‘Stop Trying to Unmask Satoshi Nakamoto’ Says Actor Ben McKenzie

Summary

Podcast Summary: Uncanny Valley | WIRED

Episode: “Stop Trying to Unmask Satoshi Nakamoto” Says Actor Ben McKenzie
Date: April 28, 2026
Host: Katie Drummond (WIRED Global Editorial Director)
Guest: Ben McKenzie (Actor, Author, Documentarian and Crypto Critic)

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Overview

In this incisive Big Interview, Katie Drummond sits down with actor-turned-crypto-critic Ben McKenzie to dissect the mythology of Satoshi Nakamoto, the persistent allure and damage of the cryptocurrency industry, and McKenzie's crusade against what he calls "the largest Ponzi scheme in history." The conversation covers McKenzie’s congressional testimony, his new documentary Everyone Is Lying to You for Money, the cultural and political drivers behind crypto’s staying power, and the systematic vulnerabilities in both digital assets and traditional finance. The episode’s tone is spirited, skeptical, and sharply critical—McKenzie is engaging, witty, and determinedly principled.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Satoshi Nakamoto Obsession

[04:18]

• Crypto as Myth: McKenzie likens crypto to a story or even a cult, highlighting the significance of Satoshi Nakamoto's mysterious identity in creating and sustaining that mythology.
  • “It’s just such a better story to have it be a mystery and to have the code take on this mythological status as like, it’s going to fix everything that ails our traditional financial sector.” (Ben McKenzie, 05:09)
• Cultural Impact: The mythos surrounding Satoshi keeps the narrative enticing and allows crypto to take on a near-religious significance.
• Real World Effects: McKenzie downplays efforts to unmask Satoshi, emphasizing that the foundational excitement is rooted less in who invented Bitcoin and more in the escapist fiction it enables.

The True Use Case of Cryptocurrency

[06:30 – 09:36]

• Crime and Speculation: McKenzie asserts the primary uses of cryptocurrency are crime (money laundering, dark web, sanctions evasion) and speculation, not legitimate finance.
  • “The first use case was crime. ... Crypto’s really only good for speculation, gambling, or crime.” (Ben McKenzie, 07:24)
  • He cites a crypto company study: $150 billion of illicit activity annually—possibly an underestimate.
• Corporate Control: He rebuffs the libertarian claim that crypto frees people from state control, stating:
  • “If the money doesn’t come from the government, where does it come from? … The answer in cryptocurrency is corporations.” (Ben McKenzie, 09:36)

Testifying Before Congress

[10:00 – 14:27]

• Becoming a Public Critic: McKenzie describes campaigning for a congressional hearing to reflect victim impact rather than glorifying crypto’s windfalls.
• Performance vs. Substance: He points out the theatrical nature of congressional testimony and the partisan split in questioning.
  • “It was like, you’re up there, you’re giving your speech, you’re on camera, but off camera you’re seeing people milling about.” (Ben McKenzie, 13:23)
• Impact: He’s skeptical about long-term change—even after the FTX collapse and his forceful testimony, the industry persists.

Trump, Politics, and Crypto’s Resurgence

[15:36 – 18:33]

• Trump’s Crypto Pivot: Once a vocal critic, Trump becomes a crypto evangelist after discovering personal economic incentive, accelerating the mainstreaming of crypto and undermining regulatory efforts.
  • “He figured out how to get a cut, and he was all in. And as he embraced it…the price started going up in anticipation.” (Ben McKenzie, 16:12–16:33)
• Industry Response: Political endorsement feeds the speculative mania and complicates regulatory progress.
• Distribution Challenges: McKenzie reveals trouble selling his documentary due to its critical tone and political implications—a symptom, he suggests, of self-censorship within entertainment amid political pressure.

Documenting Crypto Culture

[20:25 – 22:34]

• Genesis of the Documentary: Sparked by wild personalities at events like SXSW, McKenzie collects firsthand interactions—e.g., with Alex Mashinsky (Celsius CEO) and Sam Bankman-Fried.
• Crypto Bros vs. Victims:
  • Top insiders profit; most others, including vulnerable retail investors, lose.
  • “If you think of it as sort of like a multi-level marketing scheme… the people at the top … usually do pretty well. Everybody else … loses.” (Ben McKenzie, 23:47)
• Victim Testimony: Interviews illuminate the hopes and heartbreaks of everyday investors, including a man who lost his daughter's future hoping for security.

The Persistence of Belief

[26:00 – 26:35]

• Even after losing money, most victims McKenzie interviewed remain believers.
  • “Amongst the hardcore 5 to 6%…I’m never going to be able to convince them this is a thing, a scam. … I didn’t make the movie for them. I made the movie for everybody else.” (Ben McKenzie, 26:00–26:38)

Cutting Through the Hype: Tech Realities

[27:15 – 29:44]

• Blockchain Limitations: McKenzie is blunt—blockchain is outdated, non-scalable, and mostly used for obfuscation, not transparency.
  • “Blockchain technology sucks. It’s old. … Bitcoin can only process five to seven transactions a second. Visa can do 24,000.” (Ben McKenzie, 27:15–27:52)
• Even crypto’s technologists, he says, have “moved on.”

