertaining reading space to follow your inspired Ether story adventure. Bravo! The concept of Decentralization is unfolding across the Earth, and congratulations on your work, which hints at greater paradigm shifts globally. Be encouraged in your writing. Looking forward to the next one...
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
Report
Neil
5.0 out of 5 stars Great intro to crypto and an interesting case for ethereum
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2021
Verified Purchase
Super clear, interesting, and fun to read. Great crash course on Bitcoin and the subsequent spawning of Ethereum. Matt is an entertaining writer and had some wild interviews that make the story exciting to read.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
Report

Top reviews from other countries

Jayan Kandathil
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Early History of the Ethereum Blockchain
Reviewed in Canada on December 31, 2021
Verified Purchase
Good book on the early history of the Ethereum blockchain. Vivid portrayal with lots of great details of Vitalik Buterin's early childhood in Russia, his parents, and his upbringing in Toronto. The book does an excellent job detailing the characters of the people who got involved with Ethereum early such as Anthony Di Ilorio, Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Joe Lubin etc.

The author of this book is a Bloomberg News reporter. He has managed to keep the technical jargon to a minimum. His Wall Street financial reporting background helps provide good business perspective. The first 80% of the book is well-researched, was readable and flowed well. The last 20% felt highly rushed, as if the publisher told the author to get on with it and wrap it up.

The investigative effort to find the ether thief behind the DAO attack went nowhere - at least in the book the effort felt very contrived.

Far too many spelling/punctuation mistakes for a Wiley book which is supposedly better edited.
Report
Harry
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 30, 2021
Verified Purchase
A superb historical and educational journey
Report
Florian
1.0 out of 5 stars not realy interesting
Reviewed in Germany on March 21, 2021
Verified Purchase
I've thought its a techical book of what exactly happened. but its boring writen with no real fun facts or explenations
One person found this helpful
Report
Raider
1.0 out of 5 stars Uninformative, poorly written, clearly rushed
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 4, 2021
Verified Purchase
I rarely write reviews, but this book was exceptionally poor.

At a basic level, it could have benefitted from basic editing and fact-checking. Grozny, for example, hardly "near the border with Afghanistan". The book oscillates between a history of Ethereum in general and a chronicle of the DAO theft -- an unnecessarily confusing structure, especially since the author does a poor job of explaining how Ethereum works. The breezy, colloquial tone coupled with the author's glossing over key technical details makes this little more than an extended gossip column.
One person found this helpful
Report
Report an issue

Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report