The Wolf Of All Streets - Vitalik & ETH Allegations With John Deaton & Ben Mezrich

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

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Testing. Yep, testing here. How are you? Good, good. Today's actually a pretty full day when it comes to news. There's a lot happening. Yeah, as long as you determine what you define as news and not news. You're going to like them.

There's the Vitalik Buterin story. There's a digital euro. The ECB chief Lagarde said it will take two years away. There's Bitcoin gaining the legal recognition in Shanghai. Trust me, man. I know what you mean. Don't play me. There's a lot of good news.

And I've got more examples. Now, the news that you like, I don't think, you know, obviously the BitBoy drama and stuff. We'll talk about it briefly, but I think I'd rather focus on the fundamentals, unlike you, Scott. Yeah. I'm pushing buttons today. Blackos aren't behind the scenes of this show, guys. I'm pushing.

Blackos aren't behind the scenes of this show. Yeah, if you guys know what's happening behind the scenes, you'd be like, holy shit, what did Murray just say? But I have no shame.

I'm just sending out all the invites. Let me set John, if John Deaton could join as well. It's actually pretty, pretty insane. Like I'm so proud of the team to be able to invite John may be able to join. And then Stephen Naryoff did say he can join yesterday to be able to cover the story.

It's just, it's incredible that the team is able to get the speakers, the main people involved in the story to come on stage and discuss it. So, hats off to them.

Let me get Ryan. Is Ryan out of his holiday? Is he available today? He's available. He, I just saw something in the message that he didn't see

that Spaces had started or something. Ah, cool. I'm just sent him an advice. That happens sometimes where I click on your profile and for some reason it doesn't do it i close the app and open it again and there you are but i see him he's he's yeah i just sent him an invite he's in that's called

that's called uh blocking so i just wake up in the morning i'm like strange why can't you see it i don't know um cool all right let's kick it off. Ryan, how are you? Ryan, can you hear me? Yeah. I'm trying to accept your co-host invite. Okay, there we go. How's it going? Yeah, man.

Before kicking off the show, I wanted to ask you about the kid that you found, the guy that writes the threads. I was watching your video on the weekend in Token 2049. Anything happened since you met him in Singapore? So yeah, I'm actually, I'm going to speak to him. I think we actually, we should speak to him. He's amazing. He's a 14 year old little kid.

The guy knows crypto so well. He's such a little operator. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. So a funny story about him. He DM'd me when he had about 10 followers and said, hey, Patrick, can you follow me? And I said, tell you what, get to 100. You know, because people DM every day saying you follow me? And I said, tell you what, get to a hundred, you know, cause people DM every day saying, follow me back. I said, get to a

hundred, uh, and I'll follow you. Uh, and so then sort of was helping him write threads for, for a few weeks to get to a hundred and then crazy how far he's come now. So you're his ghostwriter. Is that what you're telling me? Is this 14 year old is using you as child labor? I've never ghostwritten for him but i did give him feedback i i said i met him and i just i made it like my personal to try and help him as much as i can i think i met him at like 800 uh twitter followers i don't know what he's on today i'm actually let's just try i don't remember the name of his his account what's his username he's just for anyone while you're searching his username for anyone listening so so ryan bumped into a kid he's very charismatic and he's like hey come on i'll

interview you for the show because ran did like a series for crypto token 2049 and interviews the kids really good chat and then kid turns out to be a great at writing threads and then ran's like hey maybe come work with us man i'll mentor you and you could write threads for us it's called child labor and um so zero zero x zero x golden degen is is his uh email is uh his twitter handle uh he's great i mean wow 14 years old this guy is absolutely amazing i mean wow so blow your mind what he knows at 14 and the way that he operates at the age of 14. Yeah, he's not coming up for me. I don't know if he's shadow banned. So there's a lot of news. I know.

I got him. 3,761 followers. I'm following him right now. Send me his username, Scott. But guys – Zero X. I'll do it right now. Golden DJ.

Oh, one Zero X. I thought it was twice because it's a Zero X. I want to – because I know John is here. And, John, I'm glad you were able to join because that's probably the main story. And we've got Stephen coming on shortly as well. But there is, you know, I consider this to be pretty, pretty important. And I kind of give a very brief overview for the audience, kind of the main story of the day. Essentially, accusation, it's a bit vague what the accusations are,

but accusations against Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation. And his father. And his father, I forgot his name, by an ex-Ethereum advisor, Stephen Naryoff. And for me, there's a lot, there's a great article about it that I was reading. For me, the highlight is the possession. I'm going to read out one part of the article

that I think, for me, I find to be the most serious. It's not just like business squabbles. It's possession of documents that reveal malpractices within the SEC, as well as during the Ethereum ICO. Yeah. What did that mean? Maybe John can explain that, because that was so vague to me. I didn't understand if that meant that the SEC did something wrong or there was something wrong on the ethereum side in their dealings with the sec but john maybe you can give us give us like a general overview first and then we get into the details good to have you well thanks for having me but i i don't know what article you're talking about and to be honest with you um and so when you say it's the one by the one that the team sent me is

the one by Cryptopolitan. Cryptopolitan or something, yeah. Very trusted source. No joking. Yeah, I'm like, wait. Well, I think you – did you say Steven is coming on? Did you say? Yes, yeah.

He confirmed yesterday. So we sent him through the invite. I'll follow up with the team. All right. So, like, obviously, he could speak for himself. You know, my point is where I got involved, and I did a live stream where I said that, you know, attorney-client privilege. And I've made general statements because, you know, Steve is represented by an attorney and there's lots of things going on. As many people know, he was arrested. And the most interesting thing about it that caught my eye so everyone knows I actually had Stephen Nairoff

video on my crypto law video timeline when you go on my site I have all kinds of videos Joe Lubin, Vitalik, everyone and I had him on there Like there were times on the videos where he admitted that the ETH ICO was an illegal securities offering and stuff like that. Long before that, I even have his case where he was arrested on my crypto website just because he was involved at the very beginning of ETH. He recommended Bitcoin at 35 cents in 2010. So I found him to be interesting fellow that is a true OG and was involved. And so that's why I have all of that on my site.

