Lyn Alden grew up in poverty, including periods of homelessness, before studying electrical engineering at Pennsylvania State University and completing a master's degree in engineering management at Rowan University. She worked as an electrical engineer from 2009 to 2021, cultivating alongside her engineering career a sustained interest in investing and macroeconomics. In 2016 she founded Lyn Alden Investment Strategy as a side project; it grew steadily, and she eventually left engineering to run the research firm full time.
The firm produces investment research for retail and institutional audiences, with a consistent focus on the intersection of money and technology. In 2023, Alden published Broken Money, a bestselling examination of monetary history traced through successive waves of technological change — from shells and gold to ancient bills of exchange, central banks, and ultimately Bitcoin. The book was widely covered; her work has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the New York Times, CNBC, and Time's Money Magazine, among others.
She has spoken at Princeton University, the Human Rights Foundation's Oslo Freedom Forum, and Bitcoin Atlantis in Madeira, and addresses institutional boards and family offices on a select basis. In 2026, she published The Stolguard Incident, a near-future science fiction thriller set against a backdrop of ubiquitous surveillance and misinformation. Alden divides the year between the United States and Egypt. Her research continues through Lyn Alden Investment Strategy, and her writing — financial and fictional — reaches a global readership.