Crypto is short for cryptocurrency, which emphasizes currency. Most people in crypto are not doing a ton of cryptography. You can be a crypto expert or a crypto billionaire without knowing much about cryptography. There's speculation about who wrote the white paper that created Bitcoin.
Listen to an audio excerpt from this week's special issue of Businessweek magazine, where finance columnist Matt Levine uses the full issue to explain where crypto came from, what it all means, and why it still matters.
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