And so we've been obviously pursuing why the SEC, when I say we, I'm talking about me, been pursuing why the was even the architect of the ETH ICO, that he had worked with Joseph Grunfest, who was acting as liaison for the ETH co-founders, all right? And then, obviously, we know that Vitalik and Joe Lubin, they distanced themselves and basically said that Stephen Neroff had completely exaggerated his role. They trivialized his role and whatnot. And what I've stated is I've seen documents that prove that he was not a trivial part of the process and that he was instrumental back then in the process of the ETH ICO and the concept that ETH was a crypto fuel, thus a utility token and should be exempt from securities laws or whatnot, all that stuff. And so and I'm starting to see more documents of his involvement in that. So I publicly said, listen, I can tell you this. Those claims that he wasn't really involved are bullshit.

That is a foregone conclusion. Now, maybe they distanced themselves because of the allegations against him. And they just that's what you do. And so they all they don't want to be associated with those allegations. But those allegations were dropped by the government. And the most interesting thing that caught my eye is many of you know, in addition to the XRP case, I represent Naomi Brockwell, who's a journalist in the library case, and got involved in that case. And this has all been public record that, and it's in their motions, when I say they, meaning Steve Neroff and his attorneys' motions to dismiss the case against him,

a claim that when Steve was arrested, he was placed in a van and told that you need to give up the dirt, if you have any, on these people. And there was a list of names, right? Vitalik was one. Naomi Brockwell was one. Caitlin Long was one. And that, I was like, what the hell is going on? Like, why would the government, the FBI, be talking about a journalist you know who is completely uh just trying to educate people

on privacy and blockchain technology blah blah blah and so and caitlin long uh why are they interested in someone like that and so that's what got my interest and so that's why i got involved and uh that's really what i can say right now. I'll let Steve speak for himself. Quick question, John, just for anyone that hasn't been following the story. What are the allegations against Steve and why did he get arrested? Well, it was an allegation of extortion that he was involved in an ICO of a company and he extorted the founder. It turns out that his alleged co-conspirator was a government agent from the beginning and was working with the government from the start in Steve's claim. And I also said that I understand why Steve feels this way. I understand why he feels he was targeted. And so, you know, he believes that he

was targeted and sort of taken out. Basically, reputationally taken out. But the bottom line is when he refused to plead guilty and refused to give up any type of, he said, hey, I don't have, I'm not going to make up dirt on these people and i'm not going to go down that route and he said i want my jury trial even though they're pursuing decades in prison and the government on its own filed a dismissal with prejudice and so that makes you wonder why would the government indict someone, go through that

basically say that he's a criminal extorting people, all of this, and then just when he demands a trial, dismiss it with prejudice, meaning they can never bring it again. And I find that to be something fascinating. It's someone that makes me curious. I've been a former federal prosecutor. So I asked myself, well, sometimes you dismiss cases because you want to protect a victim. You don't want to put them on the stand or something like that. Or you want the person cooperates and you go after bigger fish um or you there's other investigations involved and their trial will impede other investigations so there are legitimate reasons objectively that the government could um dismiss a case but this doesn't seem to fit in that category and then when you add choke point 2.0 and you add all this anti-crypto stuff and

then you look at behind the scenes what was going on with the sec you know you don't have to have a tinfoil hat on to start asking questions and so my goal is to get to the f and truth one way or the other whether that i mean they just i mean john maybe they just go through it so the first set of charges they had against him, the reason why they actually arrested him and indicted him in the first place was extortion charges. And that was based on allegations by founders of a certain project that Stephen actually extorted them.

And I remember at the time I read the whole charge sheet and he said something along the lines of, allegedly, according to them, he said something along the lines of if allegedly according to them said something along the lines of if you don't pay me my fees your project will be will fail will get destroyed or something i don't remember the exact charge but it was something along those lines and they claim and they paid him and they claim that they that he extorted them to pay him by threatening the project um and i think also important that to know that he extorted them to pay him by threatening the project. And I think also important to know that he's been fighting this for, I think, two or three years. And only recently have they come out and effectively dropped charges against him.

I don't know what the right legal jargon is. Basically, there's no more charges against him, so to speak. Yeah, they dismissed it with prejudice. There's two types of ways to dismiss a case. You could dismiss it, which means you're free to bring it up within the statute of limitations thereafter. Or you dismiss it with prejudice, meaning it's with prejudice. The government can never charge you those same crimes ever again for the rest of your life. And so the government dismissed it with prejudice. And yes, when you read the complaint and the allegations, it's just like anything else. When the government reads it, you know, I'm experienced enough, no, not to let

a government filing completely inflame me. But when you read it, it's going to sound bad, right? I'm sure Steve wishes I didn't have it on my damn website, but you know, I put it up there because it's an interesting case. And I'll make sure I put up the dismissal with prejudice as well. But it's just like, you know, when you read the Ripple case, the inflammatory language they used made it sound like a fraud. Right. But they didn't charge fraud. And so you got to not you just got to ignore the noise and stick to facts. And so those allegations, from what I know, the question is, did the government have Steve saying that? Or was that the co-conspirator who was working as a government agent who claimed he said it those are the things that you know never got flushed out as far as i know because when

steve wanted you know this is what happens when you're when you say i'm not pleading guilty and i'm not cooperating with the government i want my trial The next thing that happens is discovery. I want to know government. You got to give me everything there is, including exculpatory information that shows my innocence as well as my guilt. You got to give me everything you have. I want to know all the communications. Who were the FBI agents who were handling this guy? why what emails related to those names that you asked me and when they started going down that road the government was like hey we're dismissing the case that is just generally speaking for someone like me causes me pause and so also it's regardless it's very very innocence or guilt i want to know the truth. You know what I'm saying?

Go ahead. What percentage of cases would you say end like this? After the government decided to indict you, what percentage of cases would you say end like this? Less than half a percent? Less than 1%? It'd be a wild guess, but I'd say it's certainly less than 1%.

And it could be very fraction of one before you go through a grand jury, you get an indictment, you secure the indictment, you execute the search warrant, you start taking resources of the government, and then you just you just stop again. I'm an objective person. Let me make it clear. There could be valid reasons in other cases where you dismiss it because there is a higher objective, right? Protection of witnesses, victims. You don't want to interfere with a much bigger investigation. which makes you think, did the government just say, hey, here's 90 years in prison, pal, unless you play ball with us.

