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Just Say No to Crypto (with Ben McKenzie)

July 23, 2023
Notes
Transcript

Ben McKenzie (The O.C., Gotham) joins Tim and JVL to talk his new book, “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.” They discuss his investigation into cryptocurrency during the COVID-19 pandemic, pushback from supporters of crypto, finding a fulfilling mission later in life, and his lifelong vendetta with Chad Michael Murray!

Plus, Tim and JVL talk about the impact of Trump’s trial and potential conviction on the presidential race.

You can purchase Ben’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Money-Cryptocurrency-Casino-Capitalism/dp/1419766392

Watch Tim and JVL interview Ben on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAaIN1KkNbk

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions. Ironically, the transcription service has particular problems with the word “bulwark,” so you may see it mangled as “Bullard,” “Boulart,” or even “bull word.” Enjoy!
  • Speaker 1

    Hello. Welcome to the next level Sunday. Show. I’m here with my BFF JBL. We’ve got a great interview coming up with Ben Mackenzie.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:16

    You might remember him as Ryan out with in the see, but now he’s an investigative journalist and his book Easy Money Crypto Currency Casino, Casino Capitalism, and The Golden Age of Fraud is Out Now. It’s a great book. That conversation is super interesting, we go deep on crypto, we do a little bit on acting, and a little bit about like being in a midlife crisis and trying to find work that is fulfilling. So I I think it’s a good conversation, you know, regardless. DaveL, do you have any thoughts?
  • Speaker 2
    0:00:43

    It’s not a good conversation. It’s a great conversation. And for anybody who is at all interested in the way in which crypto is this enormous wealth transfer that was essentially fraud happening in broad daylight to to the extent that everybody who’s on the consumer end and retail end of it understood that it was probably fraud, but they thought they were the ones who were gonna get rich from it. People on the the actual back end of it. As Ben mentions, there’s, you know, in all the discovery from the various lawsuits that come on, there’s one internal email from one of these exchanges saying, bro.
  • Speaker 2
    0:01:20

    We’re running an unregulated securities training firm. Rock on. You know, like, they Everybody knew everybody knew. It’s amazing. Man, this guy has got chapter and verse all this stuff.
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:31

    Yeah. He he does a great job. Some of our pro Crypto listeners are gonna be upset. And I just have to say that if you’re a crypto industry person, you have a lot of celebrities, you know, that have endorsed you. So if if Steph Curry or You know, Tom Brady or Aaron Rogers or Matt Damon wanna come on the podcast to talk about how great crypto is and how Ben Mackenzie’s an idiot.
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:51

    We’d have it. We’d listen to I’m for it. I’m sympathetic to Ben’s point of view, but I’m open to being pushed on this. Okay. We’re taping this Friday afternoon, and We have a trial date for my lien Cannon of May twenty twenty four for the former president over the documents case.
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:10

    We are still waiting on any moment now. We could hear more details on the third indictment related to January sixth, there are plenty of legal podcasts you can listen to to get the ins and outs of the timing on this trial date and whether that actually ends up happening in May or not. Talk to me about the notion that one of our two major political parties is right now poised to nominate somebody who is set to be on trial in the heat of the campaign for criminal misuse of classified documents.
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:40

    So the the primary campaign will be over by then?
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:43

    Yeah. Right.
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:44

    And, you know, primary campaign would be over by early early
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:47

    spread because it’s like they would have nominated somebody during the during the general election campaign. Their nominee will be on trial.
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:54

    We won’t be to the conventions yet. Right? The conventions Will Saletan the summer. So this will be like eight weeks before the conventions. See the the two things that I think are worth noting about this.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:02

    One is that it isn’t just us crazy never Trump idiots who think this Bill Barr. Who disgraced himself as Trump’s attorney general. He says, Trump is dead to rights on this stuff. Right? So this is again, it isn’t it isn’t just the deep state BLM and Tifa socialists who were saying, this is a problem.
  • Speaker 1
    0:03:24

    The dude who literally ran cover for him on
  • Speaker 3
    0:03:27

    on the
  • Speaker 1
    0:03:27

    rush activities.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:28

    Yeah. He says Trump has debt to rights. Two, I think it is important to understand that Republicans are poised to nominate Donald Trump. Not in spite of his crimes, but in very large part because of them. I mean, we had this conversation in the year running up to to this year in twenty twenty two.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:48

    There was a lot of, well, what if indicting Trump really make the Republican voters double down on him. Right? And and ultimately, it isn’t anybody’s call. Except for the prosecutors. Right?
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:02

    This is why we have prosecutorial independence. It isn’t like Joe Biden and Democratic voters got to have a vote to decide which would that isn’t the way the law works. Right? It’s not the way we want a lot of work. But to the extent to which, like, Trump’s fortunes got even better they’ve turned around, but he was doing very well, and then he started doing even better.
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:23

    Once the justice system and its various guys’s was accusing him of committing serious crimes. And what this says about forty percent of our country is terrifying.
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:35

    So you’re saying that these people were not meticulous single issue handling of classified materials voters. Twenty sixteen as some people told us that they were. Turns out that that is not the case.
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:47

    I thought they were. I thought I thought that Hillary Clinton was a unique danger because of her emails. But I guess that turns out not to be the case. Just like freedom turns out not to be really the watch word. Right?
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:59

    We now have a fight between nationalist conservatives and freedom conservatives. And I think that it’s not really a fair fight. I think it’s it’s really like a ninety ten or an eighty five fifteen fight that all the do maybe you have a different view of that. I don’t know.
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:15

    Eighty five fifteen sounds about I think, yeah, maybe twenty five, seventy five, twenty five. Right. The Jonathan Last conservatives surely have that. As evidenced by, again, what continues to happen in these primaries and in twenty sixteen, I just the Trump thing though, what percentage would you put on it? Do you have sliver of hope that like let’s say this is very real.
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:35

    He’s staring down. The fact that he’s going to be sitting is criminal defendant in May, as the nominee, you know, might the dam break at any point? Is there any reason to believe that there’s a straw to break a camel’s back coming as all of the Republican consultants keep hoping is gonna happen?
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:53

    If you believe that, then you’ve been believing something like that story since he insulted John McCain.
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:59

    In the summer of twenty fifteen, you know, we were I was a young man. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:03

    We were one that this is gonna be the thing which breaks the account with Access Hollywood is gonna be the Charlottesville. Well, the the midterm losses in twenty eighteen. Well, this phone call in which he says there’s a quid pro quo. What I just don’t understand why it would be in part because, as you and I have talked about, and we talked with Sarah on Wednesday, most of the other Republicans who are trying to defeat him.
  • Speaker 1
    0:06:28

    Right. Like, the
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:29

    people who have, in a zero sum and a vested interest in him losing and going away. Runcover for him by saying that he is being persecuted by people who hate Republican voters and that they are destroying our system of justice and that, you know, they will fire these people just the way he would fire these people. And then they say, but vote for me and reward these terrible deep staters and so it’s just an incoherent approach.
  • Speaker 1
    0:06:56

    No. No. It’s it’s completely different. No. They’re advancing his messaging on it.
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:01

    Right? And it’s like in order for this to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, eventually, the opponents of them have to say it’s bad to have our nominee be thrice indicted and be facing trial. They have to say, like, that’s bad And it’s an unadulterated dad. Maybe it’s bad. Maybe he’s been treated a little unfairly, but it’s still bad and he did this to himself.
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:21

    Right? Like, unless the argument is Maybe it’s unfair but it’s bad and he did it to himself until you can get there, why would people change? And and meanwhile, you have McCarthy. Now instead of you know, trying to do things that would nudge things that direction. He has a deal this week that he’s working on about expunging the impeachment.
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:39

    Know, it’s kind of like the rich kid that gets the DUI. One of my buddies got a DUI and his dad is is rich and well connected. And a couple years later, he’s like, boom, expunged. Don’t really understood how that worked. I was like Well,
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:50

    those are just youthful indiscretions from his first presidential term. Right? Your first presidential term is your juvie term. It’s not really until your second and third terms, because remember, you’re owed a makeup third term because of how dirty they did you in your first term. Those ones are a little more serious and hard to But, you know, these youthful misdemeanors Let’s
  • Speaker 1
    0:08:08

    go on your permanent record.
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:09

