Transcripts For CSPAN3 Zeke 20240705

Very excited that youre all here this is a great crowd my name is evan ratliff. I am one of the hosts of the long form podcast. This is aaron lammer. Im also one of the hosts of the longform podcast and i believe you probably all know zeke fox, everybody. So were here for, the launch and celebration of number go up and this is being recorded for the long form podcast. Now normally only one host would interview an author, a writer on our show. In this case, aaron and i were, fighting over this book, who was going to get a chance to talk to him . Partly because weve never had zeke on the show. Hes many, many pieces for Bloomberg Businessweek that we want to talk about. And we waited until book came out because we mostly want to talk about the book. So we decided to both be questioners of today. So if you havent read the book yet, if youre just getting a copy today, youre in for an enormous treat with this book. Socioeconomically well kick it off. I just want to say as a preamble, i did not know that your name was pronounced fox until right now and for about years i thought you were on like a super anon wasnt revealing his own identity and had come up with like the like a really great fake name. So its lovely. Its lovely to meet you. Nice to meet you too. I kind of had so credit in crypto that it shows you the brain virus that i was operating under the time that i was like so cool. He never revealed his real identity. So lets start. If you dont know, zeke is a time Investigative Reporter for, Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. He has done stories about fraudsters, scammers, thieves. Some of my favorite types of stories over the years. And i was wondering what, do you remember your first kind of story about crooks and what kind of what drew you to it . Im im always like, i came through traditional reporting and had like what i found to be kind of boring assignments to cover wall street. And i was always drawn to like people who worked in gray areas and there was a moment when i realized, like, was something that i could pursue as sort of like my beat i had done an expose of some i dont know, some shady business. And there was a guy who was in the story id written some not very nice things about his company. And when the story came out, he was like, hey, you want to go out for a drink . And i was like i had also gotten a call from the u. S. Postal inspection service, which i think, i mean, thats like they can arrest you. Its something and they were like, hey, we read your story. Were just so, you know, like we, want to arrest these guys. And i so, i was like, oh, this is really interesting combination of calls today. And i was like, i was going, you know, now this sort of thing has become routine. But i was kind of i was like younger. I was kind of worried. I was like, all right, well, ill ill go out for the drink. And i met the guy and he was like, you know, you did a pretty good job with that story. And like, let me tell you about this Shady Hedge Fund and like how they took money from and like secretly invested it payday lending without telling harvard. I was like, wow, this is like a really great tip. Thank you guy that i just wrote me and things about and like felt like i was off and running. Did you develop any kind of over the course of these stories did you develop any kind of unified theory of scammers and fraudsters who. One thing i noticed is that they are always that creative, like these guys all watch like the wolf of wall street, like boiler room, like theyre theres one guy i wrote about had even hed studied oh, hed study these films to try and figure out he should act as like a so this can be a little bit frustrating because when im writing like a feature story, i dont want to like totally fall into these tropes of like these scam movies and stories that weve heard before. So im always looking for somebody whos got like, whos done it differently somehow. There is a bit of a feedback loop. I mean, isnt that sort of true at the mafia that like the mafia is so influenced by movies about, the mafia that its dramatically changed actual way that the mafia sort of operates esthetically . Yeah that totally. I think youre right. I mean, they probably know more about the tactics from like rewatching goodfellas. Then i, their grandfather probably was in jail their whole life. They didnt get to like tell them. Their mafia secrets. So at the early part of this book, you set up to investigate whether can you give like im going to give a max 3 seconds, but what what is tether and what were you like looking to find out at the very, very origins of your reporting . So id resisted investigating crypto. I just thought that like it didnt have the same kind of cool, complicated scamming that i could untangle and write about. But tether was a mystery that appealed to me. Its called a stablecoin because its a coin that you get the company tether a dollar and give you one tether token. And so can sort of think of them like casino chips that you take gamble with elsewhere in crypto land. And when i went to start into it, tether had sold billion dollars worth of these chips and they had not said to anyone satisfaction where they were keeping that 50 billion. So there was this fear that if people went cash in their tether chips, the 50 billion would be gone and the entire crypto economy would crash. And so felt like this was the kind of thing i could work on trying to find this like missing money. And that was the mystery that like sucked me into crypto world for two years and when you start mean if this was a a bank a proper bank they would have a pr be like a pr division you who to call up you know who works at the bank like where do you start . Would you enter into this world . You yeah. Tether was just like compared to a Traditional Company and crypto world. There were just so many red flags. It was laughable. Like the company i wasnt really based anywhere. They had suggested they are regulated by the British Virgin islands. But then when i called the