And that person says, F you, I want my jury trial, and I want to know everything that you have related to me. And the government says, we're going to walk away now. I remember actually speaking to steven after this and when he told me about you know steven's a pretty eccentric guy when steven told me about this at the time i thought this sounds absolutely crazy to him steven what do you mean and he says they want information on everyone they want the dirt on everyone and i said well who's everyone and he said it's everyone it's it's vitalik it's it's it's and he listed off a list of the biggest people in crypto and he said they want information everyone he said, it's everyone. It's Vitalik. He listed off a list of the biggest people in crypto.

And he said, they want information. And he said, I decided I'm not going to give it to them. And I'm going to fight it till the end. And I remember at the time thinking to myself, this sounds like a crazy, crazy, crazy story because he's going there for, I mean, they're going after him for extortion. And now they're asking him to basically rat out every single you know person in crypto now just some background for those people who don't know much about steven so steven has been around crypto for a long time he's got a legal background and he claims to have been the architect of the reason why ethereum is a utility token and not a security. So he claims that he was the one that came up with the mechanism whereby Ethereum is used as gas on the network

and therefore makes it a utility token and not a security token. Again, he can tell you the story himself. I have read the book around Ethereum. I can't remember what it's called. It's written by Camilla. Just the name escapes me. I don't know if anybody, one of the speakers remembers the name. So, you know, there they do talk about him being involved very,

very, very early in the days where Charles Hoskinson was there and all the original founders. And Stephen claims to have been the one to come up with the concept of a utility of ETH being used as a token to power the network and therefore making it a utility. And that effectively means that he created the whole category. If that's true, then his breakthrough would have been the breakthrough that created the whole category of these gas tokens or tokens that power a network and there's a it was the infinite machine by the way i didn't want to interrupt yeah the infinite machine exactly um and um so steven claims to have created that now there's there's a lot of um you know if you speak to people like charles and people vitalik there's there's a blurred line as to what steven did and what

steven didn't do there's a lot of people they all acknowledge that steven that steven was involved in the old days but i think they're big um uh there's a big divide between between all of them as to what each other did so you know you know, like if you ask what Charles did and you ask what Vitalik did and stuff like that, they effectively created Ethereum by renting this house at a conference, effectively. And there were a whole lot of people working on them and all of them effectively became founders.

And that included people like Charles, people like Gavin Wood, people like Joe Lubin. And Stephen claims that he was involved that early. Now, all of them agree that he was involved that early, but there's some disagreement as to the extent of his involvement and whether the extent of his involvement is, as he says, or as, you know, or be slightly less than that so ran yeah ran let me let me add this which is uh he's been making these claims long before today just so everyone knows long before i'm talking three years ago i put that crypto videos up and he explained that he was working with joe gruntest now we know that joe gruntest was involved and we know he was working with Joe Grunfest. Now, we know that Joe Grunfest was involved, and we know he was working as a liaison for the ETH founders. And Stephen, in one of those videos, explains that he was talking to Joe and said, listen, you got to understand, it's really not

a security. It's like fuel on this network. And then, according to Stephen, Joe Grunfest went back to the SEC and came back and said they love that concept and want to know more. Again, I'm just telling you that he was making these statements years and years ago. And also, he made statements years ago that Vitalik would sleep on his couch regularly when he was in the United States and everything that Rand said. And so, again, you know, I think that the question here is, did the founders like Joe and Vitalik, did they distance themselves because of these allegations that came out? And now we have to minimize and trivialize his role? And for those reasons or are there other reasons to, you know, trivialize it? But no one can refute that he was instrumental in a couple major

developments that had to take place before the ICO. I mean, I want to say I want to say something else. I knew Stephen and I've known Stephen for a long time. And I knew him before these before this indictment and before his arrest. And I mean, one thing I want to point out here is that Stephen was a very wealthy guy from crypto before this happened. And when this happened, it made him ready. So I watched what actually happened to him. It made Stephen radioactive. Obviously, everybody that was involved with Stephen quickly got uninvolved. Everyone that had him on his cap table and as an advisor obviously removed him.

So they cut off effectively what the u.s law did they made a very big public announcement they effectively made him radioactive in in crypto land so cut off any kind of income generating capacity that he had and then i'm not sure how much he he he um spent but i know that he had to liquidate a whole lot of assets to be paying lawyers who obviously, you know, want the payment to represent him and to get him out of this. And effectively it took someone who was very, very wealthy. I'm talking to you like really,

really wealthy and got him to a point where if he wasn't as wealthy as he was, and I can tell you that I don't know exactly how much wealth he had, but I know that he had wealth more than 99% of people on those Twitter spaces. And I can tell you that he spent a big, big, big, big, big part of his wealth trying to defend himself and get himself out of this. Anyway, when the charges were dropped, think that a i think maybe one one thousand of the people that that heard about the charges being left him actually heard about the charges being dropped um second thing is he you know the problem is that he's still now radioactive now look i don't know whether

he was guilt innocent i think what the what what we know now is that he's probably not guilty or you know up until he's let's assume that he's probably not guilty. Let's assume that he's innocent until proven guilty. What I do want to show is how when something like this happens, you effectively destroy someone beyond the point of return. Because would you have Stephen Reif now as an advisor to your project? Probably the answer is no, right? And so I think the damage that was done to them, they've destroyed him.

He's a persona non grata when it comes to crypto. Everything Rand said is on point. I'll tell you the one thing that surprised me, and I got no problem saying it because I've said it publicly. When I was talking to Stephen, you know, being an architect or being that early, I assumed that, you know, he was a recipient of the pre-mine that everyone is aware of. And he said, no, I actually was in it for the cause, John, and I declined it. And I'll tell you what I said. I said, bullshit. Right. I declined it. And I'll tell you what I said. I said, bullshit, right? And then he was like, dude, you of all people should know that sometimes you do shit for free just because you believe in it. And I was like, okay, well, show me.

