American Kingpin
American Kingpin accounts for the unbelievable true story of the man who built a billion-dollar online drug empire from his bedroom—and almost got away with it. In 2011, a twenty-six-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine Web site hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything—drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons—free of the government’s watchful eye. Drawing on exclusive access to key players and two billion digital words and images Ross left behind, this book offers a tale filled with twists and turns, lucky breaks, and unbelievable close calls.
“An astonishingly well-researched narrative… Bilton's storytelling bears not so much as a trace of fat; the book he's conjured is so sharp and bright that it can be whipped through in the airport lounge before the flight takes off."
— The Globe and Mail
"Unbelievably riveting."
— Casey Neistat
“I dare you not to read this book in one sitting. Masterfully reported and written, Bilton’s book drops you hard into the dark heart of the most famous Internet crime to date. A first-rate thrill.”
— Joshua Cooper Ramo, author of The Seventh Sense
“Nick Bilton has issued a fantastic modern true-crime thriller. The book moves at a stunning pace while packed full of exquisite reporting and detail. It delivers a vivid picture of what happens when genius, ambition, and depravity collide, as well as a study on the complex interplay between good and evil.”
— Ashlee Vance, author of Elon Musk
“Engrossing, addictive, suspenseful, riveting—this book hooked me on page one and I could not put it down. American Kingpin is the best thing I’ve read in ages. I can’t recommend it highly enough.”
— Dan Lyons, author of Disrupted
“In American Kingpin, Nick Bilton again proves why he’s one of tech’s best storytellers with a stunningly researched and very scary portrait of the creator of a marketplace gone mad, and the oddly uncoordinated officers who took him down.”
— Steven Levy, author of Hackers and In the Plex
“You’ll never forget Bilton’s portrait of the brilliant and brazen Ross Ulbricht, even after you sacrifice sleep in a sprint to the final pages and to see justice served.”
— Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store and The Upstarts
“A rollicking, deftly reported tale of the Dark Web. I couldn’t put it down.”
— Clive Thompson, author of Smarter Than You Think
“Bilton’s investigation of the Silk Road is dramatic and, at times, nearly unbelievable. It puts your favorite thriller novels to shame.”
— Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire
“Nick Bilton is the only writer who could tell this suspenseful story. American Kingpin is engrossing at every turn, right up to its pulse-racing ending.”
— Adam Lashinky, author of Wild Ride
“American Kingpin is both a staggering feat of investigative journalism and a triumph of edge-of-your-seat storytelling. This is what true-crime writing should be.”
— Bryan Burrough, author of Days of Rage
"A fast-paced, readable true-crime tale that frames the likely future of the underground economy."
— Kirkus Reviews