Bitcoin, the landmark digital money and financial technology, has spawned a global social movement with utopian ambitions. The notion of a new currency, maintained by the computers of users around the world, has been the butt of many jokes, but that has not stopped it from growing into a technology worth billions of dollars, supported by the hordes of followers who have come to view it as the most important new idea since the creation of the Internet.

Believers from Beijing to Buenos Aires see the potential for a financial system free from banks and governments, and a new global currency for the digital age. An unusual tale of group invention, Digital Gold tells the story of the colorful characters who have built Bitcoin, including a Finnish college student; an Argentinian millionaire; a Chinese entrepreneur; Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss; Bitcoin’s elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto; and the founder of the Silk Road online drug market, Ross Ulbricht.

With Digital Gold, New York Times reporter Nathaniel Popper offers a brilliant and engrossing account of this new technology. At each step of the way, Bitcoin has provided one of the most fascinating tests of how money works, who benefits from it, and what it might look like in the future.