Loading summary
Transcript251 lines
- [00:00]
Hasan Piker
Harvey Weinstein is complaining about Rikers. That's right. The supervillain of the MeToo movement is upset because he got punched in the face by a fellow inmate. And Harvey is correct. Hitting is wrong. Even in prison. It is awful to be touched without consent. Anyways, I read about this story on Ground News, which is Today's sponsor and HMDK's favorite independent news platform. Ground News shows a breakdown of publications reporting on a story in which way they lean politically, whether it's right, left, or center. Now, it's not about eliminating bias. We all have biases. But Ground News helps you be a more conscientious consumer of the pageant of pain unfolding around us. Now, you may think, yeah, duh, CNN is slightly left, Fox is right. Why do I need this? Well, not everything is about America, folks. Ground News sources, articles from all over the world. For example, There are currently 97 articles talking about Weinstein and Rikers. And a lot of the publications are international. Now, I know the Globo in Brazil leans right and Le Monde in France leans left. And I'm keeping that in mind when I read their coverage. So go to groundnews.com hassan to subscribe and get 40% off the unlimited access vantage plan, which breaks down to just five bucks a month with my discount. Stay aware and go to groundnews.com Hasan Today, people hold you small.
- [01:17]
Ben McKenzie
It's such an advantage to be underestimated.
- [01:20]
Hasan Piker
Series regular on a fox sitcom from 2003 is your sitcom.
- [01:24]
Ben McKenzie
It's not a series.
- [01:24]
Hasan Piker
Sorry, sorry. One hour drama was a scripted drama. Scripted one hour drama.
- [01:28]
Ben McKenzie
Not at all. A soap opera.
- [01:29]
Hasan Piker
Capital D drama.
- [01:30]
Ben McKenzie
Capital D drama.
- [01:31]
Hasan Piker
Nominated for 16 choice awards.
- [01:33]
Ben McKenzie
I am. I am. I never won. I am the Susan Lucci of the Teen Choice Awards. I'm sorry. I'm the Susan Lucci of the Teen Choice Awards.
- [01:39]
Hasan Piker
I'm sorry. I'm just. I'm sorry that you're. That.
- [01:42]
Ben McKenzie
Oh, you're just sorry? Yeah. Okay. I thought you couldn't understand what I mean. Yeah. You're just sorry.
- [01:46]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, well, for both the fact that you didn't win, and then also, I don't know who Susan Lucci is. I've been putting this off, but it's finally time for me to step up and face the fate fiercest keyboard warriors on the Internet. I'm talking about the Male Swifties, the Blockchain Brotherhood, the Bitcoin Bros. They have been coming at me for years, ever since I made a single joke on Patriot Act. The only thing that should double that Quickly is the value of bitcoin. Just kidding. That was a garbage investment and you're an idiot. Bitcoin is just beanie babies for tech bros. And to this day, every time the price of bitcoin pops, some Twitter shit poster dunks on me about it. But nobody hates crypto as much as my Next guest, Ben McKenzie. You might know Ben from his acting career playing Ryan on the OC or Commissioner Gordon on Gotham. But for the past four years, Ben has been going hard in the paint and has been partnering with journalist Jacob Silverman to investigate and document fraud in the crypto market. Writing articles, publishing a book, and now releasing a new documentary called Everyone is lying to you for money. So I sat down with Ben to talk about how the main use case for crypto is still basically crime.
- [02:51]
Ben McKenzie
The next time you see an article about cryptocurrency, exchange the word crypto for money laundering and just see if the article makes sense.
- [02:57]
Hasan Piker
Our fellow celebrities who have endorsed it.
- [02:59]
Ben McKenzie
No offense to Matt Damon, but he doesn't know shit about blockchain and how
- [03:02]
Hasan Piker
the most important load bearing wall of this, let's call it a pyramid, is now the President of the United States.
- [03:08]
Ben McKenzie
If you're putting money into something that Trump is backing because you think you're going to make money out of it, just know that he's a convicted fraudster.
- [03:14]
Hasan Piker
Co comment section Brace yourself. Every heterosexual man has a group thread called Du Bois. And during the pandemic Du Bois thread was popping right? There was a lot of crypto talk, a lot of btc, a lot of ethereum, a lot of cryptocurrency talk. But what I was am interested in talking to you about is what got it its hooks and fangs into even me during that period of time was this sense of not even necessarily greed. But am I missing out on something?
- [03:56]
Ben McKenzie
Totally.
- [03:57]
Hasan Piker
Is there something I don't get? Yeah, money has always been this elusive, weird thing to me. This kind of makes sense. Do I need to look into this? Am I dumb if I don't look into this?
- [04:05]
Ben McKenzie
Totally. What?
- [04:06]
Hasan Piker
What was it titillating within you? Yeah, it was absolutely beyond boredom.
- [04:10]
Ben McKenzie
It was absolutely that aspect. I've always been fascinated by money. I was never good at math, so I was never going to be very good. So I was never going to be an economist. But I love the behavioral side of economics. There's this guy, Robert Schiller, who's a Nobel prize winning economist, who's very much influenced my work and he talks about these things called naturally occurring Ponzi schemes. And it's basically the price of a speculative asset goes up, like, way beyond what it could possibly be worth in terms of, like, its utility. And people see that price going up and they're like, oh, it's going up. I should buy in. They buy in, which sends the price further and then more people. And that these things can go on for a very, very long time. And as I looked at crypto, because crypto doesn't do any of the three things that money's supposed to do. Medium exchange, unit of account, store value. It can't be a medium exchange because the technology sucks. It can only process five to seven transactions a second. Visa and MasterCard can do 24,000. So it just can't process transactions fast enough. It can't serve as unit account or store of value because the price goes up and down.
- [05:13]
Hasan Piker
Volatility, like.
- [05:14]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah, yeah. So if it's not money, what is it? It's an investment, right? You put money into it, hope to make money off of it through no work of your own. That's literally an investment. Like the definition of an total. Under American sitting.
- [05:25]
Hasan Piker
Hodling.
- [05:26]
Ben McKenzie
Hodling, Exactly. It's called the Howey Test, and it's got four prongs. It's investment of money in a common enterprise with the expectation of profit to be derived from the efforts of others. And it's, like, super broadly defined because people had schemes to, like, make money for you, since Ponzi schemes are as old as. I mean, it was literally 100 years old. Ponzi. They actually predated Ponzi, but whatever. So when celebrities were out there selling this, like, loosely regulated financial product with no. Understand, no offense to Matt Damon, but he doesn't know shit about blockchain. History is filled with almosts, with those
- [06:04]
Hasan Piker
who almost adventured, who almost achieved, but
- [06:08]
Ben McKenzie
ultimately, for them, it proved to be too much.