Policy and the Future of Crypto

[30:11 – 32:34]

• Call for Regulation Not Prohibition: McKenzie advocates classifying crypto correctly as securities—subjecting them to disclosure laws—and warns stablecoins (private “counterfeit” dollars) could pose systemic risk if allowed to mingle with real dollars.
• Silver Lining: Crypto exposes the "myriad failures" of current finance, potentially opening space for systemic reform.

McKenzie’s Mission & Future

[32:51 – 34:33]

• Plans to continue advocacy via film for broader reach; not interested in running for office, but wants to communicate and empower skepticism.
  • “I think my role is … helping people understand that we have the power, that this is wrong, that you should trust your instincts.” (Ben McKenzie, 33:46)

Control, Alt, Delete: Ben’s Fantasy Tech Changes

[35:41 – 37:37]

• Control: Society should control AI due to its immense, real-world power.
  • “I do not trust the guys that are running [AI] right now.” (Ben McKenzie, 35:46)
• Alt: Envisions reforming (or abolishing) banks to create a fairer system; questions why banks profit while society guarantees risk.
• Delete: No surprise—he would vanquish crypto.
  • “Delete, delete, delete.” (Ben McKenzie, 37:30)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Mythos of Satoshi Nakamoto:
  "It's just such a better story to have it be a mystery... The story is really simple and it's so powerful because the first part we agree on, you know, our current system sucks, and so it gets them pretty far." (Ben McKenzie, 05:09)
• On Crypto’s Real Use:
  "How are they actually using it? They're using it for crime. And the amount of crime is staggering." (Ben McKenzie, 08:04)
• On Testifying Before Congress:
  "Do I use 'biggest Ponzi scheme in history?'... You have to say that because that's how people understand these things." (Ben McKenzie, 13:23)
• On Blockchain:
  "The thing you need to know is that blockchain technology sucks. It's old. It's really old. It goes back to 1991." (Ben McKenzie, 27:15)
• On Changing the System:
  "I just wonder if we should cut out the middlemaker... Should we have banks or should we just have accounts at the government?" (Ben McKenzie, 37:04)
• On Deleting Crypto:
  "I think we know the answer to that—crypto. Getting rid of it. I'm pressing that button. Delete, delete, delete." (Ben McKenzie, 37:30)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 04:18 - The Satoshi Nakamoto myth and why it persists
• 07:24 – 09:36 - Primary uses of crypto: crime, speculation, and corporate power
• 10:00 – 14:27 - McKenzie’s congressional testimony, performance vs. substance
• 15:36 – 18:33 - Political winds: Trump’s embrace of crypto
• 20:25 – 22:34 - Documentary origins; first-hand encounters with crypto’s characters
• 23:47 – 26:38 - Psychology of crypto “bros” vs. vulnerable investors
• 27:15 – 29:44 - Demystifying blockchain and its real limitations
• 30:11 – 32:34 - Policy ambitions: regulation, stablecoins, and systemic risk
• 35:41 – 37:37 - Control (AI), Alt (banking), Delete (crypto) game

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Tone & Takeaways

Witty, irreverent, and meticulously critical, Ben McKenzie’s argument is: Stop looking for a crypto savior, recognize the exploitative nature and limitations of the technology, and resist the political and cultural forces that keep the speculative mania alive. His mission is clear—inform the public, warn the vulnerable, and push for real accountability.
Anyone seeking a myth-busting, no-bull analysis of crypto's biggest promises and failures will find this episode essential listening.

Transcript

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[Katie Drummond]

From Wired. This is the big interview where we'll get to know the people behind the headlines in conversations that explore the intersection of technology, power, and culture. I'm Katie Drummond, Wired Global Editorial Director, and people of a certain age may know my next guest as an actor, but these days you're equally likely to know him for his other leading role. Crusading against Cryptocurrency in my opinion, the

[Ben McKenzie]

cryptocurrency industry represents the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Surveying the cryptocurrency mania during the summer of last year, I came to a terrifying conclusion. The supposedly multi trillion dollar industry was nothing more than a massive speculative bubble bound to pop.

[Katie Drummond]

That's Ben McKenzie testifying before Congress on the spectacular collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX in late November 2022. MacKenzie, who has an undergrad degree in economics, has written a book on the subject, and now he's out with a new documentary, Everyone is lying to you for money. Very good name, I must say. Ben's here now. Thank you so much for joining me.

[Ben McKenzie]

Thanks for having me, Katie. It's an honor to be here.

[Katie Drummond]

We are delighted to have you here. And I had intended to start with that congressional testimony, and I want to get back to that in a minute, but I actually was just at my desk upstairs and was reading this New York Times piece that came out today. We're talking in early April. This episode will come out in a few weeks. But it was this. This sweeping investigation, yet another sweeping investigation into the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin. And I'm not even interested in talking about who satoshi is. Like, I'm not me either, actually. Interestingly enough, I haven't cared about that for a really long time. But this piece came out, and I knew we were talking, and I'm just so curious about your impressions of this sort of, like, mythology and online fascination and almost sort of obsession with this, like, mythical figure, this magician, this wizard who created bitcoin and sort of catalyzed this entire movement that we're now talking about. What are your thoughts on that sort of like, why does that exist and how does it feed into what you're sort of getting at around cryptocurrency today?