And he showed me proof that. Yeah, it's true. I've seen it. He showed me proof that he did not accept any of the pre-mine. And I'm not saying that it would have been wrong for him to. I'm just saying that he didn't accept it. So at that point, that surprised me. I think he did land up buying a sizable portion of ETH at a very, very low price. But I think there were sour grapes until, I'm not going to call it the end,

but until this point around the fact that he didn't actually take the pre-mine. I don't think he realized just how take the pre-mine because he didn't i don't think he realized you know how just how big this pre-mine would be and um i think for him it was there was a lot of pride um uh of creating this industry you know you know again i know steven quite well because i lived in new york and he was in new york and he was in crypto and i was in crypto and we started speaking quite a bit and i went to his house a few times actually before this happened obviously i haven't seen him since this happened. And, you know, Stephen wants to be recognized. He wants to be remembered.

And I think he feels quite hard done by that he wasn't added on as a founder of Ethereum. And he also feels quite hard done by that some of the OGs in Ethereum won't recognize just how big his role is. I've tried to do my own research and I've asked people like Vitalik and others, I've asked them who came up with that mechanism. And no one will give me a straight answer as to who came up with the mechanism of the utility token. And Stephen is the only guy that has actually claimed and said, you know what, I actually came up with this mechanism of the utility token and steven is the only guy that has actually claimed and said you know i actually came up with the with this mechanism of the utility token and i know that camilla who who wrote the book the infinite machine which is by the way a very very very good book if you haven't read it um you know like i really think that that's one of the books that you really

really really have to read uh in crypto it's like you know if there's that one and there's the one the book that was written about charles shrem um and and the vinkel boss brothers which is um god the name of that book escapes me scott maybe you can fill in for me what is it is it called breaking coin no uh oh god yeah give me a minute yeah so anyway so so that's the story we're trying to we're trying to get steven on i'm quite surprised that he actually agreed to come on because i know oh yes yeah there we go i think that like right i've got a couple of questions on the story and i want to kind of dig into a couple of things that were mentioned in the article and get john whether you know they mean anything but that, just to understand the story,

and I know a lot of people joined since we started discussing this. So essentially, Stephen is likely was part of the founding team at Ethereum and created the whole concept of utility token, designed the utility token aspect of it. Then there were allegations with another project completely separate. What year was that, the allegations of extortion? Probably around 19 ish so it was just before covid so is it probably when did covid happen 2020 2020 so probably around 2019 okay um all right so there's the allegations of extortion with another project now before these allegations um was the Ethereum Foundation distancing themselves from Naryov?

Well, let's just say that there was – I don't know if they were distancing themselves from Stephen, but certainly he believed that they weren't acknowledging just how big his role is. He was a very prominent member of the ETH community. But you've got to remember what you were dealing with here. Stephen is a wheeler-dealer second to to none he is a salesperson second to none he was involved in every single crypto project he was an advisor to you know any project that was launching he was on the cap table or he was an advisor he's prominent and yeah I think that there was a little bit of animosity between the East guys.

They almost got upset with Steven for being so… Salesy. Grifter. Grifter. Grifter is probably the perfect word. That's the most aggressive one, but okay. Grifty. Okay. Grifty.

And then we've got the allegations of extortion with one project. But then John in the article did mention about a person and really wants Stephen to come on here. So the team is calling him. Maybe he missed the time or got the time zone wrong. But there's one – Either that or his lawyer is bitching him out. Could be.

Well, you know, yesterday when I reached out to Stephen, I reached out to him. As I mentioned, I've known him quite well. I've spent some time with him. And he said, I can't discuss the legal case, but I will soon. Do you want to discuss? Just wait a little longer. You have the biggest crypto cases in history.

I said, I want to discuss the Vitalik thing. He says, it's more than him, but yes. And I said, today? He says, no, just saying I can't discuss it yet. I'll discuss everything about crypto, but i can't discuss anything about the case so okay you know just uh yeah i was surprised to hear that he's actually coming on on the show today because you know i just like you know i know he's being quite smart also remember steven is a lawyer steven has a legal background in the u.s and so he knows exactly you know you're not dealing with but with crypto crypto here where he'll open his mouth against the advice of his lawyers.

Stephen is, you know, much more calculated in that regard. I think he just got off one case. Quickly on the allegations that came in in 2020, 2019. There was an FBI informant that was behind the allegations. I think John touched on it earlier. Where is the FBI coming to this? The alleged co-conspirator

was an FBI informant coincidentally out of Rhode Island where I live currently. And so as it turns out... Weren't the allegations around the FBI guy as well? If I remember correctly, his name was Michael and he turned out to be some kind of like real fraud.

Is that the one you're talking about? If it's the same Hlady guy, if that's who you're talking about, then... So, I remember there was a guy called Michael someone or other and that michael turned out that he wasn't what he said he was if i remember correctly um he turned out that he wasn't what he said he was and you know he wasn't this uh solve it all guy that had worked with the fbi again you talk you're trying to get me back to a place of uh many many years ago which i to

be honest i can't really remember the exact date. We were trying to get him on. Yeah, so I'm just going to go back to the story, Ryan and John. So it just gets more and more twisted. And then what we have now is that the charges are dropped without prejudice, which means – With prejudice. With prejudice means that he cannot be charged again on these charges, on these allegations, which is unusual. And it could indicate something's

being hidden or some other reason, because you mentioned earlier, John, that he was asked to give up a lot of information on various people that include Vitalik. And it was potentially, and at least what I understand, obviously, you can't say as explicitly as i am but potentially the fbi the authorities wanted more information on the people behind ethereum and and people within the crypto ecosystem um in those early days oh that was not that early that was not early days it's like 2019 2020 um so in recent days um which is a bit sus yeah but i think i think yeah i think what happened was I think what happened was they tried to get information around, you're talking about early days, they tried to get a whole lot of information

from people who had been around in the early days. So they kind of said, look, we know you've got information on a whole lot of names. And to be honest, I kind of know the list of names. I just don't want to mention them because I think they're all innocent. And by bringing them up here,

I could imply that you know the fbi was at one stage potentially trying to to to take them down i don't want to be involved in the middle of that but i remember the list of names um and he said look i refuse to actually give you guys to give you guys any information he said i refuse to give any information to be honest when he said that i actually thought that he was making up the story. I thought this just sounds so far-fetched that the FBI would arrest you for extortion because a certain project, which I knew who the project was, and I'd met the people in the project, reported you. And they're asking you for a list of names.