    Don’t go on your permanent web app. You gotta expunge those. Let me try something out for you because I’ve written you it hasn’t been published before we’re talking. I believe what Ron DeSantis should do is that he should say, Oh, let me tell you guys something. Donald Trump is guilty of sin.
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:27

    I’ve looked at all this stuff. This guy is guilty of sin. And you know what? I don’t care because I’m not gonna give these Antifa BLM Marxist radicals in the department of justice the satisfaction And, you know, I hope that they charge him. I hope the jury lets him off just to show them and rub their faces in it.
  • Speaker 1
    0:08:45

    Oh, you’re so close.
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:46

    I’m gonna If I’m gonna be president, then I’m let me tell you the problem with Donald Trump is, this guy is incompetent. He wasn’t able to overturn the twenty twenty election. When they stole it from him. Let me tell you, no Democrats are gonna be able to steal an election from me. Right?
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:00

    This is why not do that?
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:02

    It’s so close. It’s like no but I but instead of wanting the jury to let him off. I want the jury to convict him. I want him to go to jail and then first second I’m in there. We’re gonna have a general radical style release, you know, where he’s taken out people are cheering.
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:16

    We’re gonna have a parade we’re gonna let him out of jail, and we’re gonna have a parade, and it’s gonna be a day everybody remembers. Anyway, I don’t know.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:23

    I’m giving the National Medal of Freedom.
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:25

    May. Donald Trump on trial, God willing. Hopefully, Aileen candidate sticks to that. We will be back on Wednesday for the next level Enjoy this conversation. Easy money is the book gotten get at Ben Mackenzie, cryptocurrency casino capitalism in the golden age of fraud.
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:40

    We’ll talk to you guys soon. But first, our friends at Assitung, peace. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark next level podcast. I’m your host Tim Miller with my bestie Jonathan Last Last. And we’re here this Sunday with my aspiring friend, Ben Mackenzie, the author of Easy Money, cryptocurrency, casino capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud.
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:19

    You also might know him as the Glen Close of the Teen Choice Awards, six nominees zero wins. Ben, welcome to the show. Who kept locking you from the crown? Who kept winning?
  • Speaker 3
    0:10:29

    Chad Michael Murray. Fuck. Thank you, Sam. Chad Michael.
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:33

    I get it.
  • Speaker 3
    0:10:34

    So handsome. And — Mhmm.
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:37

  • Speaker 3
    0:10:37

    to be beaten by a guy named Chad with three names. It’s pretty rough going, man. So thank you
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:41

    for that. Three first names. Really? He won all six or just like
  • Speaker 3
    0:10:46

    Oh, no. I don’t know. I’m sure I wrote it down in my diary.
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:49

    That was just the one that burns. Got it.
  • Speaker 3
    0:10:51

    Oh, man. I can tell you by the first time I went to that, that was a hilarious experience, but it gets pretty dark. But — Alright.
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:56

  • Speaker 3
    0:10:57

    I am the glenn close of the teen choice award nominees. Thank you. That’s the best intro ever. Thank you.
  • Speaker 1
    0:11:01

    Okay. Happy to do it. Well, we’re gonna do all crypto. The book is crypto, but for the Elder Millennials watching, they probably know you from the o c, and so we will do a little bit of o c porn at the very end, so you can stick around for that. But let’s do crypto first.
  • Speaker 1
    0:11:14

    I wanna start with some literature, a million people have asked you. But like you know for new folks who are coming to this, how’d this happen? Like all of a sudden it’s COVID and and you know you have an acting career and you decide I want to be a Bitcoin investigator. Right? Talk about how Bitcoin is bad.
  • Speaker 1
    0:11:29

    Like, just just give us the basics here.
  • Speaker 3
    0:11:30

    Yeah. I mean, obviously, the COVID pandemic put the entertainment industry on ice. In terms of actually practicing it. You can’t act with somebody if you have to be six feet apart from them at all times. And so I had a lot of time on my hands, and I have a degree in economics.
  • Speaker 3
    0:11:43

    Undergraduate degree, twenty years old, hadn’t really used it much in two decades of show business. The last thing people want to hear about is the dismal science and in Hollywood, which is all la la la la. And a buddy of mine came to me and I loved him to death I’ve known him forever, but he gave me this terrible financial advice in my twenties, and he encouraged me to invest in this, like, obscure company it was, like, gonna create sympathetic blood or something and, like, wasn’t Theranos? No. Thank God.
  • Speaker 3
    0:12:12

    It was not Theranos. Although it is pretty interesting. I lost money in it. So did he he wasn’t scaring me. But he he came back to me in twenty twenty one.
  • Speaker 3
    0:12:19

    He was like, dude, you gotta buy some bitcoin. And I was like, I’m not going to, but tell me more. Actually, I almost did. I was like, I was caught up in the FOMO. I mean, that’s what happened is I came down with a serious case of FOMO, just like so many other Americans.
  • Speaker 3
    0:12:32

    I mean, we saw these knuckleheads getting rich. And then media was like borderline berating us with these stores.
  • Speaker 1
    0:12:37

    I didn’t do bitcoin. I got in on AMC. Nice.
  • Speaker 3
    0:12:39

    You know?
  • Speaker 1
    0:12:40

    And then my dad who’s a financial expert told me to sell way soon. I’m still bitter about that. I was gonna ride that rocketship to the moon anyway.
  • Speaker 3
    0:12:48

    That’s a great story.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:49

    This is the thing. Right? You know, as I was reading your book, Ben, what your buddy said to you was exactly what I thought, which was, okay, none of this makes sense to me. But if this really is the future of money, then shouldn’t I have a little bit of exposure to it? Yeah.
  • Speaker 3
    0:13:04

    On a personal level, on an individual level, I completely understand and I don’t even begrudge it as a, you know, armchair economist. I’m not a financial adviser, and I am not offering anyone financial advise on this podcast, but I’m, you know, kind of serving in a capacity here as a journalist author. I don’t even go grudge people doing that. Right? If you’re betting what you can afford to lose, then Like, on some level, I think it’s okay except forty to fifty million Americans.
  • Speaker 3
    0:13:32

    Put one percent of their investable capital into Bitcoin, you see what happens. Right? Is the bubble just gets huge? And a lot of shady dudes end up making most of the money. Right?
  • Speaker 3
    0:13:44

    I mean, Sam Bakeman Freed and, you know, a few other guys. And most of that money you know, comes at your expense. I mean, it all comes at your expense because, basically, it’s a zero sum game economically. It doesn’t really do anything productive. So it’s just transferring value between the players.
  • Speaker 3
    0:13:59

    So it’s like, you you know, it’s like three of us sit down at a table in Vegas. Like, you might win a hand Tim, you might win a hand JBL. I might. But, like, we’re not putting capital productive use. Like, if I win money, it’s coming from your pocket.
  • Speaker 3
    0:14:09

    Right? But Crypto is not a fair game. It’s an unregulated and licensed casino. So most people were gonna lose and most people lost.
  • Speaker 1
    0:14:17

    So you’re one of the dudes sitting there observing this. Me and Jacob both pretty bitcoin skeptic. I wanna give you a couple questions on the other side. But I was sitting there too. Okay.
  • Speaker 1
    0:14:24

    Do you go from that to being like, I’m gonna write articles in slate about this. It seems like a big jump.
  • Speaker 3
    0:14:30

    Yeah. That was a little bit of a jump. My pandemic Hobby was like I wanted to make money initially. I got FOMO, and I didn’t know what to invest in. I’d never invested in the stock market.
  • Speaker 3
    0:14:40

    You know, I opened up an account and it just sat there because I didn’t know what the hell to do. And I started reading, I was like, oh, we’re in a bubble. Like, the only way to explain this this madness I mean, this was twenty twenty one. So this was meme stocks, this was people buying links to JPEG’s of board monkeys for
  • Speaker 1
    0:14:55

  • Speaker 2
    0:14:55

    Game Stonks.
  • Speaker 1
    0:14:56

  • Speaker 3
    0:14:56

    millions of fake money. Yeah. Gamestamps, like, people were buying land and the Metiverse for so fake money. Like, it was absurd. And the only way to explain it was it was a bubble born of easy money, you know, the easy money times that had started in the subprime crisis and kinda went crazy in this response to the pandemic.
  • Speaker 3
    0:15:12