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, I mean, if you think of crypto as a story, right? As not really doesn't really function as a currency unless it's sort of a black market currency. It's sort of speculative thing. You can bet on the price going up and down. You can use it for committing crime, for getting paid for committing crime. But it's a story with this really devoted small following, and it has a lot of aspects of a cult. And one great thing for a cult is to have this, you know, deified figure who only exists as a pseudonym, because in reality, it might be maybe this guy Adam Back, who we can talk about, who's a very interesting character or some other cypherpunk cryptographer from that era, but then it would be a real person and A real person would be a little bit of a letdown, probably, right?

[Katie Drummond]

Whoever it is.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, it would just be. It's just such a better story to have it be a mystery and to have the code take on this mythological status as like, it's going to fix everything that ails our traditional financial sector. Because the crypto story is really simple. It's basically, do you hate our current system? Everybody raises their hand and then, well, bitcoin fixes this. And it's the second part that's the lie. I would argue it's far worse if we were to try to somehow use cryptocurrency as a form of money on a global scale or even a national scale. But the story is really simple and it's so powerful because the first part we agree on, you know, our current system sucks, and so it gets them pretty far, I will admit.

[Katie Drummond]

I mean, I. I love a long story. I did finally, at one point was like, oh, I gotta just scroll to the end. Like, did they get the guy? And yet again, we are not sort of like, dead to rights. It's this guy. He's not like, yes, you got me, it's me. And I would imagine that whoever it is, it is advantageous for that person, if they are still alive, to retain that sort of mysterious, mythical. Because as you said, as soon as everybody knows who you are and it's you, that sort of, like, veil of mystery and the sense of, like, nobility and a noble cause dissipates, or at least starts to dissipate.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah. And I mean, I would be happy to talk about Adam Back specifically.

[Katie Drummond]

I mean, what do we know about Adam Back?

[Ben McKenzie]

So a couple things. I've never met him, I've never interviewed him. He does not like me. He's referred to me as a crisis actor.

[Katie Drummond]

No.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah. Well, I am an actor, you are an actor, and it is a crisis. So, you know, kind of points for creativity. Adam, cryptographer, he's the first person that Satoshi emailed. So this person that doesn't exist, this real person, that's interesting. And then I guess in the article, apparently there's a lot of similarities in terms of how Adam writes and Satoshi wrote. But in terms of Adam himself, he started this company called Blockstream, and Adam met with Jeffrey Epstein in the sort of mid 2010s, and apparently there was some sort of financial relationship. There was some sort of investment of some kind at some point. I think that's really interesting because, of course, cryptocurrency, when it Started with the white paper in 2008 and then came into existence in reality in 2009. There really wasn't a use case for it. What could you really do with this stuff? It's just lines of code on ledgers called blockchains. And the first use case was crime. It was the Silk Road, this dark web drug marketplace. And that has been just a through line throughout cryptocurrency for forever, far before the retail public got really involved in it, because that's what you use it for. Crypto's really only good for speculation, gambling, betting, the price is going to go up and down, or crime. It's trying to get outside the regulated system. It's a tool. So could you use crypto for good? Sure. You can imagine you're trying to send money to a country under sanctions that you don't believe in, and so you're trying to work around it. Sure. But let's be adults.

[Katie Drummond]

How are people actually using it?

[Ben McKenzie]

How are they actually using it? They're using it for crime. And the amount of crime is staggering. There's a crypto company that did an analysis, a study last year, and found that something like $150 billion of illicit activities is financed via cryptocurrency. 150 billion in a year.

[Katie Drummond]

That is just a shocking amount.

[Ben McKenzie]

And that's from a crypto company's analysis. So it might be on the low end, you know what I mean? So we're talking about, like, just a staggering amount of crime and some of the worst people in the world. You know, Jeffrey Epstein love crypto. You know, it's like Russian oligarchs selling sanctioned oil to. To the Chinese in exchange for drones that they're going to send to Ukraine. And it's all done via cryptocurrency. You know, it's like all of the terrible stuff. And so that's really, you know, like, that's my hobby horse. That's the thing I'm beating on is like, what are we doing? What good is this doing? I'm not saying to outlaw it, because I don't think that would do any good, but we do have to regulate it stringently and treat it for what it is, which is both a Ponzi scheme on the speculative side in terms of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Melania Coin, Trump coin, fart coin cum rocket. My favorite meme, coin. There are Ponzi schemes on that side and then their black market money on the other side, which is the stablecoins, which is really where the game is headed. The other thing you get, and this is really important for people to understand, the libertarians that love crypto will say, oh, this is great. This is money that's free from the dead hand of state. Well, first of all, we live in a democracy, at least theoretically, so that seems a little overwrought. But if the money doesn't come from the government, where does it come from? They don't like to talk about it. But the answer in cryptocurrency is corporations.

[Katie Drummond]

Mm.

[Ben McKenzie]

It's World Liberty Financial, but it's also bitcoin. The bitcoin that's mined today, the vast majority of it, is mined by multibillion dollar corporations, some of which are publicly traded. So we're talking about literal corporate money. And if that seems like a good idea to you, then okay. But the vast majority of the public already hates corporations for good reason and is skeptical of them having even more power over our daily lives. And so, you know, this is a terrible idea.

