Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud (with Ben McKenzie)

Summary

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer
Episode Title: Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud
Guest: Ben McKenzie (actor, writer, and co-author of "Easy Money")
Release Date: November 11, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the rise and perils of cryptocurrency through the eyes of Ben McKenzie—an actor who leveraged his economics background and idle pandemic time to investigate and expose the fraudulent, speculative, and ultimately harmful underpinnings of the crypto industry. In conversation with hosts Nick Hanauer and Goldie, McKenzie discusses his journey into the world of crypto skepticism, the economic principles undermining crypto as currency, the dangers of casino capitalism, and the psychological and societal consequences of unchecked financial speculation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Ben McKenzie's Motivation and Journey into Crypto Skepticism

• Pandemic Boredom Meets Finance: During lockdown, McKenzie—armed with an economics bachelor's degree—began following financial markets out of boredom and skepticism after a friend's crypto investment tip ([03:00]).
• Bad Advice Revisited: A college friend named Dave, with a history of giving bad financial advice, prompted McKenzie's initial doubts about crypto ([03:00]).
• Collaboration and Book Genesis: McKenzie teamed up with journalist Jacob Silverman to write Easy Money, after connecting over Twitter and finding time during the pandemic ([04:25]).

2. Central Arguments from "Easy Money"

• Crypto as Fraud and Speculation:
  • McKenzie and Silverman investigated major crypto figures, including interviews with Sam Bankman-Fried and Alex Mashinsky (both later convicted of fraud) ([05:27]).
  • El Salvador’s national Bitcoin experiment was not succeeding—crypto failed basic currency use-cases ([05:29]).
• Economic Critique:
  • Crypto does not function as money: fails as a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account ([05:14], [09:23]).
  • Crypto history is rife with crime; private, corporate-issued currencies have historically been disastrous, evidenced by the 19th-century "wildcat" banking era ([07:30], [08:00]).
• On Blockchain Hype:
  • The allure of blockchain as a "magic" technology is overblown—it's simply a ledger prone to irreversibility, which is exploited by scammers ([11:20]).

3. Behavioral Economics of Speculative Bubbles

• Psychological Hooks:
  • McKenzie calls out crypto’s Ponzi-like social dynamics, referencing Robert Shiller’s concept of "naturally occurring Ponzi schemes" ([13:33]).
  • Even severe financial losses rarely shatter believers' convictions, paralleling cult behavior and cognitive dissonance ([15:41]).

"The more you're bought into it, almost literally, the more you cannot accept that you've been scammed or defrauded."
— Ben McKenzie ([15:56])

4. Societal and Systemic Dangers

• Why Should We Care?
  • Crypto and gambling’s pervasive advertising and integration into financial systems mean losses will not stay isolated. Repercussions threaten retirement funds, financial stability, and the broader economy ([17:31], [19:55]).
  • Crypto’s tentacles in regional bank failures, with institutions like Silvergate, Silicon Valley, and First Republic linked to the crypto crash ([21:09]).

5. Political Corruption and Regulatory Capture

• Corporate Power Grab:
  • The "GENIUS Act" paves the way for corporations to issue their own "stablecoin" currencies. McKenzie warns this expands corporate power at the expense of public regulation—echoing failures of the past ([21:45]).
  • The crypto lobby’s influence is bipartisan and lavish, corrupting legislative processes and buying political outcomes ([22:37], [23:32]).

"They have not only sort of incentivized people to vote for their legislation, but they've said, if you don't vote for us, we're going to come after you."
— Ben McKenzie ([23:35])

6. Personal Reflections and Societal Costs

• McKenzie’s Passion:
  • Investigating crypto fraud became both an intellectual and creative obsession for McKenzie, leading to his critical documentary ([24:05]).
• Addiction Analogies:
  • Goldie draws a parallel between gambling and crypto—profitable for the industry only because of those most at risk: problem gamblers/naive investors ([29:20]).

"The profit is in the problem gamblers. And the same thing is true with crypto. The people who are going to get wiped out are the people who can't afford to get wiped out."
— Goldie ([29:34])

7. Broader Economic and Political Implications

• Gambling Culture as Harm:
  • The normalization of risky speculation destroys personal finances and faith in economic fairness, with ultimate systemic risk borne by everyday people ([27:19], [31:00]).
• Political Money and Democracy:
  • Cryptocurrency’s influx of unregulated money distorts elections and threatens democracy at home and abroad ([31:30]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Crypto’s Failure as Money:
  "It can't fulfill the functions of money because it's not a good store of value, medium of exchange, or unit of account. ... It was being used as a speculative instrument for people to basically gamble on. And it was being used for crime."
  — Ben McKenzie ([05:14]-[06:33])