- [06:11]
Hasan Piker
But you were watching the commercial. We gotta. We gotta play the footage.
- [06:18]
Ben McKenzie
Fortune favors the brave.
- [06:26]
Hasan Piker
I mean, what the. What the.
- [06:29]
Ben McKenzie
Does Matt Damon know about cryptocurrency? Nothing. Are you mad at him for this or. Cause he's more famous than you are? He might be taller, too. He's not taller than me. All right, so it says he's 5 10, but not sure. I also say I'm 5 10.
- [06:50]
Hasan Piker
You've called celebrities shilling bitcoin. A quote, moral disaster. But you've been to Hollywood. You're looking for salvation and morality. Deadline.com.
- [07:01]
Ben McKenzie
i'm sorry, I should have implied.
- [07:02]
Hasan Piker
You feel IMDb.com will be your salvation.
- [07:04]
Ben McKenzie
It's just that I know the standards are low, but like if you're, if you're hawking a financial product and by the way, you're not disclosing how much you've been paid for it, which is one of the problems. Right. And then people lose money on that investment, which a lot of people on a lot of different celeb backed things like Kim Kardashian did one and had to settle with the sec and there's all these different people. Like, it's just wrong. You know, it's wrong. It's gross. You also have a lot of money, so why do you need to sell other people on this thing that you haven't really done your homework on and is shady and yeah, do better.
- [07:37]
Hasan Piker
You have a pretty brilliant montage that you show in the documentary and I want us to go to it. You're seeing a level of celebrity that backs essentially blue chip companies. And the feeling that I got when I was watching those commercials in that moment is, oh, this is too big to fail. This is here.
- [07:54]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah.
- [07:55]
Hasan Piker
Like if Tom Brady, Shaquille o', Neal, Steph Curry and Matt Damon are talking about Toyota, it's a, it's here to stay.
- [08:01]
Ben McKenzie
Right.
- [08:02]
Hasan Piker
Like this thing as an idea, as an entity, how do you reconcile the feeling that people feel watching that and then how you felt watching it on the couch?
- [08:15]
Ben McKenzie
I think it's really important to understand what's happening. Why are celebrities hired to hawk products? Because people trust them. They have a relationship with them through, through the tv, through the movie screen. And so there's a, there's a trust that they have that they're then imputing into the thing that they're selling. And it's a very deliberate play by the cryptocurrency industry. Crypto is notorious. Bitcoin people are notorious for saying bitcoin has no marketing department. Right. Like, there's no one, there's no central person in charge of it. Right. It's a decentralized ledger. But crypto is really just a story. It's just a story that you're going to make money on it, that whatever like ails you is going to be fixed by crypto. If you invest in it.
- [08:58]
Hasan Piker
What's their core story? You've said, quote, bitcoin is a story that will last as long as people believe in it. So what's the story and what's their core pitch?
- [09:06]
Ben McKenzie
The story can be anything that anyone wants it to be. Like at the end. It's sort of a projection of the hopes and dreams of the investors, I would say, sorry, there's two. There's two groups. There's the normal, like, investors, whether they have a ton of money or not, whether they're institutional or not, and then there's the criminals. So cryptocurrency has incredible utility for criminals, and we could talk about that, but for the regular people that are buying it, I interviewed, you know, many of them for the doc for this particular scheme called Celsius. Celsius, which ultimately went bankrupt. And a lot of people lost a lot of money. Regular people.
- [09:38]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [09:39]
Ben McKenzie
And so I, I, you know, posted on Reddit and. And met these guys. They were all guys, literally every single one of them. Sure. And. And, you know, you would ask them questions like, what did you, you know, why'd you invest? And, you know, this one guy, just absolutely heartbreaking. A fellow Texan, I think he worked construction or something, like, really, like, salt of the earth dude. And he. He had a bunch of money in it and he lost it. And he was saying all he wanted was to, like, be able to take more time off of work and spend more time.
- [10:07]
Hasan Piker
Spend more time with her daughter.
- [10:08]
Ben McKenzie
It was heartbreaking, and it was like.
- [10:09]
Hasan Piker
It was super heartbreaking.
- [10:10]
Ben McKenzie
You know, I have kids and you just, like, your heart breaks for him. Mostly just a shot at freedom. You know, I shot it a little
- [10:17]
Hasan Piker
bit more, claiming of my time back,
- [10:19]
Ben McKenzie
and that time I can't get with my daughter back. I just had so many plans, you know, I feel like I let her down big time. The thing that's really hard. One of the things that's really hard about crypto is that there's only maybe like 5% of the popular, 5 or 6% of the population that's really into it. And then there's maybe another 10% that's, like, kind of playing around with it, like, has ever bought it. So you're talking about, like, one in six Americans, but, like, really one in 20 that are, like, really into it. The thing is, you're never going to be able to convince them that it's not a good investment. I asked all of the victims of Celsius, like, the same question. Do you still believe in cryptocurrency? Some of these people have lost their life savings. Every single one of them said yes.
- [11:08]
Hasan Piker
Wow.
- [11:09]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah. Like, I didn't have to edit it. I mean, we did edit it for time, but, like, every single one said yes. And they would have different reasons. They would say, well, it's. That one was a scam. But bitcoin, I believe in which is a big sort of theme. But, like, when I say it's a projection of their hopes and dreams, I really mean that. I really think that people are. And we should talk about, like, why people get into crypto and gambling and prediction markets. It's like, we financialized everything and we're pushing it so hard at dudes, really. Specifically at young men.
- [11:40]
Hasan Piker
There's two things that pull you in on the Internet if you're a straight dude, Money shit or pervy shit. Now, let's not focus on the latter. Let's talk about the former.
- [11:49]
Ben McKenzie
Right.
- [11:50]
Hasan Piker
And I think at the core of the money shit, yes, one component of it is greed. But there's this other component which comes from a very real place of I have to have agency over my life.
- [12:06]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah.
- [12:06]
Hasan Piker
And I am responsible for the circumstances in my life. And society may be cold to me. Nobody is going to come to save me.
- [12:14]
Ben McKenzie
Right.
- [12:15]
Hasan Piker
I feel like the institutions that are in place, my employer, the government, the state, these institutions have failed me. There has to be a better way in. What spoke to me about cryptocurrency and got me to waste endless hours during the pandemic and not be with my loved ones. Was that idea right? That there has to be a better way?
- [12:35]
Ben McKenzie
Yes.
- [12:36]
Hasan Piker
And I'm a fool if I don't take the agency to explore and to start to study this.