    So I figured if I can’t be long, I’ll be short, and I’ll bet that, you know, some companies that seem particularly full of it are gonna crash. Because historically speaking, fraud runs rampant in bubble times, that in a roundabout way through my buddy that led me to crypto, and I was like, oh, well, I think that’s also baloney. So I bet him and know, and I had that a little bit of money on crypto crashing, which I basically was too early on initially, and then did okay. You know, trouble me about crypto and the reason I felt like I had to speak out was, like, unlike all these other companies, because I’m not public with, like like, I feel like it’s nobody’s business. And I’m not there to offer financial advice.
  • Speaker 3
    0:15:43

    So I’m not going to talk trash about any company. I’m certainly not going to talk about any public company I position in, and I’m not going to talk trash about any company, you know, that’s supposedly regulated if I can help it because that’s a regulator’s job. But what’s showing about crypto was like, it was being sold to the average American as the way to make money, but it was economically an unregulated unlicensed security or in the laws, you guys have law, in my opinion. Should have been classified as an unregulated security, and it was sold to the investors, the average American with no protections, no investor protections. And that’s terrifying.
  • Speaker 3
    0:16:17

    I mean, twenty thousand fake currencies out there. That’s more unregulated and licensed securities than exist in our regulated market. In in the major indices, you know, the n y s c and the Nasdaq. If I was right and it was all bullshit, then regular people are gonna lose a lot of money. And I felt like I had to speak out.
  • Speaker 3
    0:16:36

    So I got high, and I thought I should write a book. And I was like, oh, yeah, that’s a great idea. And I woke up, and I didn’t know how to write a book. And so I got high again, and I saw this journalist. I’ve written this article.
  • Speaker 3
    0:16:48

    Even Donald Trump, it was Bitcoin. Jacob Silverman. And so you know, I I followed him on Twitter. He followed me back. I saw I lived in Brooklyn.
  • Speaker 3
    0:16:55

    I was like, oh, DMM and go on a bromance date. And that’s what I did in August of twenty twenty one, took them to drinks, or Logan broken bar. I was like, hey, why don’t we write a book? I don’t know how to write about events that haven’t happened yet. What could possibly go wrong?
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:11

    Did you feel a sense of, like, physical anger and agitation watching this train wreck happen? I kept reading this, and I was like, oh, this guy. I’m with this guy. I’m with because I felt, you know, I I was writing like little pieces here and there about it when I wasn’t doing politics and saying, this is all crazy town. But yet, as, you know, the famous Caines what’s the famous Caines line about how the
  • Speaker 3
    0:17:34

    The market can stay irrational longer than you can remade solvents. Exactly. That’s one of my favorites. Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:17:40

    And
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:40

    so there’s nothing you can do about it, really,
  • Speaker 1
    0:17:42

    when you’re
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:43

    in a bubble. Like, you think, like, oh, I’m smarter than everybody, but then it doesn’t matter because mass delusions will go on until they stop going on and you have no control over it. And so in a weird way, was the book like you working out that angst? Like
  • Speaker 3
    0:17:56

    It’s my very expensive therapy sometimes.
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:58

    Because that’s what I kept thinking.
  • Speaker 3
    0:17:59

    Yeah. I mean, in a way, it was look, it was it was initially like, let’s see if I’m right. I have this thesis. That is, you know, borderline I mean, it’s definitely off the beaten path. At the time, we were being told the crypto was, like, gonna cure everything.
  • Speaker 3
    0:18:12

    Right? It was a panacea for all of our ills. And I was going the other way. I might I think I’m a fairly reasonable person, I was definitely aware that I could have been wrong and me being wrong publicly in such a big way would have been really bad for me and my career. And so it took me some time to summon the courage.
  • Speaker 3
    0:18:28

    But by the time I had done, I don’t know, three months of research, I was like, this is shadiest f at a minimum.
  • Speaker 1
    0:18:36

    You can cuss here. We cuss a lot. Yeah.
  • Speaker 3
    0:18:37

    This is Shady’s pocket. I assume so, but his I know it was a family podcast.
  • Speaker 1
    0:18:42

    It is a family podcast. We anyway.
  • Speaker 3
    0:18:43

    There you go. Just like my family. Get that tip jar. Daddy’s gonna Daddy’s going on a Bitcoin rant and just bring it up. It’s better enough to be listening.
  • Speaker 3
    0:18:53

    Yeah. It was shady as fuck at a minimum. And so I felt like I needed to do it.
  • Speaker 1
    0:18:58

    On the emotional side of it, as I was reading the book, it was comparing to me so I’m sure how much background you got on the bulwark here, but many of us are never Trump or Republicans, who are a Republican and bail over the party over Trump. And there was like this similar emotion feeling to reading your opening chapters of being like, I know I’m right that this guy is an asshole. And like all these people that I’m working for, I know they’re wrong, but they’re getting paid off Like, they’re getting White House jobs, and I’m depressed. You know? I’m out here reading a little life and, like, you know, my my career is going down.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:27

    And I’m getting press, and all my friends are old colleagues are doing great jobs. And I was like, I bet you watched that about, like, Matt Damon is on the Super Bowl, and all these celebrities are making money off And I’m like, they’re wrong. I’m right. Right? It was
  • Speaker 3
    0:19:38

    Yeah. Dude, dude. No. Absolutely. I I completely and when you reached out, that was the first thing I thought of, was like, I felt powerless, like so many of who are like, look, man, politics aside like Trump’s a con man.
  • Speaker 3
    0:19:50

    He’s just a con man. Like dude, not even a particularly gunny, he’s the successful one, but like, not like sophisticated, like you’ll tell you what crimes he’s committing at a press conference or potential crimes. Sorry. Have I gone too far? No.
  • Speaker 3
    0:20:02

    Okay. I assume so. But like, you know, there’s nothing you can do about that. Like, at the end of the day, he was elected and, you know, we needed to let Americans come to their own conclusions and and work towards, like, speaking the truth out. But I couldn’t do anything.
  • Speaker 3
    0:20:15

    I was an actor. What was if if I as an actor, it was like, Trump sucks. Like, people like, uh-huh.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:20

    News it a lot.
  • Speaker 3
    0:20:20

    Yeah. Oh, really. Oh, really. A a woke Hollywood elite liberal from from Texas. Wait.
  • Speaker 3
    0:20:27

    Sorry. No. Not that part. But, you know, with a degree in economics.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:30

    I want Jvi all to get nerdy with you on Bitcoin. He’s much more positioned to do this, but I am curious since you brought up politics. For our listeners, could you just place your politics? I did notice in the book two things. One, you didn’t like Donald Trump, which, you know, doesn’t mean much.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:41

    He’s a fucking buffoon. But there was a little hint of You might be a little bit of a fiscal hawk. I don’t know. You seemed to express some concerns about spending, a lot of fending and easy money with the Fed? I don’t know.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:52

    I may I caught maybe a, like, a little hint of Paul Ryan in there or maybe a conventional thinking.
  • Speaker 3
    0:20:57

    No. Yeah. Sorry buddy. No. Sorry to disappoint you.
  • Speaker 3
    0:21:00

    Okay. Yeah. No. Look, man. I feel like our system’s all fucked up.
  • Speaker 3
    0:21:04

    So I mean, who doesn’t? But and I am not running for office, and I do not wanna run around for office, and I find politics quite frankly on how you guys do it because I just it’s seems I mean, I think crypto is gross, but politics is really intense. Well, maybe somewhat similar to you. I feel not alienated from my party as a Democrat, but, like, I’m pretty upset about corruption. I’m pretty upset about corruption.
  • Speaker 3
    0:21:25

    And the corruption is or unethical behavior is pervasive.
  • Speaker 1
    0:21:29

    It’s really just a crypto. You’re talking about like the SBF and, you know
  • Speaker 3
    0:21:32

    Oh, I’m not just talking about I mean, definitely crypto. But in general, I mean, I believe capitalism is swallowing our democracy. And I’m not anti capitalism. I believe about capitalism, what Churchill said about democracy. It’s like the worst system ever created, except for all the rest.
  • Speaker 3
    0:21:47

