Unexpectedly participated in a class action lawsuit in the USA

Recently, I unexpectedly encountered a justice system in the USA.

• In 2017-2018, when there was a crypto boom, I invested a little in a mining startup: I purchased their tokens and one hardware unit.
• The startup went up and began to build a mega farm, but it didn't work out — the fall of Bitcoin coincided with their spending peak, the money ran out, and the company went bankrupt. It's funny that a month or two after filing for bankruptcy, bitcoin played back everything. Sometimes you're just unlucky :-)
• I had already written off the lost money, of course. I acted on the rule "invest only 10% of the income you don't mind losing."
• Since everything legally happened in the USA, people gathered there and filed a class action lawsuit.
• I received a letter stating that I would be automatically among the plaintiffs if I did not refuse. I did not refuse; when else would I get an opportunity to participate in a class action?
• Everything calmed down until 2024.
• In the spring, another letter came: "Confirm the ownership of the tokens and indicate their quantity. We won and will share the remaining among all token holders proportionally, minus a healthy commission to the lawyers."
• But how do I confirm? More than five years have passed. The Belarusian bank account is closed, the company's admin panel is unavailable, and there was no direct transaction in the blockchain—I paid in Bitcoin directly from some exchange (although it is not recommended to do so).
• I found an email from the company confirming I bought tokens (without the amount) and printed it as a PDF. I attached it to the application with screenshots of the transactions from the exchange for the related period. I gave the address of my current wallet, where these tokens lie dead weight. I sent everything.
• Today, I received $700 in my bank account. Of course, this is not all the lost money, nearly 25%, maybe slightly more.

What conclusions can be drawn from this:

• Sometimes, you just don't get lucky in your business.
• Keep all emails. You never know what and when will come in handy.
• Class action lawsuits work and do it in an interesting way.
• Justice in the USA works slowly but, apparently, inevitably and unexpectedly (for me) loyally to minor participants in the conflict. At least sometimes.

About the book "Economics: The User's Guide"

This is the second book by Ha-Joon Chang that I've read. The first one, Bad Samaritans [ru], left a good impression, and it was also positively reviewed by Tim O'Reilly in his book WTF? [ru]. So, "Economics: The User's Guide" took its place on my reading list, and finally, I have read it.

Here and further, all quotes point to the Russian edition of the book and are translated into English by me (I have only the Russian edition) => inconsistencies are possible because of double translation English->Russian->English.

According to Chang, the book was conceived as an "introduction to economic theory for the widest possible audience" (page 299), and this reflects its essence well. I would only add, from the perspective of my post-Soviet education, that the book looks more like an "overview of the diversity and complexity of economics, supplemented with an introduction to the theory" rather than an "introduction to the theory".

The book contains no mathematical formulas or jaw-dropping statistics, just concrete facts. What makes it valuable, however, is a set of prisms through which you can — and should — view the economy to gain a basic understanding of what's happening around you.

Chan provides a set of points of view through which you can examine economic processes; describes their advantages and disadvantages; accompanies all this with examples, historical references, and facts.

Since the book serves as a sort of textbook, I won't attempt to retell it in full — this would lead to an attempt to repeat the book in a couple of pages, and I definitely can't do that. I will limit myself to describing the author's view of the economy as a whole as I understood it.

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