- [12:41]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah. The crypto story is really simple. It says the system as it exists now, the regulated financial system, our global financial system, sucks. It's, like, deeply unfair. It's hard to navigate. You don't have agency over your own life. And they say that statement. And you know who agrees with that? Everyone. Literally everyone agrees with that, except for maybe some billionaires. Right, Right. They'll have their different reasons as to why it sucks, but, like, they're gonna agree with the first part. Yeah.
- [13:09]
Hasan Piker
Yeah. Everybody but six people.
- [13:11]
Ben McKenzie
Right. And then the second thing is bitcoin fixes this, which is literally like a meme at this point. It's one of the things people say. So it's a really simple argument, and I understand its appeal. I do. Because I agree with the first one. The system sucks and we should hate the banks.
- [13:26]
Hasan Piker
There's been so many different ways in which the big banks and the federal government have basically run amok and screwed over. Let's not Wall street, but Main Street. But the caveat you give, though, is. And it's really interesting, I don't have the answer here, but you go, it's built on trust, and it's backed by the government, and we all trust the government. But how do you reconcile?
- [13:49]
Ben McKenzie
We don't now, though. Right. That's. I think one of the things that gave cryptocurrency so much currency is that there's such deep trust, distrust of the government. And I think one maybe simpler way of looking at it is it's not that I'm pro government, it's that I'm pro democracy, working to actually, you know, effectuate change through our government. But the. The problems with our government are really based on the problems with our. Our supposed democracy, where the will of the people isn't expressed. Like the Supreme Court is not expressing the majority's opinion on a whole host of issues because the Republicans rigged it. The Senate, because of the way the Constitution is set up, doesn't represent the majority of the populace. The majority of senators don't represent the majority of the population. But the only way to really change that, in my opinion, is to strengthen the democracy so that it actually represents the will of the people.
- [14:40]
Hasan Piker
So it sounds like the sell of bitcoin fundamentally was an anti government, anti big bank position. So you got super into Bitcoin 2020. You and I, we were both super online and we got into bitcoin. Then in 2022, we had crypto winter. Bitcoin went from $69,000 in 2021 to under $16,000 in 2022. Your book comes out in 2023. You go on the I told you so.com book tour.
- [15:12]
Ben McKenzie
Yes.
- [15:13]
Hasan Piker
Okay. Yes, happily, SBF goes to prison. Head of Binance goes to prison. The whole thing was blowing up. Let's fucking go.
- [15:21]
Ben McKenzie
Yes.
- [15:22]
Hasan Piker
Then in 2024, after Donald Trump was elected, bitcoin shoots up to over 100k. What happened to make the price go up?
- [15:32]
Ben McKenzie
So remember the Robert Shiller thing, the naturally occurring Ponzi schemes? So because bitcoin doesn't do anything in the sense that it's not a currency that you can actually. I can't go to my neighbor's deli and buy a bagel with bitcoin. They're going to look at me like I'm crazy. Because you can't actually buy anything. It has to have some other utility. But mainly it's just a speculative instrument. It's just something people gamble on, betting the price is going to go up or down. So Trump embraced crypto. So Trump, as recently as 2019, called Bitcoin a scam. Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam. My personal theory is that that's because he was cutting in on his core business. You know, Trump is a real estate guy, and, you know, there's a lot of. There's a lot of money laundering in. In real estate. And I think he was kind of jealous that crypto. He wasn't getting his cut.
- [16:20]
Hasan Piker
Getting in on his action.
- [16:21]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah, he wasn't getting his cut. Yeah, I was getting on his action. And then in 2024, in the summer, he really embraced it fully. There were rumors before, but he, like, spoke at the bitcoin conference to show a clip of. In the movie. Have a good time with your coin and your crypto and everything else that you're playing with. And he obviously doesn't know what you think about it, but, like, he knows it's going to. He can figure out a way to make money off of this. And the price starts going up. It had been, like, in the toilet, as you said, and it starts going up. And then. Yeah, I just surged. And so by the time he's in office, it's like. Or somewhere around there, it's like 120,000 or something like that.
- [16:55]
Hasan Piker
How is Donald Trump and his family making money off of crypto? Because I've seen the dollar sign. Trump meme coin. But what else is there?
- [17:01]
Ben McKenzie
Sure. Yeah. So there's the meme coins that he did and Melania did those. Think of those as Ponzi schemes, effectively. Right. Like, you're going to try to, like, release the coin. You own 99% of it or some huge percentage of it. If, if people put money into it, then the price goes up, and at a certain point, you just, like, sell all of it and you, you know, take whatever money you can get. So those are actually smaller schemes. The bigger scheme was this stablecoin company. So stablecoins are this crypto that's really important for me to understand. It's. It's. It's basically a cryptocurrency that can only. It's pegged one to one with a real currency, like the US Dollar. It's like a poker chip in the casino. It's like something you could gamble with. But it's also. If you're. If you're. If the president. If the president, United States, the most powerful person in the world. Yes. And you're selling the people on this product and they're buying it. Why are they buying it? Well, one reason they're buying it is for access. So Trump threw a dinner with, like, the top 25 investors in his coin or something, and then, like, went to, like, a. To one of his country clubs and had a fancy dinner. So he's literally pay, pay, pay to play. Like, paying for access to the most powerful man in the world. Well, it's not only that, but the StableCoin got a $500 million investment from this chic in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi. And so what did the Sheik get out of it? Well, they got AI Chips, they got Nvidia chips through this, you know, circuitous deal with. With Trump and his family. And they got a pardon for the guy from Binance. Actually, the guy that ran Binance, cz, Changpeng Zhao, pled guilty to money laundering during the last administration and done four months in prison, and Trump gave him a pardon. CZ's now in the UAE. So that's corruption. You know what I mean? Sure. That's a crime class. Should be a crime. I mean, it's so big that is so hard to fathom because it just blows any other precedent out of the water.
- [18:54]
Hasan Piker
It's so, like, cartoonish.
- [18:57]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah. And I mean, I really think it's worth, like, for crypto people that are still out there believing in it, if you're putting money into something that Trump is backing because you think you're going to make money out of it, just know that he's a convicted fraudster. He's been convicted of 34 counts, 34 felonies in the state of New York by a jury. So, you know, just bear that in mind.
- [19:15]
Hasan Piker
Just be aware of that.
- [19:16]
Ben McKenzie
Be aware.
- [19:16]
Hasan Piker
Okay. We've been talking big picture, but let's get specific. Let's do some crypto one on one, shall we?
- [19:20]
Ben McKenzie
Love it.