    Like, it’s fine if we can fix it and actually govern it in a democratic way. But if politicians from both parties are being bought off, you know, on a whole host of issues. I mean, leaving crypto aside like all sorts of other things. Then the incentive structures are not there to really change the system. Right?
  • Speaker 3
    0:22:05

    It’s a really nasty feedback loop that we’ve gotten ourselves on and, you know, you can point to United, which I do think was a terrible decision that set a lot of precedence, but like it obviously goes back even further. So, yeah, I guess I would describe my politics as like, anti Bulwark. I’m, like, not happy when Democrats excuse the behavior of certain high profile members and, like, congress people and people in public office should not be able to trade stock, for example. Like, that’s just ridiculous. That is so absurd And I don’t give a fuck if the Supreme Court is gonna ultimately, you know, override you or whatever.
  • Speaker 3
    0:22:38

    You have no excuse not to try, like, and and pass that law. And it’s just cowardice on both parties. I mean, look, there are good people out there. There are good politicians, there are good people in public service, there are great people on these staffs, but there are also people that are supposedly representing Americans that I don’t think have their best interests at heart.
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:54

    I mean, you can start out as Paul Ryan. The deeper you get into crypto, the more you come out like Elizabeth Warren. Right?
  • Speaker 3
    0:23:00

    Because Well, at least on that issue I mean, the thing with crypto, I kept trying to be like, there’s gotta be something there. Right? But it really is only useful for gambling. And for criminal activity. I mean, it doesn’t do anything.
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:12

    And even the criminal activity stuff is it turns out, like, really curtailed. Right? Because you can chase there were all these high profile examples of the FBI being able to chase because the ledger is public. Right? Change people through.
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:24

    It turns out you can’t even really money laundering through it that way.
  • Speaker 3
    0:23:27

    Look, money launderers don’t have a high bar. Right? Like, they’re used to taking a pretty significant haircut. Right? If you’re just trying to clean your money, you might take, I don’t know, sixty cents of a dollar, forty cents of a dollar.
  • Speaker 3
    0:23:37

    Right? I mean, a clean forty cents is worth a hell of a lot more than a dollar. A dirty dollar. So it does have some usefulness and never underestimate the stupidity of criminals because, like, a lot of these guys will do it even if, like, it isn’t probably a good idea You know, they have a high risk tolerance as we say. So yeah.
  • Speaker 3
    0:23:55

    I mean, it it’s like, I look at all the shit that it facilitates. I mean, people are aware of ransomware. But, like, really think about it. Hacking has been around for f hacking is unfortunately not that hard to do. I’m afraid.
  • Speaker 3
    0:24:07

    And it’s the getting paid part. That’s the hard part. And that’s what crypto is great for. Because, like, let’s say you hack into some government office, some major corporation, you wanna get a billion dollars in cash. Well, what are you gonna do?
  • Speaker 3
    0:24:18

    Meet them at a Home Depot parking lot with, like, three truckloads of traceable money? No. Crypto. North Korea’s gotten away with it. But, like, these other Yahoo’s, like, yeah, it’s a public record, dude.
  • Speaker 3
    0:24:29

    Like, if they can figure out what address you own, they can figure out what you did. The problem is It takes Bulwark. It takes legwork. And there’s so much crime in going on that for a while, it took a long time to to surround it, if you know what I mean.
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:39

    Yeah. Not that this is all about me. But another instance and when I am reading your book, and thinking to myself, he’s me. He’s me. Is when you’re watching the baseball game and you start stroking out because the umpires are wearing FTX advertisements, because this is the thing that I would simply yell about.
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:55

    And my wife would say, like, oh, he’s going on about FTX. And I would say, not only are they, you know, is NLP helping to push this bullshit gambling thing. But they’ve put it on the the actual umpires who are the sign of the rules and the sign that everything they’re gonna enforce things that are right. And there is no enforcement. Don’t you people understand it’s an unregulated securities, and my wife would just be like, Stop.
  • Speaker 3
    0:25:18

    Hey, same here, brother. They literally bought off the ums. They literally made the ums to advertise for them. It’s a pretty amazing trick. And apparently, that’s the first time it’s ever been done.
  • Speaker 3
    0:25:27

    Apparently, there’s never been advertising on Empire uniforms prior to that. No. It was it was reserved for when an Empire had died and they wanted to honor one of their colleagues. No. After.
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:36

    Hopefully, there never will be again. Here’s my question for you. The the first big one, which is that a lot of times you look in scam. And you you talked a little bit in passing about Bernie madoff. Bernie madoff’s scam was really good.
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:49

    Right? I mean, he got away with it for, what, twenty five, thirty five years or something. He did it. Very, very well. And the people you see are really smart and you say, okay, I you know, I understand how people get stuckered by this.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:01

    As you point out, over and over and over again in the book, they’re just red flags everywhere. I’m gonna just tether because you talk about Tethr a lot. Tethr had at one point a sixty nine billion dollar valuation and twelve employees.
  • Speaker 1
    0:26:16

    For people that don’t know, they were the ones buying stable coin. That was supposed to be the normal one.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:21

    Stable coins. Right? Yes. And of their twelve employees right? One of them is a plastic surgeon who had defrauded my Soft, another one who’s a CEO who’d been a vitamin salesman.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:29

    Their chief counsel worked at the poker site, which let people cheat.
  • Speaker 3
    0:26:33

    Yeah. It had a Secret Podcast where you could defraud the other customers. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:38

    Why is it that so many and I understand like the masses. I understand why average Americans would get snookered. But why did like institutions and VC funds, and people were supposed to care about tail risk. How did the rest of the world Right. There was sort of that that top level of the financial system, not see what was happening.
  • Speaker 3
    0:27:01

    I mean, it’s actually a fallacy that we sort of ascribe intelligence to these supposedly sophisticated firms and sometimes they’re intelligent and behave intelligently, but greed is a powerful motivator. And if you’re running a VC, if you’re a VC and you’re trying a hundred x, like you’re supposed to take wild risks. I mean, the story that really stuck out to me was Sam Bancman Freed’s trying to raise a billion dollars. From Silicon Valley VCs. And he’s on his Zoom with him, and he’s talking about an FTS is gonna, you know, change money and you’re all gonna be able to buy car insurance on it and like, you know, whatever.
  • Speaker 3
    0:27:37

    It’s gonna be it’s the everything app. It’s gonna do everything. And I’m like, and he keeps looking over at the side of his screen every once in a while. And they realized that he’s playing a video game. He’s playing League of Legends while on the call with them trying to raise a billion dollars.
  • Speaker 3
    0:27:53

    And now Normi is like you and me.
  • Speaker 1
    0:27:55

    Now we’re move.
  • Speaker 3
    0:27:56

    Yeah. We’d be like, well, that guy’s sketchy as fuck. Like, I’m not giving him my money book. VCs are like, Oh shit, he’s so smart.
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:03

    And
  • Speaker 3
    0:28:04

    he so doesn’t need our money, we must give it to him. I don’t think it was intentional on Sam’s part. I mean Sam has ADD and these notorious for playing multiple games at a time. So, but it really stuck out because it deconstructs like it just destroys these these myths that, like, VCs are brilliant and, like, in easy money times, everyone looks like a genius. Right?
  • Speaker 3
    0:28:22

    It’s like I threw money into know, I bought an AI stock
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:25

  • Speaker 3
    0:28:25

    Yeah. — some company that’s never gonna have a product. It went up a hundred percent yesterday. So I’m a genius. It’s when the the fit is the Shannon and, like, easy money goes away that, you know, you see swimming naked to quote Warren Buffett.
  • Speaker 3
    0:28:37

    So look, and the other thing is quite frankly, If you got in early and you are an insider, you can make a lot of money at the expense of other people. I mean, that’s the real, kind of cynical part. There are American companies DC companies that they’ve got in early on these coins and sold them, you know, effectively to the general public, and we’ll see what regulators say about that, but it’d be interesting to see.
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:57