regulator, theyre theyre like, no, the the ceo had not only never given an interview. He was had never been seen in public. And some people speculated that he didnt even really exist and the guy that i was told was the real boss was the cfo john carlo vicini, who is a former Plastic Surgeon for milan, who then had become an electronics importer and had been sued for counterfeiting so and. Even as i was learning all this weird stuff about tether, i was constantly being told by people in crypto that this was super important. It was central to the crypto economy and. Yeah, i just couldnt believe that. Like crypto traders really, really trusted this company. It seems like you set on a journey that you thought would have like a simple resolution and then it just got like more and more complicated terms of like what you were looking for because it seems like were able to figure out fairly rapidly that this was like a very Sketchy Company that was like telling, but it didnt lead to like a neat, simple, resolute zen like, oh, like now that people know that they certainly wont keep their money in their right, like in traditional finance, then like when do an expose of a mainstream finance company, you dont usually have like conclusive proof that theyre a fraud like the story. If you go back and look at the stories that expose enron, they just sort of like, hey, you might want to look at this like weird financial maneuver theyre using. So tether, you definitely have that already. And anyone who invested in tether tokens had reason enough to, sell them to try and get their money out. But in the crypto world, it just didnt seem like anybody cared. So how did you go about sort of attacking the reporting so you end up at these conferences, these crypto conferences, and from what it sounds like youre sort of an overwhelming number of kind of ridiculous seeming people at these. And how did you go finding the threads you were going to pull in order to keep following the story . All right. So i went to an were you at bitcoin 2021 in miami . I was not okay. And in fact, i described this like to evan in a text message. Like, if you were like writing about pop music and you went to like the parking lot of like Insane Clown Posse show is like not the most like flat hearing where so okay so ive totally heard that before. And this was like a really crazy Conference Full of bitcoin zealots. But i also feel a little bit like okay with like superhero movies. People are always like, oh, you got to see antman this the good one . Its not like the other superhero movie is when you see it and youre like, oh, great another one. And so like with the crypto conferences, everyone was like, oh, you didnt to the intellectual one. Like, thats why . Its like, oh, but youre definitely like this bitcoin 2021 conference. Im when i, i had this kind of, even though i was skeptical of crypto, i had this like impression, it was about to go mainstream and that there were like Major Players on wall street who were looking to get involved, which was kind of true. But then, yeah you get there and its like all these kind of gold bugs were talking about like the evils of money and like central bankers and how theyre ruling the world. Theres a guy giving a speech. Who had said that, uh, he called, he, he called green fiat food. And he thought that, like, together with only bitcoin, like, we should only eat steaks. And he wasnt even the only one with that, that theory. And so at conference, like, oh, its, but thats not necessarily a good target for investigation. Just like some weirdo, um, and so i set up all these meetings. I was kind of like poorly. I didnt have time to research because i just was basically there to ask them about tether, but i had to feign interest in their company. And i, one of the ones that i met with his name was alex moshinsky. He ran this Company Called celsius. And when i sat down with him, he was like, hes real like hype, man. Hes got this shirt. Says banks are not your friends. He was all over the conference like you seem like he was really like it was clear he was a big player he tells me his pitch. Hes like give me your money, ill pay you like 18 interest. But if you want a loan from me, i charge 0 . And like in thats like a recipe to lose money. It doesnt make any sense at all. And im like, but i just sort of smiling because i dont want to. I want to say anything rude before we get to heather. And so im like, okay, thats how much money do you manage . And hes like, 20 billion. And then he got arrested a few weeks ago. If you dont follow things closely. But yeah, so when i got back from the conference, i told, i told my editor i was just like, we could do this crypto stuff. Like, like, if you dont mind that i read about crypto. Theres like a lot of things we could write about about. And one of the interesting dynamics in the book is that, i mean, clearly skeptical of many of boosters of cryptocurrency, but also the skeptics are not necessarily trustworthy. People like you meet this guy bitfinex who is like on this long standing crusade against tether that. The information hes giving is not totally verifiable either. How did you sort of like know who to trust . How do you think about like whos a worthwhile that i can actually use what they say in this book that . That was definitely a real challenge like this bitfinex guy. Hes just an anonymous account on twitter, but surprisingly influential. He would tweet all these things about like not back. They dont have the money. Wheres the and like he had the ear of like regulators like i heard people really listen to him and. So like when we when we met and i agreed like protect his identity, i, i, i dont know what i expected, but i think i was thinking more like, like he was some sort of insider, like he had and he walks in with, you know, his shirts like, stained with tacos and like he he had some, like, gave me some swag of and he yeah, i realized, like, he didnt really know anything. He might be right, but hes just, uh, posting a bunch of, like, crazy stuff online. Um, and