Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

685 - Fail Whale feat. Ben McKenzie (12/1/22) (Patreon)

Published:
2022-12-02 03:28:15
Edited:
2022-12-02 03:28:29
Imported:
2026-06

Downloads

Content

Senior Crypto-correspondent Ben McKenzie stops by to catch up on the FTX collapse and SBF’s downfall. We also take a look at the general state of crypto, the fate of crypto holders, political complicity in the industry, and more.

You can pre-order Ben and Jacob Silverman’s new book on Crypto now: https://store.abramsbooks.com/products/easy-money

Files

Comments

John Mertes

Still holding my HEI points

Toddy Todd

2 chapos one day the lord blesses us

Flesh Colored Subaru

Weird how the people at the top of society keep trying to prop up an asset used primarily to buy child porn

Ryan Reed

epic. is this not on apple podcast for others?

Heavenly Father69

The official Chapo Patreon rules state that you cant comment on the ep until YOU HAVE FUCKING LISTENED TO IT. Its 7:40pm PST. This shit dropped 15 minutes ago. You bitches are cheating. And I made 75k in BTC and ETH. The only thing more profitable than crypto is Amway.

Anthony

2 eps in one day. This is slop overload

etienne

the actual official rule is that as soon as the push note or the email drops you get in there and type in "first" or "this one sucked"

Satcomdaemon

looking forward to hearing about the part of the economy that isn't a scam

J.W.

It's a good thing Sandy and Kirsten rescued this kid from Chino. Turned out a goddamned crackerjack economist.

Shiv

i believe it’s gold!!

Dustin Nelson

Is it bad I unironically love the techno Barnum and Bailey theme

Shiv

interrupting my listen to praise Chris for the Electroclown drop

Adam

boring

Matthew

I bet life savings that there is an electro-swing playlist in that mansion somewhere.

Jonathan lees

Best take on the clown show luv it

Michael S. Judge

I'm pretty sure it's been documented that the Ukrainian government has used SBF to flip crypto back into actual money for use in & around the actual warzone. I don't know if that qualifies as money laundering per se, but it would seem to imply that Ukraine has a silent partner who wants to stay silent

Jacob Jones

Who would've thought Ben McKenzie would be the foremost expert on Crypto, but Commissioner Gordon (and Batman) has really dug deep into this shit. I'd go mad if I dove into Crypto so deeply. Props to him. I called it years ago, shit is a Ponzi Scheme. None of my friends listened to me. I never invested. They laughed when they made money, and now all of the money is gone. Oops.

J P 3

Documented where? I could see a reason why a country under sanctions might want to use crypto exchanges. I could see why a person living in a country with capital controls might also want to use crypto exchanges. Neither of those is really applicable in the case of Ukraine. In terms of a purely conspiratorial view, it would make a lot more sense for the Russian government to do this kind of stuff and use "silent partners" than it would for a country like Ukraine. e.g. because of sanctions, and because of counter-party risk for people doing business with Russia -- these are not issues for the Ukrainian government. If Ukraine wants to move money around too, why would it even waste its time with the arbitrarge risks and the scammers associated with crypto when it would has the ability to move money through shell companies and the formal banking sector. e.g. options that are not available to Russia right now. My sense is that the SBF story is probably ancillary to the conflict. If this story had any real plausibility too, then the past year should have been a massive win for the FTX exchange with new capital flows pouring through the network. Instead the exchange have been bleeding money the whole year, similar to most people in crypto.

Michael S. Judge

SBF and the "Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation," whatever the hell that means, ran a website soliciting crypto donations for "arms and war supplies," but apparently Ukraine couldn't actually find a practical way to use the crypto in real time, so they had to get FTX to flip it back into actual currency. From a Forbes piece, 11/15/22: “ 'A fundraising crypto foundation @_AidForUkraine used @FTX_Official to convert crypto donations into fiat in March,' tweeted Deputy Minister Alex Bornyakov. 'Ukraine's gov never invested any funds into FTX. The whole narrative that Ukraine allegedly invested in FTX, who donated money to Democrats is nonsense, frankly.'” By "silent partners," I was referring to people or governments which might privately want to keep the war going on, check Russia's regional influence, both, etc., but which also might not want to damage their political standing with Russia, hence Ukrainian military aid via crypto rather than outright public spending.

THEKILLERWHALE

Yeah, that rant of Chino's about how close we were to a repeat of 2007 if they had a little more time to better integrate into the banking system ... yikes. It felt as inevitable and as doomed as he said.