    You did an on camera interview with Sam Bankman Freed, which, frankly, you didn’t spend enough time on it in the book. I could’ve had a whole another chapter on it just with with all of your stuff on it. So for people who may be watching this, you don’t run FTX, which was Sam Bankman Freed’s company, was notoriously poorly run. For instance, multi million dollar expenses would be okayed with emojis. This would, you know, somebody would say, can I spend the money on this on the internal Slack?
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:26

    And then, like, a thumbs up emoji would come through. And that was how but so when Sam Bankman Freed went off the record with you, and was talking about Jim Carlo Devasini, who was the the CFO over at Tethr, I think, and said, I would not run a company the way he does. Like, did your eyes fall out of your head?
  • Speaker 3
    0:29:47

    It was like the weirdest moment ever on a really weird interview where he goes, look, there’s more stuff I could say off the record. And then you just proceed. We didn’t agree to it, so I felt fine including it. And by the way, by the time I you know, then he was arrested. I was like, oh, screw this guy.
  • Speaker 3
    0:30:00

    But like, like I’ll protect sources that are actually like being legitimate with me. You don’t go, this is totally off the record. Let me tell you all this horrible possible criminal stuff that I’m about to, you know, And he just flagged off like everyone who mattered in crypto. You know, he was like without really slagging them off but just kind of. He was trying to redirect our energy towards, you know, other people, people other than him.
  • Speaker 3
    0:30:22

    So yeah, he slagged off Tethr and, you know, by by inference, Binance, who he famously fell out with, you know, later and that’s another story and and other guys. So it was like, he basically turned on this inner circle. It felt like was very powerful on crypto and I thought, why would you do that unless you were up to no good, right? You know what I mean? It felt very — Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:47

  • Speaker 3
    0:30:47

    manipulative and it was really weird. And I have the audio. So
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:51

    Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:30:51

    As you were interviewing him I mean, were you in the back of your mind thinking, this guy might go
  • Speaker 3
    0:30:56

    to prison? You know what? At the time and it’s a testament to how powerful the narrative was, at the time, I admit I even swallowed some of it, like, for sure. Because he was on the cover of magazines, he went to MIT, he was at Chain Street,
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:10

    you went to UVA. Yeah. So, you know, like, MIT is fine.
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:15

    That’s true.
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:15

    Go cavalier.
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:16

    That’s true.
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:16

    You went to mister Jefferson’s University.
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:19

    All right, well, I can out drink him. That’s for sure. I ascribed all this intelligence to him and sophistication that I kept running into the reality over an hour long interview or I kept being like that. This doesn’t make sense. What?
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:30

    What? What? And then at the end, because I couldn’t prove that he committed fraud or anything, obviously, and I couldn’t accuse him of crimes. You know, that’s not my role. I was a journalist author, I guess.
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:41

    I mean, I’ll put it this way. We didn’t know what to make of that interview, until things went really sideways. And then it all made sense. And so, basically, actually Jacob had done a pass in the interview, And I was like, no, actually I’m just going to rewrite the whole thing and just do it because not nothing you’ve done wrong, it done great, but like it was hard to know what to make of it, except this was sketchy as fuck. And something was going to happen.
  • Speaker 3
    0:32:03

    At the end of the day, the scam was even more simpler and dumber, the alleged scam, even simpler and dumber than I ever thought it would be. It’s simple. He changed one line of code in millions of white. He asked the guy lieutenant to change one line of code and millions of lines of code. And that created a secret backdoor where he could borrow against his customers’ funds.
  • Speaker 3
    0:32:25

    And basically, like, spend all of their money. Pretty simple scheme.
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:28

    Yeah. This is one of the big questions is where did the money go? Because FDX took in about sixteen billion dollars worth of customer funds. And then when everything hit the fan and we started to finally see the books and the ledgers, It looks like the total number of assets were really, really small, and a lot of the assets were phantom. And so like serum, which is where I don’t think you talk you talk about FTT a lot.
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:51

    Serum, which is a coin that Alameda created, which for free. Right? Because I just made it. I made this coin. And then they sold like three percent of it in the open market and held the rest of it and then just said on the balance sheets that what they were holding was worth two point two billion dollars.
  • Speaker 3
    0:33:08

    Yeah. Because that’s never there. Right? I mean, you’re saying like somebody bought three percent of something. And then you’re valuing the rest at that price when in fact no demand very little real organic demand exists for that asset, quote unquote asset.
  • Speaker 2
    0:33:21

    But where did the customer money go? Have the forensic accountants figure this out? Lamborghinis, hookers, and blow?
  • Speaker 3
    0:33:27

    No, he drove a corolla. He slept on the floor and he was gonna give it all away. I mean, he gave a hundred million of politicians, allegedly, to start on our schedule.
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:37

    The let go Ron DeSantis got the money. Another win for the first of last thing consultant.
  • Speaker 3
    0:33:42

    For humanity. And by the way, both parties. Woo hoo. So we spent a hundred mil on that. I’m assuming the FTX arena wasn’t cheap, celebrity endorsements, bahamas real estate, you know, and then you’re also getting into like, look, man, behind the sort of farcical crypto forefront of of the crypto industry, which is easy to mock and I enjoy doing so very much.
  • Speaker 3
    0:34:04

    Behind that, it can be used for serious crime. And so I think those people are all too happy to have somebody like Sam take the fall for, you know, put it this way, Alameda was the biggest or second biggest client of Tethr. Those guys that you were mentioning before, the really — Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:34:20

  • Speaker 3
    0:34:20

    not shady at all guys. So we’ll find out what that was about and how that worked at some point. There were so many clues for fraud. It was it was just wild.
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:28

    Why hasn’t the whole crypto world gone to zero? I mean, there is still Bitcoin still exists with a market cap, Ethereum still exists. The the boardaches, yacht clubs still, like, their NFTs still have value.
  • Speaker 1
    0:34:42

    Bitcoin’s still doing pretty good, actually. Doesn’t just still exist. I don’t know, I mean, like after the big fall, I was listening to one of the sports clubs that a Haralbob who’s a big kind of sports stats guy that got rich, gambling on sports. I was listening to him on a podcast. And there was an anti bitcoin guy saying, like, how do you feel about Bitcoin now, or Alb?
  • Speaker 1
    0:35:00

    And he was in early He’s like, I’ve still made a ton of money. Like, I’m still up, right? So it’s still doing quite well, I think, depending on when you got in.
  • Speaker 3
    0:35:07

    For those people, yeah. Yeah. Totally.
  • Speaker 2
    0:35:09

    Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of GameStop. Right? So when GameStop had its big explosion, right, the red sub reddit Wall Street bets came and people decided they were gonna pump Game stock up. And it was crazy, and, you know, GameStop was never actually worth like a hundred thirty three dollars a share or whatever it was.
  • Speaker 2
    0:35:25

    And after a long while, it eventually collapsed. But even when it collapsed, it was still trading like fifty percent over what it had been pre mania. And that’s, I guess, what I don’t understand. Like, you know, we’re post mania and yet there are still people in these things that should Again, we’ve all seen with it. It’s fraud allegedly.
  • Speaker 2
    0:35:43

    Like why aren’t they at zero? There’s still some mania.
  • Speaker 3
    0:35:46

    Well, yeah yeah sure because some people still believe in it, right? I mean it’s just a story, economically, it’s an economic narrative. I’m really into Robert Schiller. There’s nobel prize winning economist who’s talked about this. But like, you know, economic narratives the more powerful they are, the harder they die.
  • Speaker 3
    0:36:02

    And so as long as people believe in it, it’ll exist forever. I mean, even after potentially some other people, you know, get charged with crimes, some other big players potentially possibly in the future go down. But the other answer to that in addition to the belief thing is, well, fraud. The Bitcoin market is no toriously illiquid. There’s very little real liquidity there, meaning real organic demand for the coin.
  • Speaker 3
    0:36:26

    Owners is highly concentrated. I think it’s point one percent of wallet addresses or maybe it’s zero point zero one percent control twenty seven percent of the supply that can never assist. Jeez. So if you think of it as a commodity or security, it’s like a, you know, it bears more resemblance to a penny stock in that sense, and their ownership is highly concentrated and given the amount of washed trading and other shenanigans. And because it’s traded through the exchanges like Binance, which is, you know, an interesting company that we spend some time talking about, which has run through shell corporations overseas, you can say it’s worth whatever it’s worth.
  • Speaker 3
    0:37:00