- [19:21]
Hasan Piker
All right. What is the white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto, and why does it sound like a racist manual written by a Japanese dude?
- [19:27]
Ben McKenzie
That's a great question and a great way of.
- [19:29]
Hasan Piker
I mean, phrase it. I mean, it's a wild thing to be like, read the white paper.
- [19:32]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah, So a couple of things about that. So white paper is like the first where. Where bitcoin originated. It was like a. A paper that was dropped on a. Like a. Basically a chat group, a chat board in 2008 written by Satoshi Nakamoto. Who's Satoshi Nakamoto? We don't know.
- [19:50]
Hasan Piker
We don't know.
- [19:51]
Ben McKenzie
So much speculation, so many bad documentaries about, you know, who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Yeah. Most likely the person that was Satoshi is dead, in my opinion, because it was two cryptographers that. Not in any like. Like malicious. Like, not in a way that's like a conspiracy theory. Just saying that it's probably one of these two guys. But anyway, whoever it is, we don't know who made it. They had all these nice things that they said about how it was going to change everything. But very quickly, within two years, it really comes out in 2009. Two years later, it finds a use case through criminal activity on the Silk Road, the dark web drug marketplace that I mentioned. So whatever the intentions of Satoshi, which could be a person, could be multiple people, we don't know. It was really quickly co opted by criminals, including Jeffrey Epstein, which we could talk about if you want.
- [20:45]
Hasan Piker
You drew this very helpful triangular shaped diagram to explain how cryptocurrency works. What's going on here?
- [20:51]
Ben McKenzie
Okay, so new investors are putting money into a scheme, but they're not the first. The ones on the bottom there were people that got in before them, people that got in before them. And at the top there's the promoter, the person that's like selling it. This is called a pyramid scheme, which is kind of different from a Ponzi scheme. It's, it's more like a multi level marketing scheme. Right. Where like I've heard crypto described as Mary Kay for men. It's like a way of that joke will kill.
- [21:21]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, Avon for dinner.
- [21:22]
Ben McKenzie
Like 50 years old, but not people that are younger who don't know what Mary Kay is. But anyway, you know, somebody's selling you on this thing, they own an enormous amount of it. They, they, they basically say, they, they deputize all these other people and say, hey, you know, if you help me sell this, you'll get a cut of it. Then they sell it, then they, those people sell it. And so it, it, it funnels out in a sort of a, in a pyramidal shape. Celsius, the Ponzi scheme type thing that, that I document in the documentary is a form of a multi level marketing scheme, I would say. So where they're really relying on is like every individual person seeing the people before them, the smaller group of people having made money on the thing and then thinking they can make money on it. And that can work for a while. But MLMs, multi level marketing schemes ultimately usually fail, although some of them don't. Some of them have gone on for a long time.
- [22:23]
Hasan Piker
I mean, isn't this how every company kind of works too as well? I mean, it looks like the promoter at the top looks like the CEO, those look like employees. Like, isn't this the way money funnels up in every corporation anyways? Yeah, I mean, or you know, Planet Fitness or gym memberships. Right, right.
- [22:38]
Ben McKenzie
Well, but you're getting, you're getting something.
- [22:40]
Hasan Piker
Knives.
- [22:41]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah. You're getting something out of it. Right? I mean, in a regular company like Apple, they're selling you products that you're buying that actually work, that are good. But like it's all predicated on not so much the product, but the selling of the product. So, you know, one person, the, the top is your upstream and the bottom is your downstream. You're making the people that get into it make money on the people they recruit to buy it.
- [23:04]
Hasan Piker
Why is crypto used so much for crime and money laundering?
- [23:08]
Ben McKenzie
Because of the pseudonymity of the blockchain. Because you can't tell who is sending what where and you're avoiding banks. It's really, really helpful for criminals. The next time you see an article about cryptocurrency, try this exercise. Exchange the word crypto for money laundering and just see if the article makes sense the same way. Because I would say money laundering is probably at the top of its sort of use cases. Crypto is really only good for gambling and crime. The gambling is just betting the price is going to go up or down. That's a zero sum game, much like playing poker at a casino, except you're playing at an unregulated casino. So you know, you might win and then go to the teller to get the money. And you don't get the money because I've shot it. But for the crime, it's good for money laundering. Sanctions evasion, tax evasion, Human child. Child and human trafficking. Jeffrey Epstein was a big fan of bitcoin and invested early on in bitcoin.
- [24:04]
Hasan Piker
What is Jeffrey Epstein's connection to bitcoin?
- [24:07]
Ben McKenzie
Absolutely. So just did a, a video on this. So Epstein apparently heard about bitcoin really early on in 2011 through this guy called Brock Pierce. It seems like Brock is like a character that I is in the book and got cut from the movie. Sorry, Brock, but great character. So he hears about it super early.
- [24:29]
Hasan Piker
Give me the year, like 2011.
- [24:30]
Ben McKenzie
So only two years after it came into existence. So the number of people that were aware of bitcoin at that point had to be tiny. Hundreds of thousands of people, maybe, maybe a few million. Jeffrey Epstein was into Bitcoin before 90% of the people who are now supporters of it even knew it existed. I will stand by that fact because, like forever. So you just have to kind of like accept that not only did he find it, he said the idea is brilliant. Not only that, he, he actively like supported the Industry. So at one point in 2015, there's this group of developers that maintain Bitcoin's operating system. It's called Bitcoin Core Development. And there are people behind Bitcoin. Like, that's one of the myths that, like, there isn't anyone, though, there. It's. It's software. People have to make sure it works. So there's this group of programmers, there's this division within Bitcoin, there's factions arguing with each other, and these guys weren't getting paid. So Epstein funded the developers, the people running the operating system secretly through the MIT Media Lab, which is its own amazing story of criminal activity, effectively.
- [25:35]
Hasan Piker
The MIT Media Lab.
- [25:36]
Ben McKenzie
Oh, yeah.
- [25:37]
Hasan Piker
Oh, wow. Oh, yeah.
- [25:38]
Ben McKenzie
There was a big article on this in 2019 in the new Yorker. And then with the most recent emails, we have confirmation that, yes, Epstein paid secretly for these. He had already. He was, by the way, in 2008, he had pled guilty to solicitation of a underage person. Yes. So he was a registered sex offender.
- [25:57]
Hasan Piker
Correct.
- [25:58]
Ben McKenzie
Right. Before he ever heard about Bitcoin, before he made these investments, they knew he was a sex offender, obviously. And then he also did other things. He invested in Coinbase. He put $3 million into Coinbase. It appears that executives knew that the money was coming from Epstein, because Brock asks Epstein, is it okay if I tell. Tell him, you know, who you are. He invested in his other company. Like, so.