Otherwise, they're telling you that you're going to spend a lot of time in jail. That just sounds crazy. That just sounds – someone says that. But I mean, as time went by and as John says, you know, if you look at the outcome of what actually happened, I mean, it does seem plausible that maybe, maybe, maybe this would have happened. Well, it sounds like, let's be honest, it sounds like a made for TV movie when someone is arrested on the street, they're put in a van and basically told, you're looking at multiple years in prison unless you do what we want, give us what we want.

That alone. And then when you look at the names, and I respect Rand for not giving names i i asked caitlin long when i had her on crypto law tv last week i brought it up to her and said were you aware that your name was mentioned and she was like i i learned about it and it was you know surprising and shocking and so some of those names are are people who are you you know, stewards. Yeah, big names. Right. But you wouldn't question their credibility. You wouldn't question anything about them.

They have the best reputations, you know, a Caitlin Long, a Naomi Brockwell, and others. And so, you know, that is what is the most surprising. John, I've just got one question for you if you've got a minute. Okay, perfect. John, the question I wanted one question for you if you've got a minute. Okay, perfect. John, the question I wanted to dig into is one from the... Scott, I can hear you breathe into the mic. The article talks about... I know the article could be just shitty reporting, but they said that you have possession of documents that reveal malpractices within the SEC, as well as during the Ethereum ICO.

I'm not sure what that's about because it's nothing to do with what you've discussed earlier. Is that inaccurate reporting or can you shed more light on what they mean by that? To be perfectly candid, I have no idea what they're saying. What I tweeted out and maybe what they're referencing is that I said that there are documents when you take everything in consideration, plus what we've learned, the Hinman has a lot more answers to give if he's ever questioned about that speech, the drafts, and all of that. And that's what I was alluding to, that everything we've learned, there's other things that when you put all the puzzles together, you'd be like, wow, that just makes the speech even more unusual, why he did what he did uh which of course i believe leads to you know the conflicts and maybe where he's working today from one crazy story to another uh john i appreciate you going through this and explaining it to us and i do want to give a special shout out to to ben uh ben mesrick who's in the audience some of the best books, nonfiction books. Most of you know the

Antisocial Network or the Accidental Billionaires, or of course the famous book. So the Antisocial Network became the Social Network. And I think the Accidental Billionaires became dumb money, but I could be wrong on that one. But just massive. Oh, Ben, how are you, sir? Hey, man, how you doing? Good, man. Good. We've gone through two stories. Each one could have its own book. We talked about the allegations against Ethereum and Vitalik. And now we're going to go through BitBoy and the drama that's unfolding there that keeps getting crazier every week, which is the TMZ version of crypto.

Are you going to write a book about Ben Armstrong? I think this is where this is heading. Well, let me first just say I love what you guys do. I think you guys are doing the most awesome stuff on Spaces, and I drop in all the time and listen to you guys from the background. I don't know. I was just sort of watching the BitBoy story here and there, and I had a little interaction with him when I was thinking about writing a book

about FTX before Michael Lewis jumped in to do it first. So I'm just sort of watching from the sidelines. It's some wildness going on. I'm running around with dumb money right now, which hopefully some of you will go see dumb money this weekend. But I think the BitBoy thing is nuts. I don't know what's going on. I don't know the details, but I know you guys know. I wrote an entire newsletter today about dumb money, man.

It's awesome. Oh, awesome. Thank you. Yeah, I think it's using it as a guide to tell people to eventually take profit, whether they're really passionately involved or just superficially trading. Well, I mean, you know,

the hardest thing in the world to do is to sell when something is skyrocketing. It's just the people I interviewed for the thing, it's truly emotional, especially when you're part of what appears to be a movement, you know, the whole GME thing and Roaring Kitty. It was an emotional kind of fight back against Wall Street. And it was more than just, you know, trying to make money.

And so selling was the hardest thing in the world for anybody to do. Nobody wanted to sell. So it's pretty well. Unless you'd be a pariah, right? Ben, I've got a very, very, very good idea for you. We can make millions and millions and millions of dollars. Do you want to hear it?

Yes, sure. You and I can make millions and millions. Okay, listen to this. We do a sequel, dumb money. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. We call it dumber money.

So it's like the better one, right? So you do dumb money and then we do dumber money. We talk about people. Listen, this is going to be good. We talk about people that bought NFTs because they thought that NFTs would really, that pictures, JPEGs of punks and apes and dogs would actually one day be worth billions and they were buying to part of a culture what do you say well personally i love nfts so i'm hoping that it's not dumber money in the long run but uh the nft market definitely took a major major fall for

sure um i think that there's a place for digital collectibles but um but yeah it's it's uh hard to imagine you know the billions and billions and billions of dollars that that you know that was for digital collectibles. But yeah, it's hard to imagine the billions and billions and billions of dollars that was hoped for that these would reach. But I think there's a lot still to be said about them. You know what I think? You know what I think? Yeah.

I think the more I hear you talk about it, the more I'm itching to start buying them again. Well, listen, I'm not, I'm not, listen, I used to own pets.com. I do not give financial advice to anybody i have owned the worst stocks in the world and every stock pets.com as well by the way yeah exactly that taxi all the fun ones in the late 90s exactly i've i've gone i've gone through every bus there is i'm i'm uh i love crypto i love nfts i love, sorry, GME. I love anything that the people get behind. And I really, really believe that value is much more in how people feel about something than it is in the fundamentals. And I think we're reaching a place in life where a stock ticker like GME is no longer tethered to the fundamentals. It's more ted to the the mass of people who really want to see

it go up and i think the rationality has left the market for better or worse and it's much more important what communities want to do than it is you know what what a bank sheet says i'm just trying to find where i can watch dumb money by the way i've just saved the trailer to watch it it's not on netflix no. It's wide in theaters this coming weekend. So I think it comes out Friday, Thursday in some markets, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We've done a limited release for the last two weeks because the stars, all the actors have been on strike. So it's a difficult time to launch a movie. So we're launching it a little bit differently.