[Katie Drummond]

We played a little bit of that tape of you giving this testimony in 2022, and I want to back up to that. You were invited to testify.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah.

[Katie Drummond]

Which I think says a lot about sort of the expertise and the reputation you've. You've built for yourself as a crisis actor and also a leading expert on the sort of real story, the underpinnings of what is actually happening in the crypto industry. What is it like to get an invitation like that? Is it a phone call? Is it an email? Like, how did you react to that invitation? What did you think when that came up?

[Ben McKenzie]

Over the summer, that year, as I was really fully into this crypto investigatory stuff and sort of writing articles with my co author, Jacob Silverman, and working on this book that we would publish and interviewing people and being very vocal online, I was trying to get the attention of people on Capitol Hill. So I met with a couple of folks over the summer and I kept saying, look, the only hearings that are happening are just glorifying crypto and talking about how wonderful it is. And it was finally crashing over the summer, and I said, you gotta have hearing for the victims. You gotta talk about the cost. Because all people are seeing is the like, you know, one in a million person that makes a fortune on it. And that's all the media focuses on. And basically they were. The staffs were sympathetic, but this just wasn't the right time. Was with the vibe. And then that fall, Sam got arrested. Sam Bankman fried of ftx. His empire exploded fantastically. He was kind of the figurehead of crypto at the time. He was arrested in the Bahamas and eventually extradited. And there's a chance for a hearing. And I got the call and yeah, it was a really nice moment. I mean, to be honest, I was, of course, instantaneously, incredibly nervous.

[Katie Drummond]

Yeah, no, of course. Of course.

[Ben McKenzie]

Never done it before.

[Katie Drummond]

One of the observations that I have, that I have made many, many times around congressional testimony of this nature, when it's anything technology related, you sort of. You sit and you watch and you listen and you look at the lawmakers who are listening and you hear their questions and you sort of think to yourself, like, oh, my God, how are we ever gonna get anywhere? And I say that with all respect to some of the political leaders of this country. Some of them, not all of them, but there is a troubling disconnect between often what is said and what is understood and then what is done. When you walked out of that room that day and sort of in the ensuing weeks and months, did you feel like anything would materially change? Do you feel like they actually understood what was happening and sort of what the stakes were?

[Ben McKenzie]

I think some of them did, yeah, sure.

[Katie Drummond]

I mean, it's not a monolith.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, exactly. So as to whether I felt like things were gonna change, you know, I can't remember what I felt at the time. It felt good to clear the air. It felt necessary. I went hard, as you showed in the clips. I did not mess around. I remember asking my wife like, do I use biggest Ponzi scheme in history? Is that like too simplistic? She's like, no, you have to say that because that's how people understand these things. Popularly. You can be nu in a 300 page book, but in 5 minutes on Capitol Hill and in a specific clip that you're gonna be clipped for, you need to be as direct and as hard hitting as possible. And so I wrote my remarks. And the good part about being an actor and a writer is you specialize in communications. And I knew. I think I knew how to hit my marks. And then what's so fascinating about actually testifying is how similar to showbiz it was. It was like, you're up there, you're giving your speech, you're on camera, but off camera you're seeing people milling about. And the Republicans only come in to the hearing was two crypto skeptics, Me and this wonderful professor of law at American University, Hillary Allen, and a couple of pro crypto people, including Kevin o'. Leary.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, Fantastic. So glad Kevin was able to be there.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I just want you to. I think that's really important for me to remember is like, oh, it's so wonderful. So what an honor to testify. But you're testifying opposite Kevin o', Leary, so that should ground me in a certain humility. Republicans would ask questions of the pro crypto people and the Democrats would ask questions. So none of us were really engaged in that. It wasn't a debate. Right. It was sort of like a performative thing where we were just gonna hit our marks. And I get that, but that obviously is not a real conversation. So. Yeah, I can't remember what I felt at the time, but I definitely. I remember other skeptics saying, yeah, it's over.

[Katie Drummond]

It's over in 2022.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah. Or it's gonna die out. Not all of them, but some of them. And I just remember thinking, I don't think that's true.

[Katie Drummond]

Well, which brings me to. There's a lot that I want to get into, and I want to make sure we spend time on the doc. But I have to ask you about President Trump, because crypto was sort of, you know, it was bouncing along. There would be these spectacular moments of catastrophe. Right. SBF being a great example. You have the President of the United States come back into office for a second term and become, you know, a crypto evangelist, vowed to make the United States the, quote, crypto capital of the world. So crypto in the United States is back in a big way. Right. I mean, it has been endorsed by the President of the United States. There's Melania Coin. I mean, it's just like nightmare upon nightmare. And that's just in crypto, not even getting into everything else going on. Has that made your life and this, this pursuit, this project around crypto harder? Has it made it easier? Like, how has Donald Trump's full throated endorsement of cryptocurrency affected what you were trying to do and the change you're trying to effect?