yeah, its on me to try and figure things out, so, but it was very with tether especially. Its very hard like even when i got some financial records showing like what they had invested in, im just like, i dont know, could this be made up. Like, how do you actually know anything . And yeah, it was a real it was a real challenge. Well, theres sort of it feels like theres two challenges in there. One is the reporting challenge, collecting the information, trying to get to the bottom of those mysteries. The other one is this psychological challenge that i wanted to ask you about, which is i mean you pitch the book and you start working on the book. What crypto is like at its, you know, bitcoin is hitting whatever 60 plus thousand or whatever the limit was that it hit and so as you were doing it and you just you talk about this a little in the book like how did it feel to kind of anticipate that skepticism might not pay off . Yeah. So when i when pitched it over november 20, 21 and in the pitch i was like more or less its the house of cards, its all going to collapse, which wasnt like that controversial you at the time. Um, and like more or less it did happen, but it definitely didnt feel that way. Like youre saying, like after a immediately. Im very nervous. Im seeing like, the price is not collapsing. Im like, what am i going to write about in this . Whats going to happen . And the time i know it was only five months later, but by the time got to april 22 when prices had dropped little bit, but not too much, i was at Sam Bankmanfried big conference in the bahamas and i was feeling kind of depressed. I was like, i dont know, i guess like this is how the world is going to be. Like, you can got some like dumb Crypto Company and, your coin you can raise, you know, billion dollars and like i or maybe they will just raise the money and figure out later. Yeah, i mean, theres like the title number go up could be like read like literally or ironically depending on where we were the market cycle, i think its coming out like a very good time. But i somewhat surprised like particularly reading the blurbs on the back of the book, theyre very much like, yeah, its over. And i was like, dont know. Theres probably going to be like a sequel to book. Like what, what has happened like since then . Like i that like the trial the Sam Bankmanfried trial starts i think a few blocks from here. And i think three weeks like, how are you feeling about the like aftermath of what you wrote about . So thats how i definitely feel like i think i saw it. Amazon filed it in history and im like, i think that i think thats appropriate but i, i just i cant imagine well ever see like another bubble like, like this one. And i dont think the outcome of sams trial is in like, too much suspense and, yeah, maybe some crypto will happen in the future, but i think it will be different from the one that if it does, wont be the same stuff that i wrote about. Well, i mean, thats something i wanted to ask about as well. Like in the book, there are theres like the idea crypto and the associated ideas like smart contracts and you know, everything kind of circles around it. And then there are the people it has attracted all variety ponzi schemers and scammers that you describe and is it possible to separate the idea in your mind from the people, or was it inevitable that this idea would attract these people . So for me, its very at this point, its very to separate. And i can only really judge crypto by what i saw, which was bad, but i also know that think i can see the ideas have a lot of appeal and like a lot of smart people have worked on them. Um but the question i would just come back to when, i was talking to these guys. Its something that like as a writer like you want to see stuff thats happening so you can write about it and i would be like, hey, youve got this company. You say that you raise 200 million by selling spaceship nft is can maybe can like play the game together. Itll be like better scene and then the guys like, oh no, no, no. Like the nft is exist. We have the 200 million. But like the games five years away like we cannot play the game and i just felt like i was always pulling back the curtain and was like very disappointed. What i saw. So yeah, so, so at this point its hard for me like really get excited about the, about the ideas. And so i should disclose that i. Also, i made a podcast check, check, check out about. Check that and this is cutting out now it sounds okay. Okay. And one of the biggest was so of course one of the Biggest Challenges for me was like what of depth that describe the technical stuff it could be. Zero it could be like 10,000 pages of footnotes on how you handled it. What was your thinking like . How much explanation to be in this book versus like the more fun friday parts . So definitely my thinking was like as little as you can get away with like do not explain anything if you dont need to and definitely it right at the beginning because thats going to be going to turn people off. Was that something you had to like calibrate through people reading it and being like this part is extremely boring . I mean, im to be fair, like im very easily bored, so i didnt need anyone to tell me like which the writing about blockchain would be would be boring. Also, i have a colleague, bloomberg levine, who writes about these concepts like way than i ever would, so i was like not trying to to match that. Im going to write about like these characters and this what happened in this boom and the way here was listening to the rewatchable podcast about the movie black hat and i was sort of thinking about how this whole era of like Computer Bank robberies is like extremely cinematic, very difficult to like adapt or make exciting and feel like your book is pretty exciting. Like where did you find the parts of the story that were exciting were sort of captivating . Where are the scenes in a mostly computer story . Yeah, i mean, that was certainly like when i pitched the book, that was certainly my was like, you need to find some