• On Blockchain Hype:
  "Blockchain is over 30 years old... It's just a ledger... The irreversibility of it is good for scammers, but is terrible for the trust that's needed to run a monetary system."
  — Ben McKenzie ([11:20])

• On Cult-Like Psychology:
  "Even though... Some of them have lost their life savings—every single one of them said: yes, I still believe in cryptocurrency."
  — Ben McKenzie ([15:15])

• On Political Danger:
  "Crypto lobby... spent $120 million in the last election cycle. One in every two corporate dollars came from crypto."
  — Ben McKenzie ([22:37])

• On the Bubble Mentality:
  "The schadenfreude will be incredible... That's what I mean. The schadenfreude overwhelms everything else for me."
  — Nick Hanauer ([27:13])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |---------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:12 | Ben McKenzie introduces his motivation and career pivot into financial journalism | | 05:14 | Articulating the main arguments from Easy Money | | 08:08 | Defining money vs. crypto—medium of exchange, store of value, unit of account | | 10:21 | Why crypto can’t fulfill these functions | | 11:20 | Debunking blockchain—irreversibility and scam utility | | 13:33 | Crypto as speculative bubble: Ponzi schemes, psychology | | 15:41 | Cult dynamics, cognitive dissonance among investors | | 17:31 | Why the greater public should care: systemic risk, bailouts, and social cost | | 19:55 | Gambling’s role in crypto culture and its societal harms | | 21:45 | Political risks: GENIUS Act allows corporate currency, crypto lobby power | | 24:05 | Ben’s personal passion for covering crypto fraud | | 29:20 | Gambling and bubble culture—parallel to crypto’s human cost | | 31:30 | Final warnings: political money, democracy threatened |

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Concluding Thoughts

The episode closes with a heated but humorous exchange about schadenfreude, real economic harm, and the role of speculative risk in economic and political collapse. While Nick Hanauer jokes about his insulation from crypto’s fallout, Goldie and McKenzie bring home the consequences for ordinary people and democratic institutions. Listeners are invited to engage further by reading Easy Money or viewing McKenzie’s forthcoming documentary.

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Links:

• Easy Money by Ben McKenzie and Jacob Silverman
• Ben McKenzie's documentary, Everyone is Lying to You for Money (details at DOC NYC)

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For those seeking a bracing, accessible debunking of crypto hype—grounded in history, psychology, economics, and current events—this episode delivers, mixing expert analysis, wit, and social critique.

Transcript

[Nick Hanauer]

The rising inequality and growing political instability that we see today are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory.

[Goldie]

The last five decades of trickle down economics haven't worked. But what's the alternative?

[Nick Hanauer]

Middle out economics is the answer.

[Goldie]

Because the middle class is the source of growth, not its consequence.

[Nick Hanauer]

That's right.

[Ben McKenzie]

This is Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer.

[Goldie]

A podcast about how to build the.

[Ben McKenzie]

Economy from the middle out.

[Goldie]

Welcome to the show.

[Nick Hanauer]

Goldie. This week we're talking to an actor. We don't usually do that.

[Goldie]

No, we don't. No.

[Nick Hanauer]

I think this may be our first actor ever.

[Goldie]

I think a lot of our guests are, especially the politicians, are actors.

[Nick Hanauer]

That's true, that's true, that's true.

[Goldie]

But this is an actual professional actor you've seen on TV. TV, Ben McKenzie. You might know him from his roles on the OC, Southland or Gotham. He's an actor and a writer. Also, apparently we learned he's directing a film that'll be coming out shortly. And he is also the co author of the book Easy Money, Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism and the Golden Age of Fraud. We with journalist Jacob Silverman. And in case you couldn't tell from that title, that Easy money he's talking about isn't really money. Nick, it's crypto.

[Nick Hanauer]

Yeah, exactly.

[Goldie]

You got some friends into that?

[Nick Hanauer]

Not really. Only at the margin. I mean, I'm sure some of my friends own a little bit of crypto, but I don't. I don't know any like real hardcore crypto people myself.

[Goldie]

You're not, you're just so old. You're not even a real tech bro anymore. No, can't stand it.

[Nick Hanauer]

Well, I'm excited to talk to him because I think crypto is stupid and it'll be interesting to see what. See what Ben says.

[Ben McKenzie]

My name is Ben McKenzie. I don't know, I've done a lot of things. I'm an actor and now an author of a book name called Easy Money. And I am also a director of a film that will be coming out to film festivals this fall called Everyone is Lying to you for Money about How stupid Cryptocurrency Is.