[Ben McKenzie]

That's a great question. So this film has taken a long time to make. The events of the film are largely in 2022, and it's a completely independent movie that I financed myself. Gulp. So it took a long time because you don't have any money. It's the opposite of, I directed on tv. And in TV directing, you have all of the money and none of the time. You have to do it very quickly. On doc directing, you have all the time and none of the. But eventually we had to stop and it was right before the election, and Trump had just pivoted to supporting crypto, because as recently as 2021, Donald Trump called bitcoin a scam.

[Katie Drummond]

He sure did. Yeah.

[Ben McKenzie]

And my personal theory is that what Trump's business model was prior to being elected president was sort of branding himself and sort of putting his name on hotel properties and things like that. So Trump wasn't getting a cut of it. He probably didn't like crypto that much. But then he figured out how to get a cut, and he was all in. And as he embraced it over the summer of 2024, very publicly, investors realized that if he were to be elected president, the price would go up. So the price started going up in anticipation of that. Sure enough, he was elected. And then it just kept going and going, and sure enough, he's done it pretty much not everything he can, but. But a lot to. To really further crypto's rise. Dismantling the sec, dismantling the literal crypto crime task force that the Biden administration had created. Trump being the sort of leader of this cult, like, fraudulent coin is. It's dark for the world, but it is kind of chef's kiss for, like, the themes of the.

[Katie Drummond]

It does track.

[Ben McKenzie]

It tracks.

[Katie Drummond]

It definitely tracks.

[Ben McKenzie]

You know what's interesting about trying to get the movie out, though? That's what's interesting. So I finished the movie, so we needed to wrap production in 2024 or sort of start the editing, and then there's graphics and stuff. So we finally finished it in the summer of 25, about a year ago. And then I needed to sell it. And I was initially thinking, oh, this is an hour and a half comedy starring Ryan Atwood from the OC and my much more famous wife, who's awesome in this movie. Morena just kills it. And it's like it's a comedy about a topic that's in the news. This is gonna be slam dunk. I'm have meetings with Netflix and it's gonna be done.

[Katie Drummond]

Interesting.

[Ben McKenzie]

Had some meetings with some streamers, but this was at the time when he was going after Kimmel, he was going after Colbert. I mean, they're still doing it, but they were really doing at that point are dangerously close to kind of like succeeding in this censorship. And here was a movie that's a little political. More than a little political. I mean, the title's everyone's lying to you for money. And I made sure the lying part, when you see the intro is over Trump's face. Oh, okay. Yeah, There you go not trying to hide the ball. The movie didn't sell. Now, that being said, cry me river. The movie's coming out. It's in theaters. People can see it, at least briefly. And the response so far has been fantastic because people are so angry at this stupid system and all these stupid people who again, continue to lie to us for money. So it's a wild ride.

[Katie Drummond]

We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

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This week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, Steve Kerr, one of the best coaches in the NBA and certainly one

[Ben McKenzie]

of the most outspoken, calling the president a buffoon. I kind of regret that, even though I felt it in my heart because I'm representing a large group of people not only for our organization, but our fans, too.

[New Yorker Radio Hour Announcer]

Steve Kerr joins us next time on the New Yorker Radio Hour from wnyc. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts,

[Ben McKenzie]

You've

[Katie Drummond]

been on this this warpath for years. You wrote a book already. Tell me about the origins of the documentary. I mean, as you say, this goes back like many, many years now.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah. So the documentary started off with I approached this journalist, Jacob Silverman, about writing a book, started writing articles, we submitted a book proposal, sold the book proposal, and then we went out into the real world to start reporting on this because it was sort of coming out of COVID into 21, into 22. And the first thing we went to in the real world was south By Southwest in 2022 in my hometown of Austin, Texas. And I just figured, why not turn a camera on? You know, these characters are wild. Crypto has all this zany stuff like what's the worst that can happen. And if it doesn't work, then, you know, just whatever. Pretend like it never happened. The first day we are filming, we're on the floor of the convention center, and I see this booth for a company called Celsius, which was a very dodgy company, where, like, you give them your crypto and they give you this, like, guaranteed return of, like, 15 or 20% or something ridiculous.

[Katie Drummond]

It sounds too good to be true.

[Ben McKenzie]

Sounds too good to be true. And I'm thinking, like, what's going on? I knew they were being sued by the Texas state regulator, and yet they hadn't been adjudicated yet. And they're just like, they're still trying to sell people on this. And I look over the other side of the room is the CEO, Alex Mashinsky, and I, you know, what are you going to do? So I mic'd up, I went over, and I had a whole conversation with him that is really wild. Some of it's in the movie. He's just like, such a used car salesman, right? Just, like, obviously kind of blustery and full of it. And that was the first day, so I figured I should keep going. So, yeah, so that's how it started, and I just kept going. And I needed to also finish the book. So 2022 was documenting and 2023 was the book. And then the book came out in the summer, and then I could really turn to all this random footage that I had, which was like, interviewing these guys like Alex and Sam Bankman Fried, testifying to Capitol Hill, going to El Salvador. We talk about that. But I didn't have a narrative. I needed to create a narrative spine. And the spine became me, my story. You know, why the hell was I doing this? Like, both personally and then sort of like, in terms of my cause or my ideals here. And that worked because I basically was able to use my much more famous and talented wife and get her for free to be in the movie and rope my kids into it. And it worked out, but it took a while to create the narrative.