So it's been in a few hundred theaters since last week. But now it'll be in thousands of theaters starting this Thursday. Um, so it's not going to be on Netflix or whatever, and for a couple more months. Okay. Can I just, can I just have a quick question here, Ben? Um, first of all, support your local theater, go see a movie in a local theater. Um, Ben, as a, I'm, I'm in the writer's guild. I'm a screenwriter. I'd, I'd love to just connect or something like that. I'll pay for your time, grab a coffee with you, whatever. But I really appreciate your work and everything you do in this space. And I have not read the WGA contract yet. I did the book that was the movie, The Social Network, about Facebook. And then I did the book that was the movie, 21, about the MIT Blackjack team. But as a screenwriter, I wrote for the show Billions for a number of years. That's right.

It's wonderful that we've reached this point. So many people were out of work for so long. And honestly, the studios needed to give in to a lot of these demands. The writers were looking for a way to continue to make a living as a writer. And it's just, it's crazy that these studios are these giant organizations with millions and millions of dollars, and they live on the work of the writers and the actors and then all of the other guilds. So in the end, they did have to make a deal um but it dragged out a long time and a lot of people were in a lot of trouble so i'm glad we're at the end point hopefully the actors will make a deal pretty soon so we can you know get actors out and start making things again i mean

next year there's gonna be a lot less shows to watch because of this strike and i think um i think there's a real need for good stories out there can't wait for that i must say guys if you haven't if you haven't read uh ben's book bitcoin billionaires i think it was called i mean it really is one of the foundations of this industry like that that story of charlie shrimp and the winklevoss brothers is just i think one of the winklevoss sorry winklevoss brothers um is really like they're like cacti everybody it's the it's yeah it's the only like it's the only book i've read in crypto that's i didn't read just to learn about a specific technology it's lent learned

read it because just it's such a good book to read it's not a boring book the only one i've ever read it's so well articulated as well oh that's wonderful i read them i read that book whilst i was spending a weekend at Insane Kids with Roger. And so, you know, he's mentioned a lot. What did Roger think of the book? What did Roger think? So, look, I went to visit him. And, you know, like when I was, you know, on the plane on the way there

and while I spent, you know, in the evenings while I had some free time, I was reading that book. And it was funny because I was reading the book, but I was, I was, you know, I was with Roger and the book talks a lot about what Roger, where Roger's roles were and stuff like that. And it's like, I just, I can't see how amazing it was. The experience for me reading that book, being Roger, you know, being entertained with by him for a full weekend on, you know, in the Island where he lives was, uh, it was absolutely,

absolutely mind-blowing. I think one of the best books ever. That's awesome. Well, that was the story of the Winklevite twins and how they went from their battle with Zuckerberg, who they felt had basically fucked them over enormously, to becoming multi-multi-billionaires in the world of Bitcoin. And literally, it starts with the settlement agreement. So right after the social

network ends, they actually asked Mark, you know, just to meet with them in a room to work it out. And Mark said, I'll meet with just one of you. And it turns out later, it was because he was afraid they were going to beat him up. And there's a true story. And they were like, well, you can you don't think one of us that story it's amazing yeah and and they settled that story five million yeah they settled for 65 million dollars um but they the winklevi took it in stock it ended up being worth 500 million dollars and um and then they basically wanted to become vcs but nobody would take their money because everyone's end game in Silicon Valley is to sell your company to Facebook. So instead, they went to Ibiza to party. And when

they were on the beach and some dude walked up to them and said, have you guys ever heard about Bitcoin? And literally, the reason they bought into Bitcoin is they had tried to check into their hotel in Ibiza and they had tried to pay by wire and the money hadn't arrived and they couldn't check in. And so the idea of this form of money that was instantly transferable, that didn't have a middleman, that there's no Zuckerbergs involved in appealed them. And they literally bought 200,000 Bitcoin and then joined up with Charlie Shram. It's a crazy story.

Yeah. Hang on a beach is always a way to go. We hope to make that in a movie as well um that's kind of up to the winklevite twin at this point there i mean i mean that's the main story in the book but the book has a lot of like side stories that are happening at the same time like the charlie shrem story like the you know you cover the charlie shrem story in in great detail in the book you know because yeah i spent a lot of time with Charlie. You know, he lived in his mother's basement in Brooklyn, New York, and he was like 18 years old and he became kind of the king of Bitcoin because his whole at the time.

And you guys remember that you couldn't get Bitcoin. You had to go to what it would go Mount Gox. Right. And you had to wire your money to this crazy site in Japan. And so he started the first exchange where you could just buy Bitcoin. Unfortunately, people used him and his site to buy drugs on Silk Road. And there was a paper trail of him. So he was kind of the first guy to go to jail for selling people Bitcoin. Charlie's a great guy. I think he's brilliant. And I think, you know, he was one of the people who made Bitcoin possible to a mainstream audience. I remember being, I remember,

as I said, like a lot of side stories. I remember in the book, you described how Charlie was actually arrested, where I think he came back from somewhere and he got arrested at the airport. And I remember like, the way that you described it was like i had anxiety i was like i was reading a book and i had this anxiety of like holy shit this guy's been arrested you know like yeah i mean they grabbed him in the jfk airport they shoved him in a cell and the way the way they work the the when they arrest you is they basically threaten you with ridiculous amounts of charges like Like if he had gone to trial, he could have been facing, you know, 20 years in jail minimum. So he makes a deal to do two years. And that's that's what they do if they get you for anything. But, you know, he he was kind of his own worst enemy in that there was emails and stuff where he said things when someone asked him, oh, people are

using you to buy drugs. He was like, great. These emails were kind of hard to get away from. But, you know, I try to write my nonfiction like it's thrillers. I try to write it like it's a movie. So even though I'm doing a form of journalism, my goal is how do I make this get to the big screen every time I'm sitting down to write a book? So I try and do it in the most dramatic way I can. Charlie has to be the most gracious, understanding and easygoing person considering what he's been through. He's a close friend of mine. And it just always is astounding to me how much he still just loves life, appreciates everything and remains so incredibly positive. You know what he said to me? He said to me once, I spoke to him once and he said to me,

I love America. I love the fact that I was actually detained for doing what I did. And if I could see the judge that actually gave me the penalty, he says I'd hug the judge. I mean, that's like how optimistic he is about this. That's great. Yeah, he's a good guy. I mean, I spent time with him when I was writing the book, and he's always been very gracious with me.

