Scams, Zealots, and Jet Skis: Life Inside the Crypto Scene
they say money can't buy happiness whoever said that didn't have enough money this is garbage this is the most Bitcoin thing you could do at a Bitcoin company but this is the instrument of financial terrorism Brad the New York Stock Exchange and this is for everyone who has been taken advantage by the big guy that's awesome please right it seems very stressful because we're not just talking about a couple dollars we're talking about millions of dollars potentially [Music] looks like a little cool in there they started turning on me like yo you're a scammer blah blah are you a scammer foreign as clickbait headlines warp our view of the world I'm spiraling down the rabbit hole looking for the truth on this episode crypto it's FTX it's a safe and easy way to get into crypto if you watch the Super Bowl this year it was hard to miss the four crypto related ads featuring Big celebrities and a QR code while the price of digital currencies has skyrocketed over the years so is the hype but something caught my eye when watching an episode of vice's dark side of the 90s that retold the cautionary tale of the.com bubble there's no bigger stage in the world of traditional marketing than the Super Bowl every.com was buying up the media space to be on the Super Bowl the comparisons between the Super Bowl ads of the.com bubble and the crypto craze
Were Striking for those living under a rock for the past few years cryptocurrencies are digital money that can be sent between users online wallets each transaction is recorded on a ledger known as a blockchain which is then stored in larger chunks of data that are verified by other computers on the network cryptocurrencies are not backed by any other asset and technically have no intrinsic value its worth is based on what people are willing to pay for it but proponents say there's a lot of value in moving away from a centralized money system backed by paper currencies known as Fiat money which also don't have any intrinsic value but is backed by the faith in its issuer mostly governments but there's no shortage of critics who have raised the alarm about the potential nefarious uses of cryptocurrencies to better understand this newfangled money I bought a ticket to the 2022 Bitcoin conference in Miami a fever dream for anyone into crypto this year over 25 000 of the most faithful bitcoiners came to celebrate the digital asset while there are thousands of digital currencies Bitcoin is considered the oldest and arguably the most well-known you ready guys we're going to the Moon what are you doing down here are you networking are you I'm just I mean I'm just a huge fan so I'm going down and seeing all the people that like Bitcoin the event themselves is cool because it brings us together and then we kind of Branch out and network among ourselves and we're all so early still people think they missed the boat on the opportunities but that's not true so what are you what are you doing here now and Nick nasty the money was good the weather was right and the women are nice what are you such a fan up the whole crypto Revolution you know like anti-government being your own bank it's it's all cool it is an interesting crowd but it's a fun crowd I've not met anybody who's not a good time to it I'm telling you you eat ass she'll never forget you after a while she's gonna love it she'll tell her friends well the crowd definitely had some folks who were a fun time if you're into eating ass but I was here on a mission I wanted to know why Bitcoin of all the cryptocurrencies out there was the best and had the most devoted fan base so hit up Max Kaiser and his wife Stacy Herbert who are minor celebrities in the Bitcoin World orange pill orange pill this show is all about SATs margs an orange pill thank you guys do you get stuffed pretty frequently in events like this well you're about to find out what's up what's up what's going on how's it all going oh I think okay my pleasure my pleasure hey thank you my pleasure Max calls himself a Bitcoin maximilist to even use the word crypto around him is a faux pas why am I in this show because you're the crypto expert don't ever say that again today or I'll I'll I'll just be unmanageable I've been storm off without it's quit this whole project is Bitcoin not a cryptocurrency or do you not even do not even consider them in the same uh in the same uh vein they're not the same uh only Bitcoin is truly decentralized so you can't really make the comparison between them I wanted to ask Max why he didn't consider Bitcoin a cryptocurrency but we were constantly sidetracked by everyone who wanted to take a photo with him all right one two three all right let's go awesome awesome instead [Music] thanks okay come on we got you gotta get me somewhere okay I'm gonna be stuck here all right let's go but let's go backstage finally we found a semi quiet place to talk you know everybody here seems to be a Bitcoin maximalist but you're the Bitcoin Maximus so what does that mean Michael Saylor calls me the high priest a Bitcoin the high priest of maxwellism the the path Narrows as I like to say so the deeper you go into the rabbit hole the more maximalists you become if you study Bitcoin you realize that it's the last trade everything is ultimately going to go into Bitcoin it's not a technology it's not software it's not all that what it is is perfect money the only other two monies that were even remotely similar in history is gold and U.S