[Katie Drummond]

And how do you think about. I mean, you interview Alex, you talk to SBF in the film, too. But this sort of culture of person who is drawn to cryptocurrency, we could describe them as crypto bros. I mean, there are women involved as well, but it's sort of like the crypto guy, right? And they're kind of. They're kind of slimy. There's something really inauthentic about them. And they are essentially, you know, preying on more vulnerable people as part of this, this massive exploit. Right. This, this massive scheme.

[Ben McKenzie]

I.

[Katie Drummond]

There are people in my life who are of a certain generation, I mean, many decades older than I am, who have invested retirement money into cryptocurrency. I mean, this is. It is a very scary thing. How do you describe sort of what draws someone to cryptocurrency? Sort of as a crypto, bro, as someone who's like all in on this community.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah.

[Katie Drummond]

And then as someone on the other side, sort of like that vulnerable population. I mean, these are the people I worry about when we talk about someone like President Trump who listen to him talk about crypto and sort of watch his press conferences or see that the beautiful first lady has a coin out and they feel like, oh, I should get in on that. Talk to me about those two cohorts. How do you see them?

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, there's this sort of. If you think of it as sort of like a multi level marketing scheme, then there's the people at the top of the pyramid and then there's everybody else at the bottom. And the people at the top are the insiders, people that own the exchanges, issue the coins, hawk the coins, offer various sort of fintechy type access to crypto. They usually do pretty well. And they're not the ones holding the bag at the end because they're not putting their own money into it necessarily. Everybody else, almost everybody else loses. And that's just true of MLMs. I mean, in terms of the people that invest in the retail public, it's everybody. I mean, it is very male. I will say it is very, very male. But 40 million people, 40 million Americans have invested in cryptocurrency.

[Katie Drummond]

40 million?

[Ben McKenzie]

I think so it's like 16% of the adult public, which is. I know, it's sad. Now, that being said, most of those people only put a little money in,

[Katie Drummond]

just like an experiment, little hobby.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah. They saw Matt Damon selling it and they're like, sure, I'll put a hundred bucks on it, right. And try it. And my buddy Dave in the movie, I try to explain how I got into it because a friend of this really happened. A friend of mine said in the depths of COVID I should buy bitcoin. And my buddy's great, but he's kind of been a knucklehead about money.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, Dave.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, Dave. And so I was like, I'm not gonna do that, Dave, but I do want to hear more. Tell me about it. And he couldn't tell me, and so I had to do my own research. But in terms of the people that are into it, it's everybody. And I describe it in the movie as crypto is really just a story, a get rich quick scheme, a story of sort of, you're going to be wealthy and also it's going to fix all these problems and it's going to give you all this freedom. And it's a story as old as time, really just wrapped in this sort of technobabble stuff that appeals to just an extraordinary number of people. So if you think of it that way, then crypto is really just a projection of the hopes and dreams of so many people. And I interview a bunch of the victims of the Celsius scam. You know, after I met the CEO, I felt like I should talk to these folks. And so we posted on Reddit and all these guys replied, it was all guys, and, and I had really good conversations with them, you know, and very sincere conversations about, okay, well, what did you want this money to do? You know, you were going to make money. How, what was it going to do for you? They all had various answers, but the most sort of heartbreaking was a guy working construction in Texas who just, he said he wanted to make a little money to spend more time with his daughter.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, that's really sad.

[Ben McKenzie]

It's really sad. And then, you know, he felt like he let her down when he lost the money. You know, I'm crying, he's crying like, you know, I'm a dad, he's a dad, like, you know, so you feel sympathy? I do, I feel a lot of sympathy. At the same time. I came back to these guys at the end of the movie and I say, do you still believe in crypto? They all said yes, every single one of them Amongst the hardcore 5 to 6% of the population. I'm never going to be able to convince them this is a thing, a scam. No one else is going to be able to convince them. They're going to have to go that journey on their own. And maybe they'll come out of on the positive side, but they're most likely to come out on the negative. I didn't make.

[Katie Drummond]

Yeah, they unfortunately all hate wired too. So we're not gonna.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, they're not listening to this anyway. But I didn't make the movie for them. I made the movie for everybody else. I made the movie for the 80 plus percent of the country that's never bought crypto. The vast majority of us are skeptical of crypto for good reason. And almost everybody that I talk to who isn't into it, says the same thing to me. They say, I don't know, it seems maybe I'm not that smart. Seems kind of complicated, but also seems scammy. And I just wanna say, no, it's not you, it's them.

[Katie Drummond]

Well, that's actually, that's a question. People who say sort of like the blockchain. I find that very intimidating. Cryptocurrency. I don't quite get it. What is the clearest way to explain to someone that you have found to just say like, look, this is what this is. Here's the deal.

[Ben McKenzie]

Great. The thing you need to know is that blockchain technology sucks. It's old. It's really old. It goes back to 1991, but I

[Katie Drummond]

thought you could put everything on it.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah. And that was what we were sold, particularly in 2022 or 2122. There was all the, you know, it was going to be like medical insurance.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, it's outrageous. The press releases I got. You could. I mean, you could put farm animals on there, like liter, whatever. You wanted to go on the blockchain.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah. And so, like, it's an old technology. It hasn't found application outside of crypto. Right. Like, what companies, they. Now, they don't even use the word blockchain now. They use the word. The term digital assets, which is wonderfully.