    But it’s only worth that if you can get it out in real money. And they’re doing some really shady stuff now. I mean, that what they’ll do, for example, they notoriously do any KYC and AML. Know your customer any money laundering stuff. A lot of these QuickBooks changes didn’t do any of it or very little of it.
  • Speaker 3
    0:37:15

    And now they will they didn’t KYC you or AML you on the way in, but they’ll KYC you on the way out. And they’ll be like, oh, that I can’t give your money back. Alright. Yeah. And the exchanges will shut down, and they’ll disable the withdrawal button.
  • Speaker 3
    0:37:28

    I was the journalist was just telling me that about a major exchange. I mean, dude. I don’t know what to tell you. Look, if you got your money in crypto and it’s on a licensed US exchange, which may or may not end up being licensed, but we’ll let the courts decide that. But, like, Coinbase or whatever.
  • Speaker 3
    0:37:43

    Like and you’re not trying to get a lot of money out, you’re probably good. But, like, try moving a billion dollars worth of crypto through even the regulated marketplace. Good luck. The exchange volumes are lower than they were when this whole madness took off in late twenty twenty and early twenty one. So retail’s gone.
  • Speaker 3
    0:37:59

    Retail’s not there anymore.
  • Speaker 1
    0:38:00

    I asked a couple of crypto industry people that basically JBL’s question. Like their answer to this is that Krypto provides a certain services that the actual Fiat big banks don’t provide. Right? And there’s certain things whether it’s, you know, crossing borders or certain things for, you know, people that are unbanked or there’s you know, sort of had a frictionless banking. Like, do you disagree with that?
  • Speaker 1
    0:38:24

    Do you think crypto provides literally nothing that the banking system provides? Or do you think that it does about it.
  • Speaker 3
    0:38:29

    Well, if what you’re trying to avoid and sending your cross border payments is not paying taxes and evading sanctions and avoiding capital controls and things like that, then it’s very useful. I went to El Salvador, the only country in the world that’s trying to use bitcoin as as real money, and it’s not working. And if crypto was going to work, for remenses for sending money overseas, then it should work in El Salvador because a Salvador’s economy is heavily relying on remenses. It’s a quarter of the economy. There’s two to three million people of Salvador and descent live primarily in the United States.
  • Speaker 3
    0:39:00

    The money that’s in home is a quarter of the economy, and it’s a it’s a cash economy. Most people do not have banking. Most people are, you know, living paycheck to paycheck. And the government was like, look, we’re gonna suddenly do bitcoin as currency, we’re gonna build this system on top of it, the Chivo wallet system. And it’ll allow you to send money back home without paying Western Union and MoneyGram that’s gonna charge you a fee.
  • Speaker 3
    0:39:25

    Great sales pitch. What happened? Bam. Just bomb. The day it went into effect, crypto crashed, which is very interesting.
  • Speaker 3
    0:39:34

    If you were say front running crypto, this would be an interesting move. And they basically gave every Salvador in thirty bucks, people were getting their identities ripped off, people were losing that money. And Salvador’s basically, we’re like, no. Fuck this. We’re not gonna use this stuff.
  • Speaker 3
    0:39:47

    So according to the government’s own figures, less than two percent of Salvadorians use the system. Why? Because it doesn’t work because it doesn’t work and they don’t have money that they can afford to gamble with. Like, they can’t lose all of their money if they’re trying to send it home to, like, feed their families or whatever. So, you know, my answer to remittances is bullshit.
  • Speaker 3
    0:40:08

    I mean, it can be used as a kind of a rudimentary store of value in times of crisis, like you see the Argentine using it because inflation is insane or whatever. But I describe it like this. They’re not currencies. So calling a cryptocurrency is like calling a brick a soccer ball. Could you play soccer with a brick?
  • Speaker 3
    0:40:30

    I mean sure, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s gonna hurt. There’s a lot of costs associated with it. And it also facilitates so much crime that you have to access yourself to the does the marginal possible good? Of somebody being able to avoid say a totalitarian state, does that outweigh
  • Speaker 2
    0:40:49

    the massive
  • Speaker 3
    0:40:49

    amount of fraud and the massive amount of illegal activity? That facilitates? My answer is absolutely no. One hundred percent no.
  • Speaker 2
    0:40:58

    Yeah. I mean, you could see it functioning as a hedge commodity like gold or silver. Right?
  • Speaker 3
    0:41:05

    But hedging against what? Like, they were saying it’s gonna hedge against inflation, which was hilarious. Right? I was like, oh, fuck that.
  • Speaker 2
    0:41:11

    Good luck.
  • Speaker 3
    0:41:12

    And they tried to sell that. I went on CNBC and the host was just reading the talking points like I
  • Speaker 2
    0:41:17

    said it to me.
  • Speaker 1
    0:41:18

    And it
  • Speaker 3
    0:41:18

    was already down like thirty percent at that point. This was April of twenty twenty two. And I’m like hedging so it’s a hedge in the sense that as inflation goes up, it goes down, that’s your hedge. Like these are just stories guys. Like, I know these guys wanna believe in it.
  • Speaker 3
    0:41:31

    They got in early. They did well. Like, good on them. I’m not accusing them of committing crimes, but, like, that’s just a pyramid scheme, ponzi scheme. Right?
  • Speaker 3
    0:41:37

    You got in early. The thing went up. Like, congratulations. Like, get out, by the way. Like, I mean, you know, not that I wanna give advice to these guys, but like, And they’re so defensive now and they’re so angry now.
  • Speaker 3
    0:41:47

    Why are they so triggered by just like an actor who wrote a book, you know, if their industry is so transformative like gee, Brian Outwood’s really getting under your skin. You know, it’s just, like, it’s all bullshit. You know what I mean? And it goes back to, like, fucking Trump. Right?
  • Speaker 3
    0:42:00

    I mean, it’s, like, they’re bullies. Try to bully you into believing this stuff that they really believe in because they’ve made money on it. But the only logic they understand is playground. Logic. Like, you gotta punch him in the mouth.
  • Speaker 3
    0:42:12

    Like, Bulwark. You’re full.
  • Speaker 1
    0:42:13

    I will say one of my crypto industry friends was not triggered by you and in fact said that she want me to tell you that you are the hottest skeptic in all of tech.
  • Speaker 2
    0:42:21

    It’s a low bar.
  • Speaker 1
    0:42:21

    So you do have that going for you. Much hotter than the are you seeing the other guys? The Facebook skeptic guys?
  • Speaker 3
    0:42:29

    Nahah. I’m nomadic people in the industry, and I say it in the front of the book, just to be clear, most people haven’t committed fraud. So just join me in condemning those that have and let’s see where the where the chips fall. Right? Let’s just see what happens.
  • Speaker 3
    0:42:41

    Flush out the bad guys and see what’s left.
  • Speaker 2
    0:42:43

    Last question and then I’ll give you back over to Tim. Does social media create unique regulatory problems? Some of the regulatory architecture is designed to prevent things like pump and dumps and conzys, etcetera. We have technology creating, like, new securities, which, again, crypto clearly was a security. Like, it was not it was not a currency.
  • Speaker 2
    0:43:05

    And then you have social media, which allows millions of people, tens of millions of people to coordinate across the globe in ways which were impossible before. So you can have things like, you know, our Wall Street bets and you can have things like dogecoin, where Elon Musk owns some enormous amount of dogecoin, and he can tweet just, you know, tweak the doge emoji. Dogecoin goes up and he sells off some dogecoin and makes money. And then, you know, he waits a week and tweets about how he sold some Dogecoin. Dogecoin goes down, then he can buy some more.
  • Speaker 2
    0:43:44

    It is literally like owning a printing press for money. Is this the type of thing that you think there should be some regulatory infrastructure for? Should we have to change with the times on this? Have you spent any time thinking about this stuff?
  • Speaker 3
    0:43:56

    Oh, definitely spend some time thinking about it. And there’s not a lot of easy answers. I do think the social media companies, like, have to be regulated because — Right.
  • Speaker 1
    0:44:03