[Nick Hanauer]

Awesome.

[Goldie]

Well, that's a good segue into. Into our conversation.

[Nick Hanauer]

The thesis of your book is different from the motivation for writing the book. Right. So let's. If we could start with that, like what happened to you that made you do this?

[Ben McKenzie]

Sure. Exactly. Well, it was the pandemic and my normal profession, showbiz was on ice. There was no work as an actor.

[Nick Hanauer]

So you had Nothing else to do. So you thought you'd mess with the crypto Bros. Yeah, exactly.

[Ben McKenzie]

I have an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Virginia. I hadn't used it much in 20 years in showbiz because the last thing people want to hear about is the dismal science at the craft service table. But I started paying attention to the financial markets for the first time in my life, basically just because I was bored. And at the same time, a buddy of mine, Dave from college, came to me and said I needed to buy bitcoin. I think a lot of people have had this experience. Somebody came to them wanting to buy crypto. The thing is, with Dave, he's given me terrible financial advice before. He encouraged me to invest in this penny stock. Well, what I think is a penny stock pump and dump. Back in the mid aughts when I had a little money from TV and he wasn't scamming me, he got scammed too. Or so I think. But when Dave came back to me, once bitten, twice shy, I was skeptical at the beginning. And then as soon as I started diving into it very quickly, I was like, this doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, this is not a currency in any way that makes sense in the English language. Right? People aren't buying things with bitcoin. And then the market is run through these corporations in the Caribbean. And anyway, it all felt very, very sketchy. So I decided, well, I had also gotten my medical marijuana card over the pandemic because I needed a little release. And I like alcohol, but there's a limit. And I got high one day and I decided I wanted to write a book. And then I woke up the next day. A lot of people have had this experience. I woke up the next day realizing I don't know how to do that. And so I reached out to this journalist who I met on Twitter, Jacob Silverman. And this is August of 2021. And I invited him to drinks at a local Brooklyn bar. Said, hey, what about writing a book? I don't know how to write about events that haven't happened yet. And he was about to go on paternity leave. His wife was about to have their second child. So he was actually kind of ready for something like this. And we started reporting on it. And that led to this book, Easy Money. So that's the sort of way it all came about.

[Nick Hanauer]

I just wonder if you got scammed or, you know, or.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, well, only by Dave. Well, not Dave. By someone via Dave.

[Nick Hanauer]

I mean, go ahead and Just kind of frame the argument that you make. Sure.

[Ben McKenzie]

Right. So I tried to look at the argument from multiple levels. The book is a work of, you know, investigative journalism to some degree. Jacob and I went out and interviewed a lot of the top players, including Sam Bankman Fried, before it all fell apart.

[Nick Hanauer]

Total fraud.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, total fraud. Quite amusing, I have to say. Yeah, he's in the documentary. I have him on camera. I have a guy named Alex Mashinsky who is running a fraud called Celsius. On camera, Alex has now got 12 years for running a fraudulent scheme. So there's interviews with fraudsters there, which went to El Salvador, which is the only country, was the only country in the world trying to use crypto bitcoin as real money. Spoiler alert, it wasn't working. And testified to the Senate Banking Committee in December of 2022, which is right as Sam was being charged with these crimes and crypto was in free fall. So it's sort of some of that. And then I also spend a little bit of time talking about the economics of it and how it can't work as money for a variety of reasons. First of all, it doesn't work. Practically speaking, right now, no one is using bitcoin to buy their bagel at the neighborhood deli. If I went over to my Brooklyn deli and asked to buy my bagel in bitcoin, they'd look at me like I was crazy. It can't fulfill the functions of money because it's not a good store of value, medium of exchange, or unit of account. It also wasn't being used that way. It was being used as a speculative instrument for people to basically gamble on. And it was being used for crime. And then I lay out the history of cryptocurrency, which is, spoiler alert, a lot of crime. And then I also spend time talking about arguments like, well, even if it were to be money, even if you could somehow make crypto into money, would it be a good idea? Would it work? And the short answer is no. And we know that because if crypto doesn't come from the government. Right. That's what its advocates will sort of boost to you and boast about that it has to come from somewhere. Where does it come from? They don't like to talk about this, but it comes from corporations, because corporations are the ones mining the bitcoin. Multibillion dollar, publicly listed corporations, in many cases mine the majority of bitcoin today. So that's private money as opposed to sort of public money. Private money is something we tried in the 19th century, during the free banking era, when banks were allowed to issue their own notes, their own currencies. It was also called wildcat banking era, when you were only allowed one chapter of your bank, and so you would set up your chapter as far away from your depositors as possible, where the wildcats roamed. And once you had their money, it was fairly easy to take off with it. So there was a lot of fraud. And basically the failures of the free banking era led to the re establishment of the Fed and needing to have a central bank. So we've actually tried this thing before and it didn't work, even if it were to work as money. So the book is. Sorry, that was a long answer. But the book is a lot of different things.