[Katie Drummond]

I will keep an eye out for this.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, Wonderfully vague term. What is it? It's. It's digital. It's an asset of what. What are you owning? Exactly. So you just need to understand that the technology sucks to give you a sense of how much it sucks. Bitcoin can only process five to seven transactions a second. Visa can do 24,000, so it cannot scale as a payments method. You have to build all these layers on top of it, which sort of defeats the purpose of having it to begin with. And so even Sam Bankman fried. When I interviewed him, I was like, bitcoin can't work as global payments. And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he tried to pivot and sell me on this other coin that worked better, but he also owned a lot of. Which was very, very funny. So it can't work technologically. And, you know, blockchain is really simple. It's just a ledger, just a way of storing information. The advantage that it has is it obscures the identity of whoever's interacting.

[Katie Drummond]

Right, Hence the crime.

[Ben McKenzie]

Exactly, yeah. And it's not anonymous, but it's synonymous, you know, so you can have all These different addresses in the form of wallets. And you can, you know, you can also run your crypto through these things called mixers, which sort of further obscure the identity, make it even harder to track. Your colleague, Andy Greenberg has done enormous, wonderful work talking about how law enforcement interacts with these things. So theoretically, you could trace who is committing what crime, except you can't really, or it's very difficult to do because you don't know who is what, what is who, who is who is who, who is who within the. On the ledger. And that just requires a lot of, like, legwork that, quite frankly, the law enforcement agencies don't have, generally speaking. So the crypto people will say, no, no, it's open and it's transparent. But at the same time, they benefit from the fact that it isn't. So there's just a lot of talking out of both sides of their mouths.

[Katie Drummond]

So you basically would just say to someone, it's not actually that complicated and it doesn't work very well.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, it just doesn't work that well. Like, if someone says blockchain is the future, ask them, doesn't it go Back to like 1991?

[Katie Drummond]

Yeah.

[Ben McKenzie]

Like, if you want to find people that are skeptical of cryptocurrency, ask cryptographers. Like, cryptographers are skeptical of crypto because it's moved on. They've moved on from that. I interviewed the guy. He didn't have anything to do with bitcoin, but he did a precursor to Bitcoin. David Chaum, cryptographer, Nice guy. I asked him about this. It doesn't seem like it's working that well. And he referred to bitcoin as primitive or blockchain as primitive.

[Katie Drummond]

Where do you want to see this go? What is for you, after all of these years, the ideal future outcome for cryptocurrency?

[Ben McKenzie]

Well, I mean, we put ourselves in a really bad place here. I mean, to state the obvious, where what should have happened, in my opinion, is that cryptocurrency, it doesn't really function as a currency except for sort of illegal stuff. It should have been classified properly as a security back in the day, but it wasn't. And it was sort of quasi classified as a commodity. And that's created a lot of the problems. I know this is very dorky, but it's really important. We're the only country in the world that separates our commodities regulation from our securities regulation. Every other country in the world, they put these things together. Cause why wouldn't you, if crypto was classified as securities they would have to follow securities laws. And securities laws are predicated on disclosure. You have to know who you're giving your money to and what they're doing with that money. And the crypto industry really doesn't want that. Right. Obviously. And so I think the temptation is to say to outlaw it. Right. But I just don't think that's gonna work. I'll just be honest. I just think it's a global system at this point, and outlawing it is just gonna continue to push it into the dark corners. So I think it's securities law. Stablecoins are different. Stablecoins, I think, are extremely dangero. So stablecoins are cryptos that are pegged one to one with a real currency, like the US Dollar. So it's sort of a black market dollar, but of course it's not backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. It's a privately issued form of money to me, because they're trading on the trust that people have in the stability of the dollar. It's a counterfeit dollar. It's not a real dollar. And if we continue to allow that to exist, and worse, we allow it to infiltrate our banking system, which is what this legisl to sort of allow stablecoin companies to become their own banks. It mixes the fake money with the real money, and that introduces enormous systemic risk. And at the end of the day, this could crash again, as crypto has done repeatedly over its brief but tortured history, and we could end up bailing these guys out like we did in subprime crisis, which is hilarious because of course, that was the thing that crypto was supposedly set up to be against.

[Katie Drummond]

I have to ask you here with my optimist hat on, is there to you any redeeming value in cryptocurrency? Is there a silver lining here? Is there a novel and genuinely useful application of this technology?

[Ben McKenzie]

No, I think what it. But I. But I do think there's a slight silver lining, which is it points out the myriad failures of our current system. And hopefully, as crazy as Trump is, perhaps he's shifted the Overton window of what's possible on the other side.

[Katie Drummond]

Interesting. And what about you? I mean, this has been a cause, a mission. There's something about it talking to you that feels like it has been all consuming to a certain extent. Are you going to keep going? Is this an ongoing crusade for you or is there something else you want to do?