Clean Shirt Piggie

Which Chapo Bro will admit he lost some patreon money to Crypto Bros? Let the healing begin

Clean Shirt Piggie

SBF was inspired to play video games on calls by Felix playing them on CTH eps

Yarblockos

Tales from the Crypto

Purple Lemons

Never been so called out as a computer programmer than by Felix's dead on analysis of my fucked up music taste

D.O.D

yeah, thats bad

D.O.D

I accidentally made money on crypto. Bought some BTC to buy Warhammer figurines online, then the leftover BTC 10x'ed in value and I cashed out about $600 and never went back. Thinking of writing an investment guidebook.

Michael S. Judge

E.g., China isn't going to join hands with the US/NATO set on Ukraine and has been neutral-to-positive toward Russia (protesting the UN calling it a "war," etc.) ... but China also has a gigantic fighter jet program that relies heavily on military contractors in Ukraine.

Michael S. Judge

May I recommend The Adam Friedland Show, once known as Cum Town

Jerry

FUD

dog stone

great ep but ben keeps doing the biden 'im sorry man i shouldnt have said that'

Stellar manatee

Shaq didn't see through crypto he saw over it

etienne

funds are safu

JV

kanye go on chapo

Doug Cartel

"can- can you pause the game while we talk about this exchange?" "nah sorry you can't pause this type of game"

Melting Kentucky

Look up Clown Core on YouTube. You will not be disappointed.

D

I am so glad I did that in an incognito tab.

Kittylitteral

I listened to that whole thing thinking "oh cool it's their crypto guy" and forgot it was an actor until i saw this comment afterwards.

Kyle Smyth

"Code does not fall from the sky. Code is written by people." Put this on a plaque to remind everyone whenever some futurist asshole claims a new tech/algorithm/AI etc will fix our problems

Do Golems Dream of Ceramic Sheep

c.f. Felix's (Matt's?) talk about Roko's Basilisk and how it exists so that the weird rationalist nerds get to pretend that civilization-destroying code _does_ write itself.

casey

Honestly this clowncore low key slaps

The wazzzzaaapp bud light dude

Scams used to promise you super powers and they would come to your home. Now it’s some dork ass thing I have to do on the machine I get my porn from? How did they even get a cent?

Maxwell Harkness

the internet has created the most insufferable plotheads, they are the scourge of the earth and something must be done about them.

etienne

time to re-listen to Cum Town - How Nick Lost 38,000$ in Crypto by Spermany [2019-02-10; 412 537 views] on youtube

No

In addition to being a conman, Trueanon's take that Sam Bankrun-Fraud is also a true-believer is correct. It's not mutually exclusive. He's also a moron, but Shakespeare is actually shit tho

Saga

Remember when we were kids and thought the adults knew what they were doing, then joked about how wrong we were? It's not funny anymore.

etienne

i am going to break into your house and make you feel unsafe

Jessie Cherbak

Caroline Ellison in a rainbow propeller hat

justdave

My bit is to come in a day after the ep drops, comment on a joke that I know Noone would even remember writing- forcing the person to then go back and read their comment and forever wonder why I put a little guy in a chefs hat emoji into their dms 👨‍🍳

Aidan Dean-Jones

The Pride of Austin. If you grew up here there’s always been stories around the city about how good of a person Ben McKenzie is.

Darius

Spike Lee also thinks that Vietnamese people are animals.

Patrick

Can you remove this from the paywall? I’d like to share with people

Post Void

I needed that after trying to process the first openly nazi Top 40 Musican.

Post Void

Hitler also invented boofing meth

Marcus

The only time Tucker blinks while Terry Duffy is talking is right after he says "bribe". He's usually so good at keeping that stupid face on and even that made him flinch.

Marcus

Boofing is healthier than smoking or injecting it.

Of course

Yeah, these crypto chieftains died recently: Nikolai Mushegian, 29, drowned on a Puerto Rico beach... Tiantian Kullander passed away in his sleep, ripe old age of 30... Vyacheslav Taran, 53, died after the helicopter crashed near Villefranche-sur-Mer...

Kiel Wells

going back in time to tell myself watching The OC in someone's dorm room in college as a weekly event that the main kid will become one of the most well-respected reporters on crypto fraud in 20 years

T

"What's crypto fraud?"