- [26:18]
Hasan Piker
Why.
- [26:18]
Ben McKenzie
Why would Jeffrey Epstein be into crypto?
- [26:21]
Hasan Piker
Well, what's your theory?
- [26:22]
Ben McKenzie
Well, if your core businesses are money laundering and human sex trafficking, dark money that's hard to trace would be pretty handy. You know, and the crypto advocates, like, want to say they'll use this argument like, well, people use dollars for crime. Yeah. So let's make the crypto follow the same rule as the US dollar. Then let's regulate these crypto exchanges as banks and see if they can pass muster. They can't, and they don't want to. They would be terrified of that because they can't do it the way that crypto. So our banking system has rules. The two most important ones are KYC and aml. Know your customer and anti money laundering, the banks. When you get an account, you have to fill out all this paperwork, and they really need to know who it is that they're loaning the money to or facilitating opening the account for. Criminals don't like that. Right. They don't really want to put their name and their address and like, all their personal information on this database that the government is Going to have some. So the advocates will say, yeah, it's about, you know, freedom and censorship, resistance. And I'm like, it's a lot of criminal activity.
- [27:30]
Hasan Piker
How is Bitcoin both a fake asset that has no fundamental value, but it's also an evil asset that Al Qaeda and evil terror or drug organizations use to get paid. So does it have an inherent value or not?
- [27:44]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah, its value is crime. Yeah, the value is sort of speculation, I guess you could say. But you can, you can gamble.
- [27:51]
Hasan Piker
But isn't that a use case? That is. Hey, send me the.
- [27:54]
Ben McKenzie
It is. And we have to ask ourselves as a society, is that what we want? Like, do we want. I know the regulated system sucks. I get it. And we can talk about ways to fix that. And I'm all for it, but like if, if 90% of the, of the. So there's, there's a gambling element which is just like retail traders, like buying and selling it.
- [28:13]
Hasan Piker
Yes.
- [28:13]
Ben McKenzie
Not necessarily the worst thing in the world, although maybe it should be marketed more explicitly as gambling and not push dudes all the freaking time. You know, you watch sports these days and now it's not crypto companies as much and now it's gambling. It's all sports gambling and prediction markets, which are a similar thing. But we should ask like if it's. If. If outside of the gambling it's 90 crime and 10 positive social purpose and that 10 might be generous should it exist, is this a good thing for the world?
- [28:42]
Hasan Piker
What are NFTs and what's the dumbest one you've seen?
- [28:44]
Ben McKenzie
Oh man, I don't know. The dumbest one.
- [28:46]
Hasan Piker
Dumbest seems, I mean, up there was Bored Ape. That was pretty.
- [28:49]
Ben McKenzie
Bored Ape was kind of the dumbest in the sense that it was like that was what people hated the most for, right? Yes, one of the most. And they had these like hilarious videos of like they threw it. They tried to throw like concerts and stuff. So NFT is basically like nothing.
- [29:02]
Hasan Piker
It's like a non fungible token.
- [29:04]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah, but what does that get lost in the. Nothing. It's a, it's a link to a receipt for a jpeg. It's like, oh, hey, I. Because like, how do you.
- [29:12]
Hasan Piker
It's got to be more. It's got to be more than that, really.
- [29:14]
Ben McKenzie
Promise you. Promise you. That's. What, what are they worth now? Nothing.
- [29:18]
Hasan Piker
I don't want to look into it.
- [29:19]
Ben McKenzie
Literally nothing. Like, I don't know, like.
- [29:21]
Hasan Piker
But it for real is just a link to a receipt for a jpeg.
- [29:24]
Ben McKenzie
I mean, I'm I'm exaggerating the. It could be a link to receipt for anything. But like how do you create scarcity in a world of digital assets? You kind of can't. I mean some, to some degree like someone bought an nft, I'll just like, you know, click screen screen share that and just like post that on my, on my account instead. You know what I mean? Like, and maybe they could sue me I guess, possibly.
- [29:46]
Hasan Piker
But like, but isn't like a legitimate Ticketmaster.com ticket. That's a non fungible token. Right? You can't. You have to transfer it if you're, if you're doing it legit.
- [29:54]
Ben McKenzie
Right.
- [29:54]
Hasan Piker
To transfer it from person to person. It has and retains its value.
- [29:57]
Ben McKenzie
Well, it's, it's a, it's an actual thing because you're going to see a concert, you're getting something out of it. Whereas an NFT is like you're buying shitty art, I guess for a lot of money. Like really shitty art. I mean I would say bored apes is pretty bad. There was a celebrity one Reese Witherspoon did women of NFTs. And I was like, it was a similar feeling of like Reese don't buy. Oh man. And I know I, I know that they don't. I know they were just told by their reps is an easy way to make money but you do have a responsibility because who are you ripping off? You're ripping off your fans, man. Well, let me push back, do it
- [30:29]
Hasan Piker
because I'm a Reese Witherspoon Stan lover. I with Reese.
- [30:34]
Ben McKenzie
Sweet.
- [30:34]
Hasan Piker
Well, let me ask you this, Ben McKenzie, why all this pearl clutching about cryptocurrency being a speculative asset that is extremely volatile, that's unregulated. Why don't you keep that same energy for DraftKings, prize picks, all sorts of sports gambling that's gone amok, that's now legal sub parlays within quarters. Why don't you share that same anger and vitriol and concern with that Hasan?
- [31:02]
Ben McKenzie
I'm one man, I'm one former teen idol, like putting up my hand saying this is bullshit, this is stupid. What do you think? I just have all the time in the world. I'm gonna go off.
- [31:10]
Hasan Piker
I need you to signal chat Freddie Prince Jr. And you guys need to get after it.
- [31:15]
Ben McKenzie
But.
- [31:15]
Hasan Piker
But what's, but what's the difference? Why? What I'm trying to.
- [31:18]
Ben McKenzie
Oh, I'm equally. No, sorry.
- [31:20]
Hasan Piker
What I'm. What I'm basically saying is like this is happening in many different domains. So why the Anger here.
- [31:28]
Ben McKenzie
I would say they're very similar in many ways. But the difference with crypto is you can commit crimes like you can, you can, you can get paid for your criminal activity via crypto in a way that you can't do because of sports gambling. But they do all share a similar trait, which is that, you know, at best, these are zero sum games. At best, you're like playing poker, you know, via a website. But you know, if. And could you win in Vegas? Sure. But if you play long enough, you're losing because how else do they keep the lights on in the casino? Right? And by the way, as the game's going around, there's the house has taken the rake, there's a little bit of money to play the game. Crypto's like Vegas without the drinks, the dinner or the show. And it's unregulated or under regulated. So you're not even playing a fair game with these gambling things. I just wish they weren't. I wish there can be. Should be laws about the marketing of it. Like, it shouldn't, it shouldn't just be allowed to be every single. The leagues are now in on it right now. They have official gambling apps. And like, gambling is bad. I. This is one thing. I've changed my mind.