treasuries the Fiat money system is collapsing I think that's pretty clear gold is not as good as Bitcoin for many many reasons it does exactly what it's supposed to do and it solves a fundamental question for humans uh what is perfect money and and with that we're restarting really humanity and that's that's a great time to be alive uh but you know you watch this here in the Super Bowl there were how many different uh I don't know you don't like this word the c word can't say advice I just myself censor yourself all right this is America we're talking about the other c words oh that word oh I would never say that yes that's an awful word never say that take that crypto word out of your mouth I didn't say it I didn't say it I didn't say it she actually said it so don't force me to come up on stage and slap you is there too much Buzz around the c word space in general well nothing in the c word spaces succeeded right I mean been looking at this now for almost 12 years and I've seen hundreds and thousands come and go and the none none succeed and none will succeed when I listen to some of the stuff about the tax benefits to me I go oh it could be just another way for the rich people to hide their money in other I mean do you do you look at it like that at all do you see that critique no I would say it's not about rich people hiding their wealth it's about poor people hiding their wealth because rich people can always hide their wealth with or without Bitcoin that's been true since the beginning of time but poor people have never had a chance to hide their wealth there's so many people that say that this is all one big scam Bitcoin is not the bubble Bitcoin is the PIN and it's pricking the bubble which is Fiat money that's what Bitcoin does it reveals the the scam it reveals the US dollar as a scam it reveals the gold market as a scam the end of the Fiat Dark Ages is here the beginning of Renaissance 2.0 and good times is here like you it's still early if you could trade some Fiat if you could buy Bitcoin with dollars it's early okay what's I mean what's can I not you know not to be able to buy it with Fiat who's going to want to take your dollars this is garbage this is the most Bitcoin thing you could do at a Bitcoin company this is this is the instrument of financial terrorism we're eradicating the plague of the US dollar and all Fiat money will you join us my son leave for six Fiat money all right into your life as the ultimate savior I feel I praise the algorithm it's done saved again another Soul has been a saved Max and Stacy hadn't quite converted me but I did start to understand the cultural beliefs behind Bitcoin in addition to listening to hours and hours of people talking about money I realized I was missing out on another important aspect of crypto culture the parties so I made some calls to some locals to see where we could get a camera crew in to party downtown lightly for which one for both of them okay we'll be on standby already group chatted with one of the guys at okay and we're good to bring one camera in with us or yeah you can do whatever you want all right sick okay cool after hours of back and forth and waiting a friend of mine involved with the nft scene tameo Hunty was able to get us in touch with someone still not sure who to get us into a party so you're connected with the scene from your nfts kind of yes okay so like everybody you know reaches out and they're like Tommy like you know you gotta come you gotta check out what we're doing our projects do you know the owner who is this guy apparently I do but I honestly don't even remember his name okay all right very cool go to the right side okay there's a lot of people here yeah this is kind of what I wanted to show you guys yeah yeah yeah it's definitely something so everybody's in the front yard here but they're not necessarily getting in because let's go I would imagine that's the case okay all right yeah so you drink are you gonna drink oh I'm gonna drink yeah we got we got a drink I guess we gotta get off the grass okay we're still online so we're waiting for the owner to come get us it's kind of crowded so it's kind of difficult well I know I know I know nobody's tripping yeah I mean I think it'll be great yeah I mean ever just let's bring the party let's get through it yeah dude no one's getting it okay Squad same Squad so let me know thank you I like that this is not a safe area sorry holy oh my God I feel rebirth [Music] uh I guess get a drink oh my God there's so many people here we're in the drinks at what do you guys want you guys want to drink getting getting a free drink we didn't get that I think can we finish these beers all right so uh we just got got into a sick party and then uh we got kicked out of a sick party all right welcome to bitcoin week as my time came to a close Miami things never looked so bright for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies but just like my abrupt exit from the party cryptocurrencies also experienced a rude awakening Bitcoin is in free fall it's almost 70 percent off its historic Hyatt hit in November as some experts warn that a crypto winter is coming several crypto firms reportedly cautioning that thousands of digital currencies and blockchains are likely to collapse in the coming years the price of digital currencies fell and we descended into a crypto winter to warm myself up and see what the Fallout was I returned hobbling to Miami after I broke my foot getting up to pee in the middle of the