Bobi Jon-son Kenobi

Well they say not to get high off your own supply; buy it from somewhere else

Of course

I like how fast Ben skirted the Ukraine connection, as he has a Ukraine flag on his Twitter bio. It must be odd for some of these anti-crypto folks to correctly point out the particular scam with little ability or willingness to generalize (as, say, Matt would do) to the capitalist-class-US/NATO system and present conjuncture.

Niko Popovich

Fuck you I'll duel you in Shakespeare's name. Knave

Natalie

If anyone's interested, the podcast Ben referenced is called Exit Scam

Drake

This guy's got such an axe to grind against crypto he totally misses the salient details about the scale of the corruption. For instance Caroline's (Alameda ceo) father was Gary genseler's boss at MIT...

justdave

I stand second, you flap-eared knave

Bobi Jon-son Kenobi

I remember after McAfee died I saw one pitiful hashtag dedicated to him saying he was murdered. And no one ended up caring. A truly sad display

M1nd Fl4y3r

I will not tolerate Clown Core slander in this community

Drake

And #1 tweeted that the cia mossad were trying to honeypot him 6 hours before his death

Drake

Investors at btc=$5 or even $1000 are still laughing

justdave

Whatever bro fuk these egg suckers, let's go hang out under the bridge and do some slap stick comedy- I have a sick new car, me and 48 of my friends can pick you up anytime

I Gutierrez

Just wanted to say I thought Tim Ferris’ The 3 Hour Parent was really funny

DadRockVhs666

To address the point they make around the 40 min mark: 1) physical/real assets are now hoarded by generational capital. These assholes have no choice but to make abstract wealth!!!? 2) there is some value generated. Like Hollywood films that flop, or paying for Only Fans with a credit card... You're propping up people's "fake" careers ie not doing farming. Bahamas gets money from this! Very interesting point the more you chew it.

I am become reply guy

It’s astonishing how many people agree with Sam’s dogshit take on Shakespeare. A lazarlike crust upon all of you shameful wretches. You should be disqualified from every public forum and from ever having an opinion on anything except digging out latrines, which you will be forced to do for the rest of your natural lives, unremunerated and reviled. Woman will cringe at the sight of you, children will not meet your gaze. Men who don’t cross the street at your approach will drub you mercilessly. You will be less than nothing, a stain on the face of humanity, a living example of degeneration and devolution.

etienne

writing some shit ass dunks on a pillar of litterature, as an undergrad, is both fun and kind of a necessary phase of becoming a grown up. in the grand scheme of things it's okay to write one (1) term paper on why like War And Peace is a wankoff ungood novel

Elliot Matheny

Nah, I miss that theme, and demand a full 6 minute jam track from Chris

Elliot Matheny

Didn’t Bankman straight up admit that he didn’t believe in any of the effective altruism bullshit in his conversation with the NYT journo?

etienne

yeah that's their error they stopped reading altogether after the anti-shakespeare essay instead of getting into like dfw or whatever

Of course

My sister has a master's degree in English from a fancy university, and she thinks Shakespeare is verbose, overwrought, hysterical. And G B Shaw made some of the same points in his comparison of Othello vs Verdi's Otello. My sister reads plenty, and far more importantly, she's a generous, caring, competent person. But SBF has a very different problem... SBF seems to be a narcissist who thinks nobody has anything to teach him. This goes beyond Will's Upper East Side son of a world-renowned editor snob-sneer "he doesn't like to read books"... a lot of people don't read books as a primary source of facts, ideas, narratives, and analyses. SBF lacks any genuine curiosity about life and the world, outside pure, cynical, opportunistic deployment. If you're that detached from humanity, over time, you're gonna get stupid and reckless.

etienne

yes yes we agree

etienne

it's not about having the right opinion, it's about having it the right way. another thing you learn at the university

Coleman

I fok with clownstep

Pawgmental

Between the gambling awareness and the ponzi scheme warning, this episode should be a public good (on spotify). Allowing more people to hear this episode would aid our future and effectively be, well, altruistic

Cool and Normal

you say that as if Matt and Felix didn't also call the FTX-Ukraine theory stupid lol

Epicfetus

Not your keys, not your coins bruh bruh

anonymoose

Id of the song at the end?

present

not gonna lie, the techno clown music is kinda catchy

Dammit Joe

Shaq is a qualified Childhood Educator, so of course he’s smart enough not to shill for crypto

Humphreys

Lol I know one of the engineers who built the FTX - Alameda backdoor have me on the show. The kid is like 24 and he went around telling people they were the next PayPal Mafia🥴

Ian Woods

It ain’t the holiday season until I make my family listen to Clown Core’s version of ‘Deck the Halls’