interesting stuff going on that you can write. And theres only so much that can be about different crypto conferences that attended those went to the right one for jesse. And so we werent going to top that. So one thing that i write about in the book is i heard about you hear about crypto being used for like illicit purposes and thats also kind of hard dramatize because like its unlikely that some, you know, money launderer is going to invite you over while he, you know, does this thing. Well, i heard about these romance scams. Its called pig butchering where like, if you we all get these like random spam Text Messages and. It turns out like those people are trying to entice you into crypto scams and then very dark twist turns out that the people sending those messages are often themselves victims Human Trafficking who are like in cambodia being tortured while they send spam Text Messages. So when i heard about this, it was not like i wasnt the first one to hear about it, but understandably, other people who covered were more interested in like the human rights issues. And i was like, wait, did i hear that you use crypto for all these scams . And like, then i got one of these Text Messages played along with this, a scammer who said their name, vicky ho, and then finally she was, all right, you want to you want to learn to trade like me, send me some tether. And i was like, great, yes, i will send you some tether. Maybe i can track your wallet and then i end up going to i was not able to find vicky hope but ended up going cambodia too. Just because i wanted to see these scam compounds for myself and in there i actually did like a Money Exchange store where i saw a dude just like walk out with a brick 50 grand and i was able to send 100 tethers to the clerk and walk out with like 100 bill, no questions asked. And thats when i thought, oh, now finally see this, this is this was pretty maybe maybe crypto is for something. So was that really the only scam you with . I was wondering if you were like keeping like of them running at once to see if one of them would finally mention, oh no, that the only one and i honestly they always use tether not really a particularly good reason they all use tether. I think its mostly because for as victim if youre asked to buy like bitcoin or something might be worried that the price will go up or down. Whereas with tether the scammer can say hey, its always worth a dollar and then you send it to me and earn like 30 interest or something so. I dont think its necessarily anything more than that. Whether they use tether well, you kind of get into to me as a person admittedly has the crypto virus an interesting distinction which is that there are other less sketchy stablecoins theres thats issued by a wellknown American Company thats regulated by the government called circle and yet this like extremely sketchy not backed one succeeds but you can kind of see that might be true if you were doing something where you didnt want to have your funds frozen by some sort of Law Enforcement action of some kind. Definitely i did from a victim of one of these pig butchering. They sent some of they showed me some of their communications with tethers Customer Service and they were like, yeah, i sent i sent in like 20 grand. And it turns out it was like some chinese gangster and like can you freeze their account . Because does have that power like theyve done it in the past and then tether was just it was funny to see their series of excuses that were just very arbitrary clearly just made up by some Customer Service worker and theyre like, we only freeze accounts if you have proof of violence. And i was like, because it in the Banking System like if you know banks follow sorts of rules and like tether other Crypto Companies purport to follow the rules then seem to just like make them up whichever ones they want to follow. Well, and theres also some distinctions there about like, you know, the rule of law across countries where. Yes. You can like freeze an american bank. But like many much of this stuffs happening across international borders. I dont know if theyre but its sort of powerful to have like a truly unfreeze ball money, even if its not backed by anything. Yeah. Like maybe im im kind of like a boring guy, but i, im like, you know, theres a reason why the banks have to, like, know has which account and, you know, i think theres a reason for all these financial regulations. And i feel like the crypto world is kind of like learning it all over again. Yeah. I mean, someone has described to me as like crypto like speed or anything like 100 years of like bad decisions and like two years probably, something to that. Yeah, definitely. I mean, i, to me it just seems like so much of it boils down to like some guy has some idea he gets you to send in your real money and then he gives you some like random token and then now he has the money and goes in like, blows it on something else. What its like about the writing for a second, because i found that the writing of the book so fun and, so kind of refreshing in i guess bluntness is the way i would describe it. Like you call a scam, a scam. You call a con man a con man. And thats not always in the sort of journalistic outlets where things are maybe a little heavily. People try to be careful and you say things like, its not just that the idea stupid, but and go on. And im wondering if that was was that was that like first draft energy or was that like energy . Oh, well, this was really big for me. It was like one of the appeals of writing a book is that im usually held to this like i have to write it under this constraint. Its because i work for bloomberg. And even though can be like a little bit edgier, where theres just like a house style and i feel like crypto is not is not made for that like theres not time to investigate all of these scams. Sometimes you just have to see something and maybe its not a scam. Its just like some, you know hype, thats some worthless hype. You need to see it in like i say, what you think about it. And i also like