night something almost as embarrassing as my decision device in Bitcoin right after the conference I had yet to see how someone used cryptocurrencies in a practical manner so I came to meet up with one of Tommy's friends Sal who wanted to show us how he used digital money in the real world what are we doing here we're just about to hop on some skis right now okay um just some typical Miami-Dade typical Miami day yes you paid for this experience with your crypto yeah of course I mean just like any other experience here in Miami um you can pay in crypto it's a very crypto friendly City oh yeah we we've heard yes sir well I'd go I would go with you but I'm a little worried about my about my foot so I I was supposed to go with you and then I and I up my foot man you have to get on with me I don't know man I don't know I don't know man sometimes you just can't say no [Music] Sal was very interested in showing us how he could use cryptocurrencies for so-called practical purchases so we ended up at timepiece trading a place I'd visited before while shooting my documentary about the rich this watch with a rainbow bezel from the factory 750 000 really how are you feeling good man this feels like deja vu we're going back to the timepiece trading yeah of course there's a spot hey man good to see you again I met you last time yes yes how's it going today bro good good man very young pet jams very uncut Jam I gotta be secure and that's right that's right little cheers [Music] so what's up Zeke what do you think I don't man I was in here before I got the whole Spiel last time I don't know anything about watches you know I upgraded since last time I said I got an Apple Watch but like I don't I don't know what I'm looking at when I look at this at least at least you have something on now it's just like what face do you like and like the popularity of it of course and how much does this cost this right now is 195. okay if you guys are accepting cryptocurrencies now yeah we are well we have to move with the world right is everybody you know in the luxury good space taking crypto at this point I think so I think so now most people have adopted and honestly crypto's done huge for us like it's um like very good so I think our businesses maybe tripled because of crypto wow yeah your business is tripled because of crypto because why because people are people are making more money off crypto they want to spend crypto and they feel more comfortable spending crypto exactly and and also it's a good way for people to unload crypto into actual assets you know so we take usdc usdt Bitcoin ethereum just the four like top coins the four main ones yeah for 185 and I'm telling you you won't you won't find that price anywhere else all right you said 180 or 184 185 what [Music] touches everybody's gonna watch the video okay 1825 done all right do it Sal ended up pinging for his watch with a stable coin a digital money pegged to a fiat currency my request to photograph the transaction on the computer screen were denied supposedly it was just a bunch of information and numbers on a page yeah I got it all right cool so we got 192 600 because of the sales tax thank you my brother of course bro well congratulations is this what you wanted are you happy yeah they say money can't buy happiness whoever said that didn't have enough money watches are a well-known status symbol for crypto enthusiasts however there's a new digital status symbol that is taken hold nfts non-fungible tokens known as nfts have a lot of potential in the real world they're essentially a stamp of ownership stored on the blockchain think of it like a digital certificate of authenticity nft art projects such as the blue chipboard API club and crypto punks have brought nfts into the wider vernacular while running up the valuation of the nft marketplace open C to over 13 billion dollars the nft scene quickly exploded and then imploded but not before Sal was able to make a quick Buck by getting hooked up with Early Access to nft projects known as a whitelist because he was part of exclusive chat groups being a part of all these groups gave you first access kind of to nfts you know I was able to capitalize on a lot of opportunities because I was able to get whitelisted if the people in the groups are talking about that means something let's say I'm Joe Schmo retail nft collector I'm not in any of these groups I just hear so much about nfts and I go on you know like a Marketplace like open C and I'm just like oh I can afford this one I'm gonna buy this one good or bad idea but you don't know anything I don't know if it's a terrible idea okay I mean I just feel like there's so much hype around manifest okay but that's like hype around shoes you just go buy any shoe if you have the right marketing behind it you can sell out basically pay influencers or you pay celebrities to make a post and a lot of people because they're naive and they saw a lot of people make money on nfts and people by Nature are greedy right they believe their favorite artist when he comes out and says oh I own in this project buy it you know what I mean yeah and that's what kind of happened in the space and that's how a lot of these scams happen in this space too with all the hype around these projects it's no wonder that scams bound and what's known in the nft community as a rug poll where projects that propose long-term road maps suddenly close up shop and the owners take off with the money have you ever been bamboozled yourself oh yeah 