Domodora Book Review Controversy: "Buying Cryptocurrency" Is It the Huangshan of the Investment World?

YouTuber Domodoro’s scathing review of Huang Shanliao has drawn millions of views, and Taiwan’s Eslite’s top writer—Huang Shanliao, who has been the best-selling author for five straight years—was described by him as “the ugliest book in history.” But in his review, he also mentioned that Huang Shanliao has repeatedly brought up things like male characters running self-media, creating passive income, and investing in blockchain—so, has this society’s hatred toward “crypto people” become so intense that even bestsellers can’t hold it in anymore and have to spit it out?
(Background: Threads lured out a “chain of virtual currency scam victims”—shocking cases, including losing 60 million, and some taking out loans just to scrape by on toast)
(Additional context: “You can’t invest in virtual currency,” the bullies say: KOLs take commission for bringing people in, don’t be fooled into getting harvested)

Table of Contents

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• Hearing “passive income” in a Huang Shanliao book
• Labels even worse-sounding than multi-level marketing
• Crypto guys are like Huang Shanliao in the investment world

Key Takeaways

• Domodoro’s video surpassed 1 million views in two days and gained 40,000 new followers; Huang Shanliao was criticized for “reading 6 books as if reading 2,” with character labeling that feels like children’s cartoons
• From 2020 to 2023, Taiwan’s losses from virtual currency scams exceeded 70 billion yuan; in August 2024 alone there were 15,296 reports; after the FTX collapse, Taiwan lost more than 50 billion yuan
• In 2025, global crypto scam losses hit a record high of $17 billion, with 56% coming from social media; AI deepfake scams generated 4.5 times the revenue of traditional methods

We were too slow to catch up this time. YouTuber Domodoro uploaded a video titled “Huang Shanliao’s books are basically the ugliest in history!? The great scam that puts Taiwan’s best-selling author on trial!!” His take has attracted millions of Taiwanese viewers, and the topic has been hotly debated online.

Domodoro’s conclusion after reading 6 Huang Shanliao novels is that reading 6 feels like reading only 2. The structure of each book is identical; the plot loops over and over as “sweet, heartache, and then it’s fine.” The characters have no faces—only labels: men who are control freaks and women who are emotional.

For example, in a scene where a mother stabs her daughter, the entire passage repeats “stabs again, I call out” over and over—no expressions, no setting, and no senses at all besides pain. Domodoro put it on the board with a zero score.

Four days later, Domodoro gained 40,000 followers. Huang Shanliao’s response was “I will continue to learn and grow.” Even former President Chen Shui-bian jumped in with pun memes to follow the trend.

But what this article is going to discuss is not literary taste.

Hearing “passive income” in a Huang Shanliao book

What makes Domodoro’s video so explosive isn’t only that he’s so precise in his criticism—it’s that he directly exposes something that makes people a little uncomfortable. Huang Shanliao’s novels repeatedly present readers with a set of established values. The “eww guys” inside are often portrayed as people who run self-media; they emphasize creating passive income in everyday talk, and they make regular, recurring investments in virtual currencies and blockchain.

This isn’t the information readers expect to receive when flipping through investment-and-finance books. It’s an ideology that gets passively swallowed in a “mood reader.” Discussions on Dcard directly call it out: “Huang Shanliao’s books aren’t literature—they’re a carrier for monetizing traffic.” The analysis from people in the publishing industry is even more cutting: the profit from these bestsellers is used to subsidize pure literature and poetry collections that publishers can’t sell.

Huang Shanliao’s characters are criticized as if they were elementary school rhetoric—not because the author can’t write, but because the characters themselves don’t matter. What matters are the labels placed on them: passive income, regular recurring deposits, virtual currencies, blockchain.

Wow—then you realize these words get plastered onto romantic partners, and somehow it doesn’t feel good.

Labels even worse-sounding than multi-level marketing

Have you ever tried saying “I invest in virtual currencies” at a family gathering?

If you have, you’ll know how the air freezes. Your dad puts down his chopsticks. Your mom gets a little tense and looks toward your dad. Your aunt says, “My colleague’s son was also scammed—three million got swindled from him.”

In statistics, in Taiwan, when people hear “virtual currency,” it means either being scammed, or being involved in scams.

In the four years from 2020 to 2023, there were over 600 virtual-currency-related scams, with financial losses exceeding NT$70 billion.

In 2025, total scam losses are about NT$89 billion, and more than half of that money moves through virtual currencies.

On Threads, there was once a string of posts about a “chain of virtual currency scam victims.” Some lost 60 million, and others took out loans and spent every day chewing on toast to get by.

When half the news about an industry is about scams, it’s hard to say a relative’s reaction is unreasonable.

Crypto guys are like Huang Shanliao in the investment world

Taiwan has legitimate cryptocurrency exchanges, as well as virtual asset service providers registered with the Financial Supervisory Commission. There are companies that seriously do on-chain analysis, compliance, and technical development. Even in 2026—after passing the “Virtual Asset Service Act” in its first reading—stablecoins are expected to be opened up, and listed companies will be allowed to hold cryptocurrencies.

But none of that matters.

Because in public perception, “doing crypto,” “investing in crypto,” is worse than “doing multi-level marketing,” since multi-level marketing at least has physical products you can return.

In Huang Shanliao’s novels, investment values are applied to characters—symbolizing that Taiwanese society has already gotten used to categorizing romantic partners by “knowledge economy” and “investment culture.”

People who do foreign exchange or corporate bonds are seen as more reliable than people who invest in virtual currencies (I guess).

The former are like Jon Fosse, Annie Ernaux, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, David Szalay, Han Kang, Haruki Murakami, Yoko Tawataga, Liu Meili, Banu Mushtaq, Kiran Desai, R. F. Kuang, Wu Ming-yi, Wu Ming-yi?—(No. The point stands.), Luo Yijun, Ping Lu, Zhu Tianxin, Kan Yaoming.

The latter is Huang Shanliao. Same kind of investing—just worse taste.

Wow—harsh self-criticism.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Domodoro criticize Huang Shanliao?

After reading 6 Huang Shanliao novels, he found the structure identical, with characters that only have labels and no depth, a very limited vocabulary, and constant indoctrination of values such as “passive income” and “blockchain investment.” His video racked up over 1 million views in two days, and his channel gained 40,000 subscribers.

How serious are Taiwan’s virtual currency scams?

From 2020 to 2023 (four years), there were over 600 scams and losses exceeding NT$70 billion. The FTX collapse caused Taiwanese investors to evaporate more than NT$50 billion—about 155,000 victims. In August 2024 alone, there were nearly 15,300 reports, averaging nearly 500 per day.