In an excerpt from his new book 'Easy Money,' the 'O.C.' and 'Gotham' actor Ben McKenzie takes us on a journey into the wild world of crypto journalism.
The plain absurdity of the situation was immediately clear. Could this garish display of crypto novelties really be the next frontier of entertainment? Would consumers really want to buy and sell their own unique receipts for individual episodes of sitcoms stored on blockchains?
It sounded like a cult, I said to the DAO guy. There was a certain shared form of understanding, a sense of value, that appealed only to people in the in-group. He laughed and shrugged.Later we met a sweet, earnest man in his thirties named Marcel, a digital artist and UX designer whose colorful asymmetric haircut and fluency in the economics of web3 made him far hipper than me. Asked if he worked at SXSW, he shook his head. “I just like helping onboard people to blockchain stuff.
It was all really weird. Charles and Paul seemed far too solicitous and far too revealing in what they said and how they acted. They also seemed to know almost nothing about crypto. Every story we told them, even the most well-established tales of corporate malfeasance, was greeted with what might have been mock astonishment. They had no idea it was so bad, they said. Perhaps we should talk to some of their colleagues at the FBI?Charles was a couple years from early retirement.
Would that actually happen? And why would I want to do it? It sounded, quite frankly, insane — something out of a movie that I had no interest in starring in. Charles asked if I had ties to the area. I said I was from Austin. No, some way I could prove a connection there, he said. I told him I owned a piece of real estate in a nearby city. Perfect! Since he was based in Austin, he could be, well, my handler, checking on me when I passed through town.
None of it made much sense. They seemed to know nothing about crypto, blockchain, or the fraudulence and criminality that we claimed undergirded the industry. Why were two guys who expressed such ignorance about our core concerns recruiting us? Were we being had? We all drank more, toasting to . . . something? Maybe blockchain. Iron- ically. At a certain point, Charles got up and said, “I want to give you guys something.” Then, in a series of too obvious exchanges, again like we were parodying a spy flick, he shook hands with me, Jacob, and Ryan, giving each of us a CIA challenge coin, a marker of accomplishment for law enforcement officers and sometimes a kitschy souvenir for people they’re trying to flatter. In our case, it was obviously the latter.
“Yes, but never mind that now,” I said. “First — and don’t look — I need to tell you who’s sitting on a couch about twenty feet behind you. Alex Mashinsky.” In the last few years, the crypto economy has become much more complicated than enthusiasts buying and selling a handful of popular cryptocurrencies.
Despite my nerves, I had to talk to him. I felt the same performance jitters I’d felt before going onstage on Broadway just two years prior.
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