![]() ![]() Like they weren’t currencies, they weren’t being used like currencies. When he started looking at crypto more closely, in part at a friend’s urging, it didn’t pass the smell test. Joe Schmo made $10 million overnight on a crypto coin named after a dog or whatever,” he says. Previously, he’d mainly been in real estate. McKenzie’s story of his crypto journey goes a little something like this: He was a bored, middle-aged dad stuck at home during the pandemic and, like a lot of people, thought about getting into investing. “There’s just too much scamming going on” In our conversation, he referred to Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of collapsed crypto platform FTX, as the “Ryan Atwood, the pin-up boy, of crypto.” somewhat, though he’s not severing ties entirely. McKenzie has since managed to distance himself from The O.C. ![]() Think HBO’s Euphoria, but 20 years earlier and allowed on broadcast TV. Can Ryan Atwood sell you on anti-crypto? He thinks so.įor those of us of a certain generation, McKenzie is best known for playing the bad-boy character Ryan Atwood on The O.C., a mid-aughts drama about the trials and tribulations of California teens. I spoke with him for about an hour in mid-July about his theory on the case of crypto, his experiences looking into it, and why he hopes people will pay attention. Whatever the case, McKenzie, 44, has now fashioned himself as the famous face of the crypto skepticism movement. And he’s not trying to get you to buy anything (except maybe his book). He’s testified about crypto before Congress, too. McKenzie’s answer is that he studied economics as an undergraduate, so he knows about money, and he’s an actor, so he knows about lying. As a general rule, people probably shouldn’t listen to celebrities about money. So why should you care what Ben McKenzie thinks about crypto? The short answer is. ![]() He says he calls it “investing in fraud.” In his recently released book, Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, written alongside co-author and journalist Jacob Silverman, McKenzie says he’s shorted - meaning bet against - cryptocurrencies as well as companies whose activities he considers not to be above board. That’s not zero, though, or even below the $10,000 mark McKenzie bet a friend it would be at by the end of 2021. The price of bitcoin isn’t anywhere near its almost $70,000 peak - it’s currently hovering around $30,000. Others are still holding on, but they’re under increasing regulatory and legal scrutiny. Many of the high-flying companies, projects, and people in the crypto space in this latest boom-and-bust cycle have since crashed and burned. Twice a month, Emily Stewart’s column exposes the ways we’re all being squeezed under capitalism. ![]()
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