Alex Konanykhin's worst enemy is doing the right thing. At the development of UNICOIN, he had already lived enough plot lines for three Tom Clancy novels.
Kidnapping. Betrayal. Lost love. A life on the run.
Except in his case, it's all true.
Alex has filled many roles. A physics prodigy exiled from the Soviet Union. A banking tycoon by age 25. A target of both the KGB and the FBI. A refugee who fought one of the longest asylum cases in American legal history (and won).
UNICOIN, the eponymous cryptocurrency, arrives as yet another reinvention in a long series of his business pivots. Launched by an asset-backed, dividend-paying, audited, and regulations-compliant cryptocurrency company, it is meant to provide a solution to the volatility and speculation characteristic of the crypto world. For a time, Konanykhin writes, it was well on its way to becoming one of the most recognizable brands in the sector.
And just when he thought everything was going to pan out, the SEC decided to hit below the belt.
UNICOIN: War on Crypto is Konanykhin's explosive account of how his unique coin becomes a symbol of everything anti-cripto regulators could not accept. In great detail, he describes a barrage of subpoenas raining not just on his company but on its ecosystem (auditors, brokers, lawyers, investors, even vendors). It's a blitz designed, he argues, to destroy the most compliant crypto project on the market.
Maybe it's time to stop playing by the rules.
The book is both fiercely political and intensely personal. We feel the anger when he signs what he bluntly calls "an Act of Capitulation," agreeing to freeze UNICOIN's growth to minimize damage to thousands of investors.
And just when hope returns with the U.S. voters electing a pro-crypto President, the outgoing SEC Chairman intensifies the retaliation. Unicoin's New York Stock Exchange listing is derailed. Billions in shareholder value evaporate.
As a narrative, UNICOIN is captivating. It moves briskly through a wild kidnapping, courtroom reversals, staging a coup, and crypto conferences, with cameo appearances by tech celebrities and politicians. Konanykhin has a flair for scene-setting and a clear sense of himself as a protagonist.
By the end, UNICOIN feels like a frontline dispatch from a battle still raging. It asks what happens when an innovator follows every rule and loses anyway, and whether power, threatened, will ever play fair.
If crypto is a battleground, this book is the battle cry.
Verdict:
Provocative. Unrelentingly urgent. UNICOIN is the story of an entrepreneur who refuses to give up. Whether you see a crusader or a rebel, his account is impossible to ignore, and even more so to forget. Today, the story is still being written and very much alive.