And him and the Winklevii got into a real battle. They were battling. And Charlie would say, why are they coming after me? I don't think he's a bad guy at all. I think he's a good person who really got Bitcoin and crypto before a lot of other people did. He was so early in the game. And so I hope he continues to do well. Is there plans for your thoughts

after spending time with roger sorry spending time with roger and spending time with i think you must must have spent some time with eric for he's because i think he was also quite a a prominent uh he played a prominent role in the book um what for what are your uh what are your like after spending time with those two what are your feelings about them yeah so eric uh vorhees i interviewed for the book and my understanding is he liked the book a lot uh at least he did when it came out um and he was always very very nice about it you know he's he's a guy who's a super at the time anyways and i assume still very much a libertarian very much a believer in no borders borders and sort of this whole idea of crypto and Bitcoin being a freeing mechanism, like it's a way to sort of make the world more free and give each person

an individual power and not have a government be in between. So, you know, at the time of writing it, I haven't really stayed in touch with Eric at all. And I'm assuming he's I know there's he's been in the news a lot more lately, but I haven't followed with him that much. So Roger was really, you know, someone I interviewed as well and someone I think was fascinating. You know, his background is crazy. It could have been a book in all in itself. And he was really somewhat of an anarchist at the time where he was fighting the fight. He was very different than the Winklevii.

I mean, they represented two different um ways of looking at crypto the winklevi are the buttoned up suits and ties guys who wanted to be part of the new york financial system they want bitcoin to be part of the system um and they want to be regulated to some degree they want it to be at the time anyways i don't know they've changed their minds recently um. And Roger was more, you know, burn it all down kind of thing. And then Eric was somewhere in the middle. But at the time. You've got to look at Roger's background, I think. You know, if you understand, like, what happened to Roger,

then you may understand why he came in as that kind of person. If I remember correctly, I think Roger got arrested for, I don't know the exact charge, but something like dealing in explosives or something like that. He was selling fireworks or something. He was selling fireworks over the Internet and they called it selling explosives over the Internet. And he kind of got nailed on a very tough charge. And while in prison, he started reading up on all of sort of these, these, you know, German financial theorists and all this kind of stuff. And he had a really bad case in his mouth about what the government can do when it when it comes after you. So yeah, coming from his point of view, you know, you could see why he came and then decided to leave

the country entirely and move overseas and want to, you know build himself he became known as as bitcoin jesus he was bitcoin jesus because he funded almost all of the original bitcoin companies um and he was one of charlie's first partners as well so yeah i mean you can see why he lost yeah he lost his status i think as bitcoin jesus and he lost his popularity in the space because when i joined the space know, he was one of the biggest people in the space. And then he, I guess, took what you could say in his history as the wrong side of the Bitcoin argument, which is, you know, he wanted bigger block sizes. And then, you know, he was behind the fork for Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, the original Bitcoin fork to Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, the original Bitcoin fork to Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.

Let's not forget that he maintains Bitcoin.com as if that's actually about the real Bitcoin and is quietly about Bitcoin Cash. Right. Yeah, I mean, he owns the Bitcoin.com domain. He owns the Bitcoin.com wallet as well. He owns the Bitcoin.com mining pool as well. I think he's, you know, if you take it at this point in time, it seems like he's probably on the weaker point in history.

I'm not going to say the wrong side of history, but surely the weaker side of history, which is the Bitcoin cash side of it. And as far as I know, he's still running around the world, spreading the Bitcoin cash word, you know, the more transactions, cheaper transactions through bigger blocks. And so the Bitcoin community completely cut him out. Completely, you know,

he became the enemy as opposed to the friend. Right. Something that strikes me about the story of the Winklevoss twins is how well that they gave a sense of legitimacy to Bitcoin in the early days. Uh,

I wrote a paper on Bitcoin in 2014, so a long time ago about, um, basically about Bitcoin regulation. And at the time it was synonymous with, uh, with, uh,

you know, Mount Docks, Silk Road. Uh, with uh you know mount docks silk road it was seemingly intrinsically linked to just scams and illegality and something i think the wink of us did uh the wink of eye as you guys say uh very well over the the ensuing years was they added they were almost uh and you speak about in your book ben they were they were ambassadors and And you say they wanted to add this kind of legitimacy to it, this kind of button-up, regulated part of the financial system

purpose to Bitcoin. I think in that sense, they really succeeded. And I wonder how much of their DNA is in what Bitcoin looks like now with TradFi getting involved now and, you know, talk about regulation. I wonder how much how much they have played a part in that. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. I think they did add legitimacy at the time.

They traveled the world telling people about Bitcoin at a time when everybody else in Bitcoin were mostly using it for Silk Road or for, you know, stuff that was not going to make the mainstream. So they were working hard to mainstream it. And they always saw from the beginning that if this is going to blow up and become, you know, the next form of money or whatever, the next form of gold, it has to be accepted by, you know, our parents generation. It has to be accepted by people who who aren't you know living on an island somewhere um but who are willing to sort of work with the system um so yeah I I think that they were a big part of that next step in Bitcoin of going from you know being

something that only a few hundred thousand people had ever heard of to something that everyone has heard of any any stories Ben that you've got planned um or that you're thinking about potentially doing with us ftx or or the latest nft craze what happened with ftx so you know when the whole ftx thing went down i'm always looking for like the next big story and so the dumb money book was already done and that movie was on its way um and i i know enough people in the ftx story that I could have written the story. You know, I'd had SBF phone number. I was ready to go and I reached out to my agent

and I was like, oh, you know, what about this? I think I can do the FTX story. And he was just quiet. And I was like, oh no, because my agent also represents Michael Lewis. And he's like, yeah, Michael's been embedded with FTX for the past two years. And Lewis was going to be writing this glowing book about how great FTX is and how wonderful

SPF is. And then it went the other direction, obviously. But because he's already so deep in the story, I don't want to just go head to head with Michael Lewis on a book. So I'm not doing the FTX story. I definitely thought about it because I write very quickly. You know, I write a book in two months, not in two years. So I could have already had it out by now.