[Ben McKenzie]

I want to do a lot of different things, but I want to keep going here because this is probably the best chance to reach the widest, you know, number of people. I mean, I love. Writing a book was fantastic. I learned a lot, especially from Jacob, and I'm very proud of that book. But just, you know, practically speaking, there's only so many people that are Gonna read a 300 page book on economics and a lot more people are gonna see a movie. And so I'm really pushing that and I really wanna keep that conversation going as to what happens after that, I really don't know. I'm not someone who wants to run for office, so that's not really a thing that wants to.

[Katie Drummond]

You don't want to, but you might.

[Ben McKenzie]

Right, right. If the people wanted me so much. No, that sounds really ob. No, I just, I don't think that's my role. I think my role is probably more communications and quite frankly, sort of like a PR in terms of helping people understand that we have the power, that this is wrong, that you should trust your instincts, that sort of thing. I don't know where that leads me in terms of my next creative project. I'm actually trying to get back into TV because I miss. I miss the collaboration of writing books and making documentaries especially the post production process is very lonely. I miss the collaboration on set. And so I'm working on that, a series, developing a series for myself to be in. We'll see if that works. But I. I don't know what the future holds. But nobody else does either, right?

[Katie Drummond]

All right, another quick break here and we'll be back with our favorite game. Comprehensive, witty, speculative, critical, insightful, profound, wide ranging. Hopefully doesn't take itself too, too seriously.

[New Yorker Radio Hour Announcer]

I'm David Remnick and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, my colleagues and I try to make sense of what's happening in this chaotic world. I hope you'll join us for the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen

[Katie Drummond]

to podcasts, Thoughtful, exquisite, Just, you know, Ben, we like to close each show with a little game, if you would. It's called Control, Alt, Delete. I think you're going to be very good at this. I want to know what piece of tech you would love to control, what piece you would love to alt. So alter or change. And what would you vanquish from the earth if given the opportunity to work?

[Ben McKenzie]

I think we know the last one, so let's start with Control. Control would be AI.

[Katie Drummond]

What are we going to do to AI?

[Ben McKenzie]

So I have not spent the time on AI that I've spent on crypto.

[Katie Drummond]

So maybe this is your Next project.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah. I mean, I would love to talk to more people and to be more informed about it. I think that one of the things that's obviously so different about AI from crypto is that it is a real technology, that it is actually changing things like right now, and extremely powerful potentially. And I do not trust the guys that are running it right now. There's a thing called the grift shift. Do you know about this?

[Katie Drummond]

No.

[Ben McKenzie]

It's grifters that shifted from crypto into AI.

[Katie Drummond]

Oh, sure. I mean, this makes. Yes. And they were all in the metaverse hanging out and. Yeah.

[Ben McKenzie]

So I don't trust them.

[Katie Drummond]

No.

[Ben McKenzie]

And I. And I feel like the control. I don't want to personally control it. I want society control it in some sort of fair and balanced way, but that seems like the best way to do that. Let's see. Control alt. Our financial system. You know, crypto is set up to like, supposedly to be in opposition to the banking system. One question I have is why do we have banks? You know, banks are franchised by the government and allowed to issue loans. Most of the money that's created in this country is in the form of loans. The government backstops that and the banks profit and credit is extended. So it sort of works. But we also end up bailing these guys out a lot.

[Katie Drummond]

We do.

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah. And I just wonder if we should cut out the middlemaker. I mean, everybody hates banks anyway, so should we have banks or should we just have accounts at the government? And the government can control that now the crypto people are going to hate that. Right?

[Katie Drummond]

They're not going to like that.

[Ben McKenzie]

So mad. But it makes a certain amount of sense. So anyway, I guess that would be my alt. Whether it's destroying the banks or just making the system more equitable and more, more, more fair to.

[Katie Drummond]

I'm so curious. What are you going to delete?

[Ben McKenzie]

Yeah, I think we know the answer that to crypto. Getting rid of it. I'm pressing that button. Delete, Delete, delete.

[Katie Drummond]

Ben McKenzie is busy deleting cryptocurrency and in the meantime, you should go see his documentary. Everyone is lying to you for money. Which they are. Ben, thank you so much for being here. This was great.

[Ben McKenzie]

Thanks guys. It was fun.

[Katie Drummond]

The Big Interview is a production of Wired and Kaleidoscope content. This episode was produced by our showrunner, Anne Marie Furtol. Kate Osborne is our executive producer. Music and mixing by Pran Bandy. This episode was fact checked by Matt Giles and I am of course, your host, Katie Drummond, Wired's global editorial director. Check back here on Thursday for the latest episode of Uncanny Valley, where Wired's writers and editors add you to their Slack Channel.

[Boston Globe Announcer]

Boston, New England. Maybe you're from here. Maybe you went to college here. Maybe you live here now. It's a place rife with smart people and big ideas. Every week at the Boston Globe, say More brings you the best thinkers and storytellers from around the region, like Dennis Lehane, author of Gone Baby Gone.

[Ben McKenzie]

I loved growing up in a working class town. I loved the loyalty. I loved the joke jokes, the sense of family bonds. I don't find that in a lot of the rest of the world.

[Boston Globe Announcer]

Expertise with heart from all around New England. From the Boston Globe, Listen to say More

[Ben McKenzie]

from PRX.