  • Speaker 3
    0:44:04

    a lot of that demand, again, like, what you’re really talking about is fake demand. Right? Like, people are Like, they’re literally paying people in like the Philippines to like tweet about, you know, it’s because you’ll see the same tweets going over and over and over again. And it makes gives you this sense that like, oh, there’s a movement. There’s all these people that are buying Bitcoin.
  • Speaker 3
    0:44:21

    But like, come on, dude, look at a lot of these handles. They’re like, they got the laser eyes. They’re all synonymous, almost all of them. Right? And you’re like crypto punk chick three four seven one two.
  • Speaker 3
    0:44:34

    Who, like, you know, has only tweeted about crypto over the last two years, like, uh-huh. Yeah. Sure. Now you’re definitely into it. In that sense, yeah, I think it’s a new form of manipulation.
  • Speaker 3
    0:44:43

    And I think that it’s really to think about codifying existing regulations. It’s not some new thing. We’ve had securities laws. For ninety years. Why have they worked?
  • Speaker 3
    0:44:52

    Because they’re broadly written on purpose. They’re supposed to be applicable to almost anything. It’s four things without investment of money and a common enterprise with the expectation of profit to be derived from the efforts of others. That could be applied to so many different things and is. Apply to crypto, and see what happens.
  • Speaker 3
    0:45:09

    In terms of social media, yeah, I mean I don’t know how you police that stuff.
  • Speaker 1
    0:45:14

    We could have a whole separate podcast in us. We probably should. Our Congress is ineptitude is a big issue here. Right? Because it’s totally failed as having it as an administrative state solution, both to big tech issues and to crypto issues.
  • Speaker 1
    0:45:25

    And and this is an example of why you know, not having two functioning, governing parties is a problem. Okay. Ben, I wanna give you just two more little pushbacks from Crypto Friends and then we’re gonna talk about Ryan Atwood. The first one I think is gonna be like batting practice for you, but I’m gonna do it anyway because multiple people said this to me. And that is Is it possible that your hostility to crypto could just be a lack of understanding of the tech?
  • Speaker 1
    0:45:49

    Like what do you say to the fact that real smarties like Marking and Dreesen and other extremely wealthy, intelligent people think that this is the future.
  • Speaker 3
    0:45:57

    Yeah. Like Jack Dorsey of Twitter, who is obviously brilliant. I mean, he’s rich. So he must be smart. And he was talking about hyperinflation, which was coming to the United States in the fall of twenty twenty one, and he warned people they need to survive point because there was gonna be high for inflation in the United States.
  • Speaker 3
    0:46:16

    We need to stop with his notion that billionaires are somehow smarter than us. They may be smart about whatever it is that made them money, which they may have made in an ethical manner or not. But that certainly doesn’t make them smart about things that they haven’t made money on or whatever. These are just stories like I know we want to say if you say I haven’t done enough research, my response to you is fuck you. I’ve spent two years investigating this.
  • Speaker 3
    0:46:45

    I’ve interviewed the head of your entire industry who’s now alleged to have been running a fraudulent team. Like, what more proof do you need that I am right, dude? Like, I I I I don’t know Let’s
  • Speaker 1
    0:46:59

    do that in one of those cases. Yeah.
  • Speaker 3
    0:47:01

    I mean, they have internal finance the finance, the biggest exchange that’s been sued by the c s CFDC and the SEC, and has yet to be charged by the DOJ, Let’s see, they have internal communications and finance employees. And one of the finance employees says to the other, dude, we’re running an unlicensed security change in the United States borough. That’s a quote from alleged quote from I mean, man, give me a break. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe you don’t know what you’re talking about.
  • Speaker 3
    0:47:30

    By the way, the people I’m getting triggered. The people that say that are usually they’re usually they go like I’m not taking financial advice from a reality star. Make you idiot. You don’t even know my career. Like, that’s I what reality show
  • Speaker 1
    0:47:44

    up identify. You don’t appreciate my oof.
  • Speaker 3
    0:47:46

    You don’t appreciate. The OC started in real housewives. In real housewives of Orange County, we you can look this up. We started it. Nobody gave a shit about Orange County before then.
  • Speaker 3
    0:47:56

    I started your reality TV that you’re yeah. That was me. That was a big part of that.
  • Speaker 1
    0:48:00

    That was pretty good. Okay. I wanna go to ACV. I I have one legit thing though, I’m gotta be wrong. Like there’s gotta be something I’m missing here.
  • Speaker 1
    0:48:06

    And one thing that landed with me once that you covered in the book was somebody made this talking point. I shouldn’t realize I was talking point when my friend told it to And it was that, actually, this is super useful. If you’re You can be a video game player in some Third World Country that gets really good at a video game and people will pay you in Bitcoin to go earn them various tokens and help them get to other levels. And it’s a way that people can make money and that you can’t do that Fiat currency.
  • Speaker 3
    0:48:29

    Well, first of all, why not? Why couldn’t you pay people? I mean, you’re paying them in fiat to I assume to play these video games endlessly and then sell it back to Americans at a higher price, right? So, like, there is beyond involved. But I mean let’s use a good example.
  • Speaker 3
    0:48:43

    That’s let’s use a company that has experience here. Axi Infiniti was a big, this is called play to earn, right? It was a big play to earn company and it was hacked. And if you can’t see me, because you’re listening to a podcast, I’m using the biggest air quotes you’ve ever effing seen to say it was hacked for all of this money. I mean guys like at best what?
  • Speaker 3
    0:49:06

    It’s the most depressing future ever like slave labor of guys playing bad video games in the Philippines. People playing bad video games to sell it back to Americans. That’s the best case. The worst case is it just being used to fraud, to fright people, right? It’s like they’re going to buy these like, fake assets to play this game, it’s really funny.
  • Speaker 3
    0:49:23

    Like, the gamer community hates crypto, cryptographers, hate crypto, software engineer say crypto, I mean, majorities of these professions I would argue because I’ve talked to them. And so it’s just like another excuse, right? It’s just like another way of sorry man. There’s nothing there.
  • Speaker 1
    0:49:38

    Okay. OC porn. And then we need to do a quick rapid fire JBL. I’m leaving one of the rapid fires. I’m gonna give you a minute to think about a baseball rapid fire got a baseball person, I don’t do baseball, alright?
  • Speaker 1
    0:49:47

    So you’re gonna close this out with baseball, but first, o c, when did you know it was gonna happen for you? Like, when were you like, oh my God? F one was that you walked on the set and you just looked at all the pretty people and you’re like this is gonna hit or when was it?
  • Speaker 3
    0:49:59

    Oh, no. No. I didn’t know what I was doing. I never really worked before, right, has probably spent three or four days on a set in my life prior to getting, you know, the lead of this pilot. And so I had no idea what it was doing.
  • Speaker 3
    0:50:09

    I was scared, shitless.
  • Speaker 1
    0:50:10

    And — Who was your competition? Do you know? There another famous person out there that you beat out for Ryan that one?
  • Speaker 3
    0:50:14

    Look, I don’t have any beef with him now. The Chad Michael Murray claimed Who is Chad? That he was offered my part and turned it down. Like, you break it news here, Tim, in a sense that I’ve been trying to be classy about this I’ve been trying to be classy about this, but he did claim you can read about it. I believe it was inter entertainment weekly.
  • Speaker 3
    0:50:34

    And at the time, I was quite sensitive about this. I was like, come on. What are you doing? Like, don’t say that.
  • Speaker 1
    0:50:39

    I hate as I had a crush on him during one tree hill. Now I’m getting uncomfortable. Anyway, sorry, continue.
  • Speaker 3
    0:50:45

    He has good hair. I wish him nothing but the best. When did I know it was a hit? Well, we we were shooting and it felt like it was going really well. And the energy was good, and the vibe was good, and it was great.
  • Speaker 3
    0:50:54

    Scripps by Josh Schwartz and Doug Line — Oh.
  • Speaker 1
    0:50:56

  • Speaker 3
    0:50:56

    who, you know, directed mister and missus Smith and swingers. It was what I was really a big fan of him at the time. Yeah, great director. He directed the pilot we wrapped on a Friday, they were editing it as we shot. And the following Monday, I was I needed a car.
  • Speaker 3
    0:51:10

