Matt Levine's Money Stuff

Matt Levine's Money Stuff is the single best financial writing anywhere — free, daily, and substantially better than what most paid financial media produces. I've recommended Levine before and I'll keep recommending him. The compound effect over a year of reading the daily column is substantial. If you read one piece of financial journalism per day, make it this one.

The recommendation restated. Matt Levine is a former Goldman Sachs derivatives lawyer who has been writing Money Stuff at Bloomberg since 2015. The column publishes daily Monday through Friday, typically 2000-4000 words covering whatever financial news caught Levine's attention that day. Crypto features regularly — Levine has been one of the sharpest single voices on FTX, on the various 2022 collapses, on the SEC's enforcement actions, on the Tornado Cash sanctions, and on essentially every major crypto-finance intersection point of the past several years.

What distinguishes Levine. He genuinely understands financial structures. When he analyzes a token issuance, a CeFi failure, or a securities law question, the analysis is grounded in the actual mechanics rather than in headlines. This is rare in mainstream finance writing about crypto, which tends toward either dismissive or credulous framing without engaging the underlying technical reality. Levine reads the bankruptcy filings, the court documents, the SEC enforcement actions, and the actual financial mechanics — and explains them in language that's both rigorous and readable.

The comic detachment is the secondary distinguishing feature. Levine is genuinely funny. The humor comes from observing the absurdities of finance with affectionate detachment — neither maximalist hyperbole nor cynical dismissal. The bemused framing produces analyses that age better because they're not invested in any particular narrative outcome.

The long-time-horizon coverage is the tertiary distinguishing feature. Levine has been writing daily for over a decade. His running commentary on specific stories (the multi-year arc of the SEC's Ripple case, the unfolding of the FTX bankruptcy, the developments in stablecoin regulation) is one of the most useful longitudinal records that exists in financial journalism. The column archives are valuable in their own right; reading historical Levine pieces about events you're trying to understand is often the most efficient path to deep comprehension.

The crypto-specific coverage. Some specific pieces worth seeking out:

The FTX collapse coverage from November 2022 through the trial in late 2023. Levine wrote daily about the unfolding of the bankruptcy, the discovery of the financial fraud, and the legal proceedings. The cumulative coverage is the best running explainer that exists.

The SEC enforcement era coverage. Levine has tracked the various SEC actions against crypto exchanges, token issuers, and staking services with consistent skepticism toward both the agency's enforcement-by-litigation approach and the industry's complaints about it. The balanced treatment is unusual.

The Hinman speech coverage. Levine wrote some of the clearest explanations of the legal questions around when a token transitions from being a security to not being a security under the Howey test, with detailed analysis of the Hinman speech's significance.

The stablecoin regulatory coverage. Levine has been one of the better writers explaining the various stablecoin regulatory proposals over the past few years and what they would mean for the category.

The practical recommendation. Sign up for the email newsletter directly at the Bloomberg site. The newsletter is free. There's no need to read every column — sample a few when major crypto news happens. The cadence of "Matt Levine's take on whatever just happened" within 24-48 hours of major events is one of the most useful information habits you can develop.

If you've been following crypto for any length of time and you haven't been reading Levine, you've been operating with a meaningful information disadvantage. Start now. The first few months will feel like rapidly closing a gap; after that the daily input becomes a sustained edge.