- [32:31]
Hasan Piker
Mackenzie. Hot take.
- [32:32]
Ben McKenzie
Well, I was much more like.
- [32:34]
Hasan Piker
No, I'm in agreement.
- [32:35]
Ben McKenzie
Well, like, I. So I played poker when I was in my 20s. I loved it with my. But I would. Didn't play on online. I would do. But I was like, you know, I had a, I had a little poker table. I was fun. It had a social value too. Right. Okay, a few beers, like, you know, talk some shit and gamble.
- [32:48]
Hasan Piker
So you're on the OC and you have this kind of gambling den at your apartment.
- [32:51]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah, Sick. And yeah, it was fun. I mean, in your 20s in L. A. Like, what could be a better. But you know, I did a bunch of research on gambling and interviewed a bunch of people. And you know, crypto addiction is gambling addiction. And it's kind of like gambling on steroids because you can bet literally at any point, right. The markets are open 24 7. You just have to have access for your phone. It's marketed to dudes as a way of making money. And guys are young guys are particularly susceptible to it. And it can ruin not just their lives, but the lives of their families too. I mean, you can gamble. Like the stats on gambling are insane. I, I don't remember them. But it's an enormous amount of the money that the Gambling industry makes the online and others is made from a very small percentage of people who are, you know, in crypto, they're called degens. Degenerate gamblers. But like those people losing so much money and hiding it from their families, often because of the shame, it can destroy entire families. In the book, I interviewed this guy who's a son of a. The father of a pastor who got sucked into a crypto scam and just kept doubling down and doubling down and doubling down because he was probably too deep in. And he ended up taking his own life. And, you know, at a minimum, the gambling and the prediction markets need a lot of rules that they don't have.
- [34:18]
Hasan Piker
Do you think there's any amount of evidence that you're talking about? You've made two very compelling points. You're like, look, Donald Trump is a convicted criminal.
- [34:27]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah.
- [34:29]
Hasan Piker
Outright fraudster. That's a data point. Jeffrey Epstein, we've clearly seen through the Epstein files, obviously was using cryptocurrency and money for money laundering and sex trafficking. Do you think there's anything in these huge cases that perhaps gets people to go, all right, I'm opting out? This is too shady.
- [34:50]
Ben McKenzie
I don't know. I mean, my, my mission at this point is, is to inform the 80 plus percent of the country that hasn't invested in crypto.
- [34:59]
Hasan Piker
Okay.
- [35:00]
Ben McKenzie
As best I can, and arm them with facts so that when people come at them, which they inevitably do, everyone has had someone, usually a dude, try to convince you of buying crypto. They have the facts so they're. They're not sucked into it. I would love to convince people who are already into it that they should rethink their positions, but my experience has been that that is often not successful. If they're really hardcore. There's a bunch of people who don't really care about it who are just kind of like gambling on it. And I think we'll accept some of these points, many of these points, but my mission is not chicken to try to preach to the faithful. It's a little bit like the hardcore. It's a little like a culture, you know what I mean? And there's a great paper, sociological paper, called When Prophecy Fails. I think it's from like the 50s and it's like, what happens to cults when the thing that they predicted would happen doesn't happen? Right. The world's going to end in 2020 and it doesn't. Do they, like, abandon the cult leader and renounce their faith? No, they believe more.
- [35:57]
Hasan Piker
Oh, they double down.
- [35:57]
Ben McKenzie
They Double down. And that's what I experienced while interviewing the victims of Celsius is like, do you still believe in cryptocurrency? They all said yes. The more you invested and lost, the
- [36:06]
Hasan Piker
more you believe in the documentary. In 2022, you go to the bitcoin conference, you head to Miami.
- [36:11]
Ben McKenzie
Right.
- [36:11]
Hasan Piker
If you've been to Reddit.com backslash R backslash wallstreetbets Poppin.
- [36:15]
Ben McKenzie
Poppin.
- [36:17]
Hasan Piker
How big is this community? Is it a real community? Give me a sense of scale.
- [36:23]
Ben McKenzie
I mean, I hate to be such a so negative here, but, like, I think you have to be very suspicious of communities that only exist online. Right. I mean, I think that they do have these shows that they come together for the conventions. They're kind of like trade shows. Like, everyone's got their company booth and they're like, trying to sell you on this or that and the other. There is a, like, I mean, it's a trade show, so, like, guys are just getting up and, you know, partying and like, you know, that kind of a thing. So there is like some sense of community to some degree. But essentially they all just want to make money off of the enterprise. So online, the ability to lie is just, you know, it's so easy.
- [37:01]
Hasan Piker
Right. You're not using your real name.
- [37:03]
Ben McKenzie
Right. Most of these accounts don't use their real name. You know, they're. They're terrified of being doxxed, which is hilarious because, like, if you're offering people financial advice, like, I'm pretty sure we should know who the fuck you are.
- [37:12]
Hasan Piker
Sure. But God damn, Ben McKenzie out here, just saying the.
- [37:17]
Ben McKenzie
I know, I'm sorry, I'm just dropping.
- [37:19]
Hasan Piker
You really are going hard at people with just Twitter fingers. You're basically saying, I need you to be outside.
- [37:25]
Ben McKenzie
Don't even start on the nft. No, I mean, I. You asked earlier, like, do I feel sympathy? And I do. I do. It's. It's easier to feel sympathy with people you meet in real life. Like, I know it's a cliche at this point, but the Internet really is not real life. Like, I can't express how strongly I feel about that with my crypto stuff. I've had so few really negative conversations in person with people, like, even interviews that were, like, somewhat hostile. Yeah, with Sam Bankman Fried. We didn't yell and scream at each
- [37:53]
Hasan Piker
other in the documentary. Can we talk about that, please? You were able to score an interview with Sam Bankman Fried, but he knew you were doing a documentary that's skeptical of cryptocurrency yes. What?
- [38:05]
Ben McKenzie
We had sold the book, and it said it was about crypto and fraud. It was like, in our Twitter byline.
- [38:12]
Hasan Piker
Okay.
- [38:13]
Ben McKenzie
And he was like, yeah, sure, I want to be interviewed.
- [38:15]
Hasan Piker
So he does an interview with you for an hour alone with you?