100 so this is your little squiggle here yeah okay stupid it is so stupid I don't know I bought it for like an ethereum I think so you bought it for an ethereum Sal bought into an nft project known as squiggles hours before the project was set to Mint a document was released online that Loosely connected a number of individuals tied to suspected rug pulls with the founder of squiggles a 22 year old named arcelon I have no bad intentions I would never hurt anyone physically financially or mentally it's not in me the nft scene went into lockdown and accused the not yet released squiggles project of being a rug pole which resulted in it being delisted from the main nft marketplace Open Sea internet sleuth coffee Zilla called arcelona scammer on Twitter and released an 11-minute video detailing the drama behind the face of this kid in braces sits a group of nft scammers in the shadows and what's worse is that they've done this before except this time the stakes are higher than ever they stand to make 20 million dollars on this scam the creator of the project arcelon had remained silent until now this document had little to do with me like probably two percent speaking about me and the rest had to do with these like four other guys that had no affiliation with the project but I would these were people that I was hanging out with when I was living in Los Angeles those are cool kids that I was hanging out with I liked them I didn't know about their past like that I never really asked them so I guess some people were you know Gathering evidence on them it was like a coordinated attack they dropped it three hours before our launch and did Twitter was like a storm just everyone talking about it and how oh don't make squiggles with the scams we still did it obviously and made like 7.3 million in under 10 minutes did you talk to those guys afterwards yeah I still talk to them you still talking I have no problems with them I think they're good kids there's all allegations towards them I don't know if they're true or not but if it were to ever come out that those allegations were true then I wouldn't work with them did anybody lose money on it I mean if you minted it they sold it at that moment they would have made profit if not and they held it then they lost money but you know it's the name of the game it's what happens since all that happened February 10th to this day I still get death threats and people say Hey you owe me this and that so far I'd seen a lot of things in crypto that turned me off overzealth's Believers underwhelming digital art and lots of scamming all things that could come with fast money I had one more stop to make that I hoped would clarify how the future of cryptocurrencies can actually be beneficial to the masses thank you so much for coming out to the Bronx this is the home of hip-hop I'm a graffiti the home of the Yankees the home of Big Pun and now the home of cryptocurrency I love it you guys practice that you know we just about just made it up this morning all right so the reason we started bronze crypto is because we know that there is a big Financial shift that is happening yeah we're here to educate the people because we don't want to be left behind and we also want to make the space more inclusive more people of color and we believe if you start allocating slowly into cryptocurrency you will be included in the new Financial system so why do you think that cryptocurrencies allow you to be more inclusive there is no middleman we can finally trade or barter without someone deciding on what the charge is or what the interest rate is going to be the big banks have long been The Gatekeepers of the money that can be invested in anything from college tuition to small business loans but in a familiar tale these banks have also engaged in a sorted history of both Prejudice lending and predatory loan practices targeting people of color we're at the New York Stock Exchange yeah let me take a second and look back at this yeah yeah pretty good so what do you guys look at this what do you guys think the banks are just hit a nickel and dimeless you put your money in the bank you get no interest how come they get to make money with our money but we can't make money with our money we're challenging the financial system with cryptocurrency you could be your own bank you know you could borrow you could hedge against your own crypto you can borrow against your own nfts you could be independent and this is for everyone who has been taken advantage by the big guy that was awesome that's awesome how'd that feel that feel good yeah it did it was a middle finger from the whole world watching Julio and Drew give the finger to Wall Street made me think about the punk rock you days of the internet long before it was corporatized in a Super Bowl commercial Blitz even when the facade of the early.com era crumbled
the spirit of the internet and its ability to transform a world has never ceased the crypto sector made a lot of early adopters a lot of money very quickly it's logical that Carpetbaggers would come along and try to Hype the masses into any number of get rich quick scams while I don't see myself pouring all my savings into Bitcoin at the moment I do realize that despite all the early hype the internet eventually fulfilled a lot of the functions we were promised in its infancy only time will tell if the crypto sector will do the same ethereum never heard of her [Applause] [Music] okay Let's help with that beat [Music]
2022-12-24 21:49