But I just decided, you know, he's a great writer. I'm not going to jump into the same room. So I don't plan on doing an FTX story. Are there any other crypto stories that you're potentially watching on thinking, you know, these could actually be good books? Well, I am working on a screenplay set in the NFT world that I've been doing, which the screenplay is basically done. So that's sort of tangentially related to this stuff. I'm always looking. You know, I do think Bitcoin billionaires would make a killer movie.

And I really, really hope it gets made at some point. I think it could really sort of be a primer on how this all came about and would have great commercial appeal. But that's something that I'm always looking, figuring out how we get the next step with that one. But in terms of another crypto story, I'd only do something if it was different enough.

I like to write origin stories. Like that's my beat is as I look at something, this is gonna change the culture 10 years from now. So I'm always looking for the some story that captures like the social network or the GameStop story, which I think is a really important story. And that's why I wrote it. And something big like that. You know, I'm always looking for Bitcoin. And so it would have to be the next whatever. There could be a story, but I don't know. I don't know what yet. So I guess the BitBoy story is not big enough. The BitBoy story is, I have no idea what the actual details are. It's definitely something that I find compelling, you know, from a, I think it would make a great show. Ben's being nice.

It's not even big enough for the spaces. Yeah, it's really not. Yeah, but it is a crazy, crazy, crazy story. I mean, to understand what's going on with this guy. Every time I think that the story is like dead and it just can't get worse, it just gets a little bit worse. I mean, the guy built a channel with 1.5 million people. I don't know what the exact number is. He was the biggest crypto YouTuber out there on all metrics.

Started doing some really stupid stuff. Views started to decline. Stupid stuff equals going to stalk SPF in the Bahamas while the whole FTX thing was going on. I thought that was the lowest point for BitBoy. Going to Alex Mashinsky at a conference and confronting him live, I thought that was also quite a low point for BitBoy. And then now it turns out that his staff just had enough of his shenanigans, tried to take over, did take over the business where he owns 67%, so took over the business using operating agreements.

They blame this on the fact that he's having an affair with a girl called Cassie, and I'm only saying this because he's come out and said the same thing. That's not accurate. You know, well, I mean, he came out and said he's having an affair with Cassie, right? That has nothing to do with his

expulsion from the company okay look so i listened to tj's version on altcoin daily which was released last night or this morning depending on your time zone and that was one of the things that that was cited again you'd read if you read bitboy's uh account you know he claims that it's 100 in the story because Cassie is the one that said that he should negotiate with him and he was the one who was still wanting to negotiate. Let's just cut a long story short. Fast

forward to last night or this morning, depending on what your time zone is. BitBoy goes to Carlos, who is from what I understand, an investor in BitBoy or with Bitboy or somewhere along those lines and carlos has what used to be bitcoin's lamborghini and bitcoin goes to his house and streams but he warns people in advance saying we're gonna stream from somewhere crazy um

join the stream and then he titles the stream something like live streaming from Carlos' house. I've actually got all the details here. So I'm just going to call the file with all the exact quotes. So his stream said, live streaming from Carlos' house in brackets where my Lamborghini is. And then he streams from Carlos' house.

It's a 37-minute stream, minute stream a very very very emotional stream it starts off with him you know streaming he's screaming that he's outside carlos's house and it ends off with him actually being arrested for loitering um obviously carlos reported the fact bitboy was outside his house and acting like a crazy person. BitBoy then gets arrested. You actually hear the arrest live. And I'll play some parts for you. I wonder if you guys are going to be able to hear it.

But let me play it for you guys anyway, just so that you can get a feel for what was actually going on. This is where Carlos lives, guys. And lies to me for Carlos' house. Carlos has my Lamborghini right here in his garage. So today, guys, I'm going to be live streaming and I'm going to be telling

the entire story of Carlos Diaz. Who Carlos Diaz is. I'm going to be talking about all the people he's affiliated with. I'm going to be talking about how he got into my building. I'm going to be talking about all of it. Hope absolutely able to. I'm not even talking about how he got into my building. I'm going to talk about all of it. Hope you guys are ready.

He just answered the door. So I know this is him for sure. Right here. I'm not scared of you Carlos. I'm not scared. So he arrives there in his pickup truck and sometime in the video he says,

I'm just going to go and put something in the truck. And he goes and he puts something in the truck, and he puts something in the back seat. And you can kind of hear that there's somebody in the truck. And what happens later in the video is that you see the cops coming. And I'll fast forward that part so you can just hear it. And they're at Bindadi's house. Okay.

And then he tells them, better hurry up quickly here. He told me he went out there and roughed up Bindadi's, fought him and beat him up. And Maxine Waters, a politician, told him to kill Ben Dadeith with a fentanyl syringe. Hey, guys. Now the cops have arrived. Hey, how's it going? Hey, you're my favorite? Yep.

Oh, stop. I couldn't hear you. Do you have a weapon on you? No, I do not. I have one in my vehicle, but I don't have a weapon on me. Do you have a favorite? He's wearing a man bag or what they call a fanny pack. The cops call it. Okay, I'll put the phone down. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Okay. With the penny bag down. Okay.

What's going on? What's going on? This man inside of this house. Actually, he's going to make it real quick. Absolutely. I have a weapon. Okay. Okay. Go. At this point, they start asking him who's in the truck. So who's in the truck?

Who's in the truck? Who's in the truck? Listen to this. Whoever the car is in the back. It's in the back seat. Actually, not with anybody else in the car. Who's in the car? Who?

What's up? Who's in the car? Who's in the car? Who's in the car? Who's in the car? Who's in the car? Who's in the car? Who's in the car? It's in the backseat. Backseat? Is anybody else in the car? Um, yes. Who's in the car? Uh, who? What's up?

Who's in your car? Who's in my car? Yeah. Okay. What's, uh, who's in your car? Who's in my car? And you can see that he's very reluctant to tell people who's in the car because he knows he's live streaming on YouTube.

And eventually it comes out. Who's in your truck, sir? Cassie is in my car. Cassie is in my truck. Cassie. Yeah, it's in my truck. My out. Who's in your truck, sir? Cassie is in my car. Cassie's in my truck. All right, Cassie. Cassie's in my truck. My wife knows that we're here, by the way.

She knows we came to do this. But my wife is aware. So we're live on YouTube. So Cassie is the lady that he was having an affair with. And she was in the truck with him when he went to Carlos's house. And so this all went down. He then got...