- [38:18]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah.
- [38:19]
Hasan Piker
Why?
- [38:20]
Ben McKenzie
So I couldn't figure that out. I couldn't figure that out.
- [38:22]
Hasan Piker
He's a fan of the OC that's probably it.
- [38:25]
Ben McKenzie
Probably more of a Seth guy than a Ryan guy, but, you know, do what you can.
- [38:28]
Hasan Piker
Okay.
- [38:29]
Ben McKenzie
I know his assistant was a big fan of the OC I talk about that in the book because, like, he only had one handler. He's like, this supposed billionaire with only, like, one person, which is very weird. Young woman, very nice. And the first thing she said to me when I met her, like, before I even met Sam, is like, oh, my God, I'm such a big fan of the OC And I was like, yes, yes, this is all going to work out perfectly. So I. I think that was your
- [38:50]
Hasan Piker
secret superpower in the documentary and in the book. Totally. People hold you small.
- [38:55]
Ben McKenzie
It's such an advantage to be underestimated.
- [38:58]
Hasan Piker
Series regular on a fox sitcom from 2003 is your sitcom.
- [39:02]
Ben McKenzie
It's not a.
- [39:03]
Hasan Piker
Sorry, sorry. One hour drama.
- [39:04]
Ben McKenzie
Was a scripted drama.
- [39:06]
Hasan Piker
Scripted one hour drama.
- [39:07]
Ben McKenzie
Not at all. A soap opera.
- [39:08]
Hasan Piker
Capital D drama.
- [39:09]
Ben McKenzie
Capital D drama.
- [39:10]
Hasan Piker
Prestige drama.
- [39:11]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, to be underestimated, to be thought of as, like, some lightweight is such a gift. It's such a gift. So. I think so. I didn't know why.
- [39:19]
Hasan Piker
Sam, I want to give you your flowers. Nominated for 16 Choice Awards.
- [39:22]
Ben McKenzie
I am. I am. I never won. I am the Susan Lucci of the Teen Choice Awards. I'm sorry. I'm the Susan Lucci of the Teen Choice Awards.
- [39:29]
Hasan Piker
I'm sorry. I'm just. I'm sorry that you're. That.
- [39:32]
Ben McKenzie
Oh, you're just sorry? Yeah. Okay. I thought you couldn't understand what I meant.
- [39:35]
Hasan Piker
Yeah.
- [39:35]
Ben McKenzie
No, you're just sorry.
- [39:36]
Hasan Piker
Yeah, well, for both the fact that you didn't win and then also, I don't know who Susan Lucci is, so. Sbf.
- [39:44]
Ben McKenzie
So. So. So in the. In the film, I interview this expert on fraud. He wrote a great book, Lying for Money, and he talks about the psychology of fraudsters, which I find fascinating, which is fraudsters are not like other criminals. Like, they're not deviant members of society that commit violent crimes. Usually they think of themselves as legitimate businessmen. They have to because to acknowledge to themselves that they're actually running a Fraud. Like, most people aren't actual sociopaths who are, like, okay with that. So instead, they rationalize and justify their behavior. And Sam's a great example. Sam, still, while in prison, having been convicted of all the crimes he was charged with in like four hours by a jury, still thinks he's innocent. I guarantee you he thinks. He's still posting about on Twitter. He's like, we weren't actually insolvent. You're like, well, you were. They have to believe in that.
- [40:34]
Hasan Piker
Did you feel that when you were with him? You were like, this guy's a absolute fraud?
- [40:39]
Ben McKenzie
I felt he didn't. He could not answer any of my questions satisfactorily. Like, I had listened to interviews, I'd done my preparation. I knew kind of, you know, effectively what he was going to say or the arguments he was going to make. I had answers for all of them. And some of these questions are very simple. What does crypto do? Give me one thing that it does.
- [40:57]
Hasan Piker
What did he say?
- [40:59]
Ben McKenzie
He said remittances. He said it could be used to send money overseas. I had just come from El Salvador, which the economy is built off remittances. 25% of the GDP is people, Salvadoran people of Salvadoran descent, sending money home. So if it were to work, they illegalized bitcoin, made it a form of legal tender. If it was going to work, people could have used the government system instead
- [41:21]
Hasan Piker
of as a way to transfer moneygram
- [41:23]
Ben McKenzie
or whatever and save the fee. Nobody used it. Nobody used it. Less than 2%. It's now less than 1%. Like, effectively nobody used it because they don't have money to gamble with. You know, they're getting three or four hundred a month in cash. You know, if they lose the money, they'd rather pay the percent and actually get the money to the person that they love. So the argument was bullshit. Just come from it. The only country in the world trying to use bitcoin is money. The country built on remittances. And it didn't work. And I said. And he didn't have a response to that. Really.
- [41:54]
Hasan Piker
What ended up making the documentary? What was an interesting thing that did not make the documentary because it's a small part of the doc.
- [42:00]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah, totally.
- [42:01]
Hasan Piker
You.
- [42:01]
Ben McKenzie
You got.
- [42:02]
Hasan Piker
You gotta sit down with SPF for an hour.
- [42:04]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some funny bits in. In him. There's a one point where I think we sort of captured on the doc, but like, I had bought that. Bought that mug off Etsy. It's like fraud Investigator. Yeah. And totally to with him and super proud of that purchase. That's like $12 I ever spent. And. And he sits down with me, like, signs the paperwork to appear, and they're like, there's a. We're in a midtown hotel room that I rented out for it. And he. There's a loud noise out in the hallway, and so I go out to. To deal with that, and he's just like. He does like a. It's like a quadruple take. I think it's like, at least a triple. Or he, like, sees the mug and is like, I can't. Like, what am I? What have I signed up for? Right. What's fascinating is he then proceeded to talk to me for a whole hour. Yes. Like, he wasn't. Like, I could actually just leave right now.
- [42:51]
Hasan Piker
Do you think he believed he was a true evangelist? Meaning.
- [42:55]
Ben McKenzie
Yes.
- [42:55]
Hasan Piker
He's sitting there in his swim trunks, looking like he was electrocuted, and he goes, I can convince Ben McKenzie.
- [43:03]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah.
- [43:03]
Hasan Piker
To actually understand what Bitcoin. My guess is.
- [43:07]
Ben McKenzie
My guess is he felt he had nothing to hide. I mean, this guy was on top of the world. You know, he was on the COVID of magazines. The reporter that was in there before I showed up, I don't know if they were paying for the space, but I was. But anyway, the guy. The guy there was doing the profile on Sam that would lead to a cover on Fortune magazine, the next Warren Buffett. Question mark. Sam was on top of the world. Crypto is crashing. But he was going to bail it out. He was called the JP Morgan of crypto. He was going to bail out all the failing crypto companies and own the entire thing. He was supposedly one of the hundred richest people in the world. It's like 29 years old, 30 years old.