a lot of crypto is built around being cool like people have made so much money off just like convincing other people that cool and sometimes like to expose its just like theyre not cool. Like so. Yeah, theres an underlying question in the book, theres like, theres sort of like big, big fraud in the like Sam Bankmanfried gambled with other peoples money sense and then theres this kind of larger question about whether should stop people from gambling overall, like whether we should move towards a society where theres more gambling on everything. You can see this like way outside of crypto too. Like, i dont know if you watch any sports, youre pretty much supporting like a sports gambling industry. Now im in how you thought about sort of that second question, which is like the creation of larger and larger like gambling infrastructure the world and you as someone who covers markets as a whole how you would connect that to your previous life in street and traditional finance, which is kind of a different gambling marketplace. So i mean, i can see the appeal of gambling. Like when i was younger, i gambling, um, but i feel like when im writing finance, i want to tell people the truth about what, whats likely to go on and like i dont think it it sort of gets to like this the argument that kicks off the book im arguing with my my friend about dogecoin and he just like buy this doggy coin its going to go higher you know doggy coins pumping and im like, you know, its called dogecoin. Its dumb. Like its all the jokes played out. Its not funny. Um, and, and it did go up and he did make money. But i think im always going to be the one whos, like, the stick in the mud, thats like, hey, like day trading. Like, its a proven loser. And, like, gambling is a way to lose and, you know, if you buy board eight for 500,000, there it will not stay cool for that long and soon it will be worth like 50,000 or zero. So did you ever have like that . Like the one in there . That was interesting me is like the likely because the likely sort of turns you into a predictor of the future and the book is in some ways about how the future is really hard to predict like at one point i think you said like i kind of threw out dart at a dart board and hit a company that was going to be go up and yet tether somehow is like checking at the end like how did you think about like the oracle elements, the book particularly not knowing what world would look like when it came out. I mean, as a like longform reporter, you do sort of have to like make bets about like which characters going to be important, like who is worth spending all time with, who is worth like cultivating and trying to get access to so somebody like Sam Bankmanfried like i could tell that he was an important character in that regardless of what happened hed be a good one to hang out with and that he probably something about tether that sadly he did not tell me so even when i learned that the the first time i flew down to the bahamas to hang out with him he was very like, im sitting with him. I could see everything on his computer, like emailing with ceos. Hes got a calendar up there and i could see that he had just been with Michael Lewis and i was like, oh, lets hope that guy is not writing a book about crypto to and i. But i was like, you know what . Like whatever i, my books are different and i can even have this guy spending a lot of time. Michael lewis i think hes an important character and that he is going to play a role and like whatever happens in crypto and should be spending time with him to to. So i tried to make my plans to their flexible so that i would still have a book like no matter what happened. And can you describe the the emotions that you went through when and what you did . Fdx snapback retreats companies started to collapse so when fdx like certainly cannot claim that i predicted Sam Bankmanfried was running like a big fighter that his company would collapse um and when it did i was like a little unsure of like whether i should be writing about this or how i mean, it seems really obvious now, but i really like hamdan had a lot. Talked with top of my colleagues and then then i got a text message from somebody that was like, youre in the bahamas right now . And i was like, think to myself, no, i guess should be. So then i flew down there and arranged to to sams apartment and he, you know, holed up there has 30 million penthouse and like to he hadnt been arrested yet. You know, it was there was some question about like what happened to me. It seemed really clear there was a big fraud and that it was a matter of time before before he would not be available for more interviews, which proved wrong. Um, another bad prediction he did apparently 1000 interviews from house arrest. Um, but that was in court papers owned. But yeah, once i decided to go visit with him and see if had some side of the story to tell and if there was Something Different from like the narrative that was out there and it turned out to be like really interesting to spend time with them. When things were you know, at the end after having seen him, when you know he seemed like the next Mark Zuckerberg or something something. What did you what did you make the fact that he was i mean, before you knew that he did 1000 other interviews later, the fact that he was willing to talk to you like what was your interpretation of what what he was thinking so . My take that i dont think like we didnt have some like special relationship but i felt like he was so successful with the media on the way up like he was able to get himself on magazine covers and make himself into cryptos golden boy by being really accessible. And he had this story to tell that people really liked and when the company collapsed, i dont think it was crazy for him to. Think like, i dont know, maybe can talk my way out of this one too. Like, lets talk the reporters. And he ended up going on this big apology tour going on Good Morning America and zooming in to the dealbook conference and saying a lot of the same stuff that he had said