    I bought a five hundred dollar nineteen eighty six Cadillac to fill out of the penny saver because I didn’t have any money and I needed a car in LA. And so I had done this pilot and gotten enough money, and I was, like, I was gonna go and buy a car. So I was with Brody, actually. I had him Brody, and we were at the Subaru dealership or something. Right?
  • Speaker 3
    0:51:27

    And I got the call from my agents that we were picked up. So we picked up on a Monday after the Friday. Like, they literally saw like a like a rough cut. And I went to the infinity dealership, got myself an infinity because I was like, And I got a car with a spoiler, and Brody never gave me. He gave me so much grief for that.
  • Speaker 3
    0:51:42

    I got a car with a spoiler, and he made it fun of me forever for that. That’s what I know.
  • Speaker 1
    0:51:46

    That leads into my next question actually which is were you annoyed that the show hit right at the moment when the hipster vibe was coming in so your Dorky sidekick ended up, you know, kind of outshining you as being the person who like girls have — Yeah. — you know, and posters on their wall. And that was supposed to be you. You were supposed to be pretty boy.
  • Speaker 3
    0:52:05

    First of all, I did just fine. So don’t don’t cry over for me. And secondly, you know, Josh Schwartz’s who I love and who I’m so friendly with in Adam. You know, Josh is a version of Adam. Right?
  • Speaker 3
    0:52:18

    I mean, he’s this Jewish kid who at USC actually at UCLA originally, I think, and then he transferred to USC. Like, he realized there was this whole culture in Orange County that he could write about and as an outsider could write about. So, you know, the character of Seth is very similar to Josh. And you know, at the end of the day, like the writing is going to go that direction and Adam is unbelievably talented. And like Yeah.
  • Speaker 3
    0:52:40

    So, you know, at the end of the day, I was like, okay, you know, that is what it is. So
  • Speaker 1
    0:52:43

    you don’t think it was the hipster culture. It was Josh giving them a nudge.
  • Speaker 2
    0:52:46

    Well, no. The hipster culture
  • Speaker 3
    0:52:47

    was also happening. It was in the air You know what I mean? And at the end of the day, like, I was
  • Speaker 1
    0:52:53

    years earlier, you would have been who had to have said this JBL, we need your GenX now here. What was Brendan in nine zero
  • Speaker 2
    0:52:57

    two one o? Luke Perry. Right? Jason Presley versus Luke Perry?
  • Speaker 1
    0:53:01

    Yeah. Jesus. But both those guys were like bros. Like you. Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:53:04

    Yeah. You know, you’re bringing Dorky Adam Brody, and it’s like right at the moment that metro sexuality is coming in.
  • Speaker 3
    0:53:10

    I was also a friend was pointing this out at the time, just trying to make me feel better because I was feeling like, oh, god. I’m like, I’m just gonna be that guy. I was like, you were on that teen show that one time, you know. And now you’re whatever. You’re hot you’re trying to sell me, like, life insurance at three in the morning on a cable TV.
  • Speaker 3
    0:53:26

    And my friend was like, you’re pretty unusual because you’ve got cast in your big breakout role against type Like, you’re not actually anything like that guy. I mean, in the sense that, like, I have an e I’m an econ Bulwark. I mean, so I think in that sense, I felt uncomfortable for a while, but here’s the good news about this trip. I care about this. I think I know what I’m talking about, and I found my way.
  • Speaker 3
    0:53:44

    So cryptocurrency, thank you. Have given me purpose.
  • Speaker 1
    0:53:46

    Isn’t it nice when you can feel really good and fulfilled about your work? This is something that I did as well. So I will say shouldn’t feel unfulfilled about Ryan Atwood, and I’m only fucking with you because it is just too weird and cool for me to have had Adam Brode and and to Andrew on on our little podcast. Okay. I’m moving to Rapidfire.
  • Speaker 1
    0:54:04

    Are you ready?
  • Speaker 3
    0:54:05

    Ready.
  • Speaker 1
    0:54:05

    Four Rapidfire questions. Three from me and then one from JBL. Number one, everyone gets it. What’s something that you’ve changed your mind about as a grown up?
  • Speaker 3
    0:54:14

    Gambling. And gambling’s actually not it’s not victimless. It’s not harmless.
  • Speaker 1
    0:54:18

    You’ve gone from pro gambling to anti gaming. Maybe the two most interesting answers to that question are from the OC guys. Adam Brody gave us guns and movies.
  • Speaker 3
    0:54:26

    Oh, yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:54:27

    Like, you know, and that he’s kind of changed his view.
  • Speaker 3
    0:54:29

    As a parent, it’s starting yeah. I was on Gothic, which is incredibly violent. Show and I was showing it to my kids the other day and I was like, oh my God, this is actually really bad.
  • Speaker 1
    0:54:37

    I’m still gambling, but I’m on the fence with you on that. Okay. Who is Satoshiji? You’ve done two years worth of research. Do you have a theory?
  • Speaker 3
    0:54:45

    Well, actually thank you. On this podcast, I was going to reveal the big Secret Podcast,
  • Speaker 1
    0:54:50

    great. Fifty one minutes into the podcast. Satoshi
  • Speaker 3
    0:54:53

    is Chad Michael Murray.
  • Speaker 1
    0:54:54

    Not only has beaten six
  • Speaker 3
    0:54:58

    times.
  • Speaker 1
    0:55:00

    To change voice awards.
  • Speaker 2
    0:55:01

    Go get them.
  • Speaker 3
    0:55:02

    Go get them, guys.
  • Speaker 1
    0:55:03

    Great answer. Favorite song from the o c soundtrack.
  • Speaker 3
    0:55:06

    Oh, that’s a good one. Orange Sky. I like Orange Sky a lot.
  • Speaker 2
    0:55:09

    Are you gonna play yourself in the movie version of the book? Because I’m reading this book and I’m thinking to myself, this is half the big short and half the the last Fletch movie. Moving. This has to happen as a movie and I I want you to play yourself.
  • Speaker 3
    0:55:25

    Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:55:25

    Can you do that? Yes.
  • Speaker 3
    0:55:27

    Really? So here’s my pitch, is we do make the movie, I would like to direct it, and there is a character, Ben Mackenzie, but he’s played by Ryan or by Adam Brody. Oh. By Adam Brody, possibly, bit of a stretch. We have to do a hair dry dry dry dry dry but like it was the only fitting in my career if the part of me was played by another actor
  • Speaker 2
    0:55:50

    Or Chad Michael Murray.
  • Speaker 3
    0:55:51

    Or Chad Michael Murray? Could be a good could be a good Ben Mackenzie in the movie.
  • Speaker 1
    0:55:56

    I think it would be Chad Michael Murray. If Chad Michael Murray’s agent is out there, let’s make this happen. And all I’m asking for
  • Speaker 3
    0:56:03

    I like him.
  • Speaker 1
    0:56:04

    All I’m asking for is being invited to the premier. Okay? I don’t wanna roll. Alright. I don’t need that role.
  • Speaker 1
    0:56:09

    You know, it’s it’s just I I got a big kick out of in your book at the beginning. You’re like, you’re talking about how. I feel nervous to reach out to these journalists and Titians. Like, they’re gonna think that I’m just a dilettante actor and over here every political journalist or political consultant is like, please be friends with me. No matter if you’re like d minus list actor.
  • Speaker 1
    0:56:29

    I’m desperate to be friends with you. Were you, like, what did you play? Were you in one episode of the OC? I would love to be your friend. I do love kind of the human nature of that.
  • Speaker 1
    0:56:38

    It’s a wonderful book, easy money, cryptocurrency, casino capitalism, the golden age of fraud, Ben Kenzie with Jacob Silverman. This has been really my honor. Thank you so much for doing it. We will hopefully, you know, see you on the trail somewhere.
  • Speaker 3
    0:56:51

    I would
  • Speaker 1
    0:56:51

    love that.
  • Speaker 3
    0:56:51

    Thanks, guys. He’s been so
  • Speaker 1
    0:56:53

    Alright. See you Wednesday for the regular next level with JBL and Sarah Longwell we’re back next Sunday with somebody not as fun as Ben Mackenzie. Peace.
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