- [43:40]
Hasan Piker
Did you feel in that Moment, as Ben McKenzie, were you, like, am I the idiot?
- [43:45]
Ben McKenzie
No.
- [43:46]
Hasan Piker
You see him getting all that positive press coverage. He's friends with some of the most esteemed members of the Democratic Party, all these celebrities. Did you feel. You're like, maybe I don't get it.
- [44:01]
Ben McKenzie
I mean, I definitely felt that at some points, or I'm constantly checking myself, you know, am I describing this correctly? Am I giving enough credit to the other side? Am I sort of being. I really do try to, like, be as honest as I can with myself. Yeah. While at the same time, given my experience and how it's been affirmed countless times at this point that this thing is bad, I don't pull any punches because, like, the only way I'M going to fight this supposedly trillion dollar industry is by getting to people, like, through your podcast or whatever is like getting to the regular people. So I have to be pretty outspoken and blunt when I can. But when, when I sat in the room with Sam, I did not. There was no moment of I'm the Fool. It was the title of the chapter that is the same interview is the. The emperor is butt ass naked. I was the kid looking at this naked emperor going, he's. He doesn't have any clothes on. What's going on here?
- [44:55]
Hasan Piker
I mean, did he do the interview barefoot?
- [44:57]
Ben McKenzie
No, he had his sneakers on.
- [44:58]
Hasan Piker
Oh, okay. He did a lot of barefoot.
- [45:00]
Ben McKenzie
He was the cargo shorts, T shirt. Yeah. Like electrocuted hair. Yeah. Yeah.
- [45:03]
Hasan Piker
Okay. Did you believe in the interview that he was going to go to prison?
- [45:07]
Ben McKenzie
No, I couldn't quite understand. I couldn't. Yes. That's one way he, he, he kind of got over me. I gave, I gave him more credit than, in retrospect, I should have because I assumed. So Sam owned an exchange and a trading company and which would never be allowed in a regulated market because, like, you're trading on your own exchange. They're literally like in the same office in the Bahamas. Like, his ex girlf. Ex girlfriend runs the trading company. So I figured he was making a ton of money because if you're trading on your own exchange, you don't have to be that good a trader to, like, trader to make a ton of money. But what actually happened that came out in court cases. They were terrible at trading. They had lost so much money. It was called Alameda Research, they were called. They lost so much money that they had to steal the money from their customers in order to bail themselves out.
- [45:56]
Hasan Piker
Do you think that the dream of Bitcoin will ever be possible? Meaning a trusted peer to peer digital ledger that's on the blockchain, almost like Wikipedia for money. Hey, we see every transaction that's going in and out. And this is the new future of the way people get money and send people money and it becomes an actual currency that people use that in that way.
- [46:25]
Ben McKenzie
No, I mean, it can't work that way. Bitcoin can only do five to seven transactions a second. So it. Sam admitted this. When I interviewed him, I said, you know, how is this going to work? You know, visa can do 24,000. You can't do a global monetary system on five to seven transactions a second. And he was like, yeah, that's a problem. You know, we'll fix it. But, you know, it's not going to be Bitcoin. It's going to be. And he referred me to another coin that he owned. A lot of trying to sell me on that, you know.
- [46:54]
Hasan Piker
He whispered that to you? He's like.
- [46:55]
Ben McKenzie
He wasn't whispering. He was.
- [46:56]
Hasan Piker
Oh, he told you.
- [46:57]
Ben McKenzie
He was telling me Salana was supposed to buy Solana, which has the unfortunate salon. Is a coin that.
- [47:02]
Hasan Piker
No, no. I had a lot of homies that went in.
- [47:04]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah. It has the unfortunate characteristic of shutting down because it just sometimes doesn't work at all. Which, you know, if you're using a global monetary system, probably not the best thing.
- [47:14]
Hasan Piker
Not great. How do you wrap your head around the idea that you're looking at all the big banks are now having crypto divisions. J.P. morgan, Blackstone, Blackrock, Morgan Stanley. I mean, clearly they have huge buildings here in New York City. They're doing big money stuff.
- [47:31]
Ben McKenzie
Yeah.
- [47:33]
Hasan Piker
Explain that to me. Clearly they wouldn't just throw their money away. I mean, these big private equity firms, they're getting into the Blackstones, the blackrocks, they're getting into the housing market, nursing homes, real homes. They clearly wouldn't get into fake money.
- [47:46]
Ben McKenzie
Right, right, right. Not if they can make money on it. The democratized, decentralized future of money brought to you by BlackRock. Yeah, Wall street is really good at making money by facilitating trades without taking a position one way or the other. So the ETFs are a perfect example. The biggest one is issued by BlackRock. You buy the share of the thing called the BlackRock ETF or whatever. They go to Coinbase and they say, hey, we've got this amount of money, this many shares give us the Bitcoin. They actually hold the Bitcoin, I believe. And then when people sell the shares, then they sell the Bitcoin. So BlackRock is making, and it's taking a percentage, it's taking a fee on that, facilitating that transaction. The fee might be really small, it might be a quarter of a percent or something, but it's on billions of dollars. So, you know, they're making a fortune and all they're doing is helping you trade. I don't give a shit if the price goes up or down. I mean, they like the price to keep going because that would make more people do it. But, like, at the end of the day, they're not holding the bag.
- [48:43]
Hasan Piker
You are.
- [48:44]
Ben McKenzie
And, you know, good luck. Like, at some point, it's just so hard to point to exchanges that haven't collapsed. So, you know, I don't wish this on, on, on the future. But like, it's just if history is any precedent, like, you know, the exchanges will at some point shut down effectively because there aren't enough buyers when the price crashes.
- [49:05]
Hasan Piker
Well, listen, man, I encourage everybody to read the book. It's very funny. Watch the movie. He's very funny in it. Ladies and gentlemen, Ben McKenzie. Thank you so much, man.
- [49:14]
Ben McKenzie
Hurry right away. No delay. Stop it. Make your daddy glad. You have had such your last have
- [49:23]
Hasan Piker
you subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet? You can listen completely ad free and get access to exclusive bonus content you won't hear anywhere else. Like my discussion with Malala on how therapy changed her life. Or my convo with Melrose on how her let them theory applies to parenting. Tap subscribe on Apple Podcasts or head to lemonadapremium.com to sign up on any app that's lemonadapremium.com.