[Nick Hanauer]

So draw the distinction between the function of crypto and the function of real currency. You alluded to it, but be more precise.

[Ben McKenzie]

Sure, exactly. Yeah. Let me define those terms, right. Because I brush right past them. And I'm sure your listeners, like many of them, already know this, but some of them don't. Perhaps I had to refresh my memory of Econ101. So if you ask most people what money is, they kind of look at you like you're stupid. And then they think about it and they realize, oh, it's actually kind of hard to define. And then they'll usually say something like, well, you buy stuff with it. And that's true. Of the functions of money, there's three. Medium of exchange is the first one, which is you can buy and sell stuff with crypto. One reason why crypto can't work as a medium of exchange, at least Bitcoin can't, is the technology itself, the consensus algorithm that runs the computer code that allows Bitcoin to work. I would explain that to you, but it's too long and boring. Can only process five to seven transactions a second. Bitcoin can only do five to seven transactions a second. Visa can do 24,000. So it can't scale. Even Sam Bankman Fried admitted this to me when I interviewed him. It cannot scale. Bitcoin cannot scale. So what you end up doing is building all these other systems on top of it, which are rife with fraud and manipulation. So medium exchange is the first function of money. The second, I would say, unit of account is there. Price discovery. Can you run your books using the money? All currencies are made up, right? We made up money.

[Nick Hanauer]

They're imaginary. Yeah, yeah.

[Ben McKenzie]

It's sort of a collective hallucination in a way. Right. We all Sort of like randomly agree on this thing. And so all currencies are fallible, false currencies are fragile. We are sort of numb to this idea in America because we have the world's reserve currency since World War II or even before then. And we have, even with the recent bout of inflation, we have a very stable currency in terms of how it's treated all over the world. But that is not. We're the exception, not the rule. Right. I mean, currencies have existed for hundreds of years, well, longer than that, thousands of years. And most of them have failed as the governments or countries that issued them have experienced turmoil and failed. So store of value means the value of the currency stays relatively consistent over time. Cryptos can't do that. I mean, you see the charts in crypto, they're quite funny. They look like a rabbit on amphetamines. I mean, they're just bouncing around all over the place. So crypto can't fulfill any of the.

[Goldie]

Three functions of money, but blockchain, it's magic.

[Nick Hanauer]

It's going to change the world.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah.

[Goldie]

When I expressed my own skepticism to the crypto people, they always say, well, you just don't blockchain.

[Ben McKenzie]

Right.

[Goldie]

It fixes everything. Yeah, that's the future is blockchain.

[Ben McKenzie]

That's right. That's right. Which is amusing. Right. They say it's the future of money, but as I was pointing out before, it's private money. That's actually the past of money. Right. So it's kind of funny. So, yeah. So the technology argument was the one that I found most intimidating initially because, you know, I'm not a cryptographer. I don't understand computer science really. You know, I'm kind of a Luddite in many, many ways. And so, but so I researched it and went into it and talked to, you know, experts in the field. Blockchain is over 30 years old. It goes back to 1991. It is very relative to the history of cryptography. It's pretty old. And it's not used outside of the world of cryptocurrency hardly ever, because it doesn't work that well or it only works for certain things. A blockchain is just a. It's just a ledger. It's called a timestamp depend only ledger, meaning a ledger of transactions, record of transactions that can only be added to and never subtracted from. You can't reverse a transaction, which is one of its key features, attributes for those that believe in it. But for the rest of us, is. Should be considered a Fault of it. For example, the reason that scammers and fraudsters, one of the reasons they like crypto, is once you send your crypto to someone else on the blockchain, you can't get it back. Right. I mean, it's over there in their account and, you know, you can trace it potentially and find out where it went if you can figure out who owns that, who's in charge of that address, who owns that wallet. But it's irreversible. It's not like a credit card. Your credit card gets stolen, you can call the bank and reverse the charges. So the irreversibility of it is good for scammers, but is terrible for the trust that's needed to run a monetary system.

[Nick Hanauer]

Yeah, I mean, I would say that we're in complete agreement with you.

[Goldie]

You're not a crypto billionaire, Nick. This isn't.

[Nick Hanauer]

No, I'm not. But do I wish I'd put a million dollars into crypto 10 years ago? Of course I do.

[Goldie]

Let me tell you a story, Nick. When I was, you know, unpaid blogger, I wanted to write a piece about Bitcoin because I thought it was so stupid. But to do it, I wanted to show how impossible it was to buy something with it. So I went to this ATM at Westlake to try to buy $50 worth of Bitcoin. And three times I went there trying to buy it and the ATM wouldn't work. Had I bought that $50, I'd be.

[Nick Hanauer]

Employed to work for you, not the other way around.

[Goldie]

I'd be the billionaire. That's what that 50 bucks would have been because I wouldn't have been able to spend it. There was nothing to spend it on there were there. Maybe there was a pizza place. I could have tried to use it. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben McKenzie]

I would say probably the strongest argument in terms of the psych, you know, psychologically, in terms of convincing people to invest. Is that argument right? Is the argument. Well, it's gone up for a long time.

[Nick Hanauer]

It's a speculative bubble. I mean, but it has definitely benefited a bunch of people, and they are. It's cheerleaders, right?

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, totally. And until it busts again, which inevitably it will. Because if you look at the history of crypto, I mean, in its brief but sordid history, it's had more boom bust cycles than any other asset I can think of. But until it bursts again, people are going to be drawn into that. So I studied that and I studied sort of the economics of it. I'm not really a math Guy that was always my hold up with econ was I was never going to be able to get a more advanced degree or practice it in real life because I was always more interested in the behavioral economics of it. And so Robert Shiller is sort of my favorite economist, and he talks about what he calls naturally occurring Ponzi schemes, where the price of a speculative asset rises way out of relation to any potential value of it. But that attracts a lot of attention. And people notice the price rising, they buy into it, which then increases the price more, which then draws more people into it. And so these things take on a life of their own. That's leaving the manipulation of the market aside, which is quite serious as I go into it in the book. But just on its own, these speculative bubbles can last a very long time, and frauds can last a very long time, as we know with Bernie Madoff, who was running his fraud for decades.

[Goldie]

Are you surprised that it's as strong as it is now, years after you've written this book?

[Ben McKenzie]

You know, it's funny, I address that in the film. Everyone is lying to you for money at the end where I say, you know, it's funny because I think I was as right as I hoped I would be, or more. And yet I had less of an effect. At the end of the day, people are going to buy it no matter what anyone says. Right. And there's this interesting phenomena where. So I interviewed this fraudster named Alex Pashinsky. His scheme fell apart and a lot of people were hurt by it. Hundreds of thousand of people invested in it. I found some of those folks and interviewed them for the documentary. And at the end of the film, I come back and I asked them, do you still believe in cryptocurrency? Even though some. They've lost a lot. Some of them have lost their life savings. Every single one of them said, yes.

[Nick Hanauer]

But that's a psychological phenomenon.

[Goldie]

Yeah. Cognitive dissonance is. Is a powerful thing.

[Ben McKenzie]

And it's also some of the dynamics, I hate to say it, of a cult. Right.

[Nick Hanauer]

No, that's right. We're talking about the same thing.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, exactly. Like, the more you're bought into it, almost in this case, literally bought into it, the more you cannot accept that you've been scammed or defrauded.

[Nick Hanauer]

And what people do, they don't wake up and be like, oh, that was a terrible mistake. They double down.

[Ben McKenzie]

Exactly.

[Nick Hanauer]

Like Trump voters.

[Ben McKenzie]

I mean, there is a lot of overlap there. Obviously, the crypto market and the investors are not monolithic. They come from all shades of the political spectrum, but it has this sort of libertarian, anarcho, capitalist underpinning that appeals to folks that are into.

[Nick Hanauer]

Yeah, it's a quasi religious thing for a lot of people.

[Ben McKenzie]

It is a little bit. It was really hard for me to understand that. I was talking to my therapist, and he was recommending a paper called When Prophecy Fails, and it's about cults and what happens when the cult leader predicts the world's gonna end today.

[Nick Hanauer]

Then there's an even better book called Mistakes Were Made, but not by me.

[Podcast Narrator]

Me.

[Nick Hanauer]

It's a fantastic book. It basically details the psychological processes that get people to make these terrible choices. And then when the universe intrudes and proves that it was a terrible choice, they don't say, oh, my God, I made a terrible choice. They double down on that terrible choice. Right. Because it's really quite fascinating, psychologically painful to admit that you were wrong.

[Goldie]

There's a number of world religions that are founded on this.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah. Groupthink is a powerful motivator.

[Nick Hanauer]

So why do we care?

[Ben McKenzie]

Great question.

[Nick Hanauer]

So a bunch of dumb people do this thing. Some of them are gonna make money. A whole bunch of them are gonna lose money. Do I give a shit? Should I give a shit?

[Goldie]

No, you don't, Nick. Cause you're insulated. Whereas when the economy collapses and it takes my meager retirement accounts with it.

[Nick Hanauer]

Okay, that's my question. That's my question.

[Ben McKenzie]

What Goldie is saying is exactly my answer, which is in the abstract, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the argument. I came into this thinking that most of crypto is gambling. And I came into it thinking, like, is gambling that bad? Right. I'm a guy. I was once a young guy. I remember gambling. I would play poker with my friends. Funnily enough, you remember the online poker craze of the mid-2000s. Yeah. So my buddy Dave was into that as well. Right.

[Goldie]

Of course.

[Nick Hanauer]

We got to get this guy Dave on the podcast.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, you got to get him on. He's great. And he was like, you know, I'm like, dave. So we, you know, we play poker with each other where we're giving each other physical dollars, but, like, you know, then he's gambling online. I'm like, dave, where are you sending the money? Where does it go? And he's like, oh, that's a good question. I haven't thought about that. I'm like, it came from the. It goes to the same Caribbean countries that were running crypto scams, which is ftx, which was run out of the Bahamas because as soon as you send the money overseas, it's obviously a lot harder to claw it back. And they're not subject to U.S. regulation, or at least theoretically. So it's a lot of gambling. And in. In the abstract, I don't have a ton of problem with people gambling. I mean, I do of course, believe people should be allowed to do what they want with their own money to some degree. But the more I've looked at it and the more I've spent time with victims, you noticed how much gambling is out there? I mean, if you watch a sports game, it's every single ad break. And in 2021 and 2022, it was a crypto ad and then a gambling ad, and then a crypto ad and then a gambling ad. There are social costs to this stuff.

[Nick Hanauer]

I don't watch sports on tv. Is that true these days?

[Goldie]

Yes, it's all. And it's even worse now with sports podcasts. It's all gambling. They're all. I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan.

[Nick Hanauer]

I'm embarrassed to admit I had no idea.

[Goldie]

So I listened to Philadelphia Eagles podcasts and it's amazing that you can support like a dozen full time journalists covering one sports team and you can't get more than half a dozen into a newsroom in a major city just to cover the news. But it's all supported by gambling, by sports gambling. Now it's like every ad is sports gambling. That's the entire industry.

[Ben McKenzie]

Wow. Yeah, yeah. Reaching. In terms of trying to reach men who are going to be your target audience here. For both crypto and gambling, sports advertising is the most effective way to do that. But there's a lot of cost to that. You know, gambling addiction is actually a pretty serious addiction. It affects mostly men and it has to do with our pride. You know, we don't like to admit that we've lost, that we've made a mistake, that we've lost money. And so, you know, I talked to some experts for the book. You know, people, guys hide it from their families and it can. Right. So, but let's leave that aside for a second. So the gambling is one thing. The main point, I would say, is what Goldie was saying, which is crypto had already made inroads integrating itself into our regulated financial system, obviously. But to give you an example, when Sam and FTX exploded in November, December of 2022, I testified to the banking committee. As I mentioned, I told them if we let crypto infect our banking system, we're going to be back here. Well, I didn't know how. Right I was. Three months later, Three months later, in March, those banks failed. Silvergate, Silicon Valley and First Republic, they were all tied to cryptocurrency. A lot of the investors in those banks, the people that were parking their money there. Sorry. Were tied to crypto and we had to bail them out. Right. I mean, the Fed had to step in and bail out all of those banks. It's not a coincidence that they were all into crypto. Right. If you're valuing something at this crazy speculative level and then all of a sudden the bottom falls out and you need to cash in dollars.

[Nick Hanauer]

Yeah.

[Ben McKenzie]

The bank. The bank doesn't have them.

[Goldie]

Right.

[Ben McKenzie]

I mean, it's fractional reserve banking. Right. So I'm terrified that that's about to happen. Not about, I don't know when at some point that's going to happen again. Because what they've done in Congress now is passed a piece of legislation called the Genius act, which if you know anything about this Congress, if it's called genius, it's got to be stupid.

[Nick Hanauer]

Exactly.

[Ben McKenzie]

Gotta be dumb. And it basically allows corporations to issue their own money. So it's literally private money. Their own stablecoins, I should say. So stablecoin is like a crypto that's pegged one to one against a real currency. So one Amazon buck would theoretically be worth $1. So now the corporations can issue their own money, which sounds like a great idea for them because once they have our money, they can earn interest on it. And the delay in cashing back out into real money can earn them a lot of money. I don't know what we get out of it. It like the average person gets out of it. It behaves sort of like a money market mutual fund. Sort of a money market fund.

[Nick Hanauer]

Like those tokens you get at the carnival where you give them dollars and.

[Goldie]

They give you the little. Oh, wooden nickels.

[Nick Hanauer]

Yeah.

[Goldie]

Remember the old expression that you put.

[Nick Hanauer]

In the machines and then you inevitably end up with a few and you can't cash them back in.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, like you're calling the thing a dollar and you're trading off of the trust in the US dollar, but it's not a dollar, it's not backed by the government. It's issued by a. And by the way, just like stepping aside, just stepping back for a second, do we really want corporations to have more power? Is that like, is that our way forward? You know, that's just terrifying. Right? And so wrongheaded. What scares me is that they passed the bill. The President signed it, signed it. And. And not only have they bought off the Republicans, they've also bought off a significant portion of the Democratic lawmakers. Over 100 Democrats voted for this genius act, including Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. And they've done that, I don't think, because they believe in blockchain or even understand what the hell it is. Because I think the crypto lobby, which has a lot of money that they've taken from their customers, will spend it, has spent it influencing politics. They spent $120 million, I think it is, in the last election cycle. One in every two corporate dollars came from crypto. And people in the crypto industry. They have not only sort of incentivized people to vote for their legislation, but they've said, if you don't vote for us, we're going to come after you. And a good example of that is when I testified to the Banking Committee. Sherrod Brown was the chairman of the committee at the time. They spent $40 million supporting a literal used car salesman, Vinny Moreno, and he won. So they're extremely powerful and that terrifies me.

[Nick Hanauer]

Why do you do this work?

[Ben McKenzie]

Because I love it. Because I love it. Because I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was just fascinated by it. And then like intellectually, I couldn't stop thinking about it. And then once I started going into the actual characters and the actual sort of what was going on on the ground, I became obsessed with it. I've always loved true crime. And my favorite sort of sub genre of true crime is what I call stupid crime, where the criminals are like obviously committing crime sort of in public, sometimes via tweet, and then they get caught, of course, and then they turn on each other. Sort of Coen brothers esque crime. And crypto is just chock full of that. So I' had an absolute blast covering it. And I would love for people to support this film, this completely independent movie that I've made. It'll be playing at DOC NYC November 16th at 4:15 at the IFC Center. You can go on DOC NYC's website to buy tickets, but it's a comedy about how stupid this stuff is.

[Nick Hanauer]

I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to see it.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, please, please. If you're in New York, please come. I'm really, really happy.

[Nick Hanauer]

I will not be in New York, but at some place. Man. I hope you get a good distribution deal out of it. And we can go see it. Well, Ben, this is really nice to meet you.

[Goldie]

We'll talk to you later. After the crash.

[Ben McKenzie]

Exactly. Exactly. All right, I'll be back.

[Nick Hanauer]

So, Goldie, I'm struggling to care.

[Goldie]

You're struggling. Of course you are, Nick. You're, you're there, you're. You're in your mansion in London. No, the life.

[Nick Hanauer]

I'm struggling to care because when the crash comes, as it inevitably will, you'll.

[Goldie]

Make a fortune off of it because.

[Nick Hanauer]

That'S why won't be a fortune. Just think it was hilarious. You'll be hilarious.

[Goldie]

You'll have. When the crash comes, it's going to take down everything with it and there's going to be this giant bailout, especially if not especially happening during the Trump administration because like, like his son Baron just made a billion dollars on crypto. He has his own crypto. You can be sure they're all being bailed out.

[Nick Hanauer]

Yeah, that's true.

[Goldie]

But it's okay. We can. As long as we get rid of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, we can afford this. I care about it for a number of reasons, Nick, and this is something. Let's start with the first one, which I think you can agree with me on, is that we both like being right.

[Nick Hanauer]

Okay, fair point.

[Goldie]

Right? I mean, like, Ben, you and I, we saw this and like, what the fuck?

[Nick Hanauer]

Yeah.

[Goldie]

I mean, this is nuts.

[Ben McKenzie]

There's no Val.

[Goldie]

It doesn't do anything.

[Nick Hanauer]

Except it's just a speculative bubble.

[Goldie]

Crime. Crime. Crime and speculation. Right.

[Nick Hanauer]

Guns and drugs, perfect.

[Goldie]

It's money laundering and all the smart people telling us we're too stupid to understand it. Yeah, I get angry about this. I just. Fuck you. No, this is. This is like digital tulip bulbs. It's all bubble. Yeah. Okay, so the first of all, we can agree on that the schadenfreude will be incredible.

[Nick Hanauer]

That's right. Well, that's what I mean. That's what I mean. The schadenfreude overwhelms everything else for me.

[Goldie]

But go on, because you're in a position where you can survive all this. But, you know, I'm 62. I'm gonna be retiring at some point in the near future. And, you know, if. If my 401k and my IRA go down 60% due to some sort of major crash, that crypto will be related to the crypto AI crash that is coming. And that's. That's a topic for another episode, the AI bubble that's going on. I know you love AI there's some practical things to it, but you gotta admit.

[Nick Hanauer]

Yeah.

[Goldie]

That the investment stuff, if there's a Ponzi scheme going on there too. There's a lot of corrupt.

[Nick Hanauer]

I wouldn't call it a Ponzi scheme.

[Goldie]

It's just a bubble.

[Nick Hanauer]

It's a bubble.

[Goldie]

It's a bubble. Yeah. Okay, well, we'll get into, we'll get into that at some point in the future. It's going to be bad for a lot of people. It's going to be bad for the economy. You know, it's like, who cares if people are buying houses that they can't really afford by saying they have income that they don't have? You know, if they lose their houses, that's on them.

[Nick Hanauer]

Right.

[Goldie]

As we learned, that's not exactly. That's number two.

[Nick Hanauer]

You're saying I'm doing insensitive.

[Goldie]

I'm. I'm saying that none of this affects you personally. Right. But it affects a lot of other people. You're right. You're right. And then the other thing is, Nick, and this is something I don't. Maybe you're familiar with this about me. I'm very anti gambling. Like I am not pro gambling. I think, I think the explosion of legal, legalized gambling over the course of our lifetime has been really detrimental. I obviously, it's like drinking a lot of. I drink a little bit. Like I have a couple drinks a week, whatever. I'm not an alcoholic. Alcoholism runs in my family. It runs in my ex wife's family. My daughter doesn't drink at all because of that. Alcohol destroys lives, right?

[Nick Hanauer]

For sure. And as does gambling.

[Goldie]

And gambling is the same way most people. It's entertainment for them, whatever. It's not a big deal. But 95% of the industry's profits are made off of the 5% of people who are problem gamblers. And the entire industry is designed in a way to create compulsion. You are trying to get the people who have a problem to gamble irresponsibly. That's where the profit is. The profit it is in the problem gamblers. And the same thing is true with crypto. The people are going to get wiped out or the people who can't afford to get wiped out. Like, I could care less about the tech Bros. Who are worth $2 billion today, who might be worth $100 million tomorrow. Oh, boo hoo for them. Right. But there's a lot of people who are like, this is my chance to actually have a comfortable life, to have a comfortable retirement. And they're going to lose it all and it's going to destroy a lot of lives. And that's what bubbles do. It sucks in. Especially near the end. It sucks in the people who are least able to deal with the negative consequences. So I see it as just part of our gambling culture when it was. You know, he talked about it earlier, early in his book where there are these super bowl ads with, you know, major actors and athletes like Tom Brady who were shilling this and like, oh, these are heroes. People who you look up. Damon, Matt Damon, like, why did.

[Nick Hanauer]

Who, by the way, is both rich enough and smart enough not to have done that. He's a super bright guy. Like, what are you doing, dude?

[Goldie]

Yeah.

[Ben McKenzie]

He's also a good guy.

[Goldie]

Yeah. So it brings in a lot. A lot of people. It uses their reputation to pull you in. And it's just. It's toxic, it's bad, and it's led to some really bad policy. And here's the final reason you should care about this now, and that is the political money that this is unleashed, the amount of how it is corrupting our politics, that you have all of this fake crypto money out there buying elections.

[Nick Hanauer]

Yeah.

[Goldie]

And you know, that's like Elon Musk who spent $250 million to elect Trump. And that is really, really dangerous, not just to American democracy, but to democracies around the world. Yeah.

[Nick Hanauer]

No.

[Goldie]

So, anyway, if you want to learn more from it, you can buy Ben's book, Easy Money, Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud. We will have a link in the show Notes. You can get it at your favorite online monopolist or your favorite local bookstore. And we'll also throw a link into Ben's upcoming film.

[Nick Hanauer]

Yeah, I'd like to see that.

[Podcast Narrator]

Pitchfork Economics is produced by Civic Ventures. If you like the show, make sure to follow, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Find us on other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and threads. Pitchfork Economics. Nick's on Twitter and Facebook as well. Ickhanhauer. For more content from us, you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter, the Pitch, over on Substack. And for links to everything we just mentioned, plus transcripts and more, visit our website, pitch for economics.com. as always from our team at Civic Ventures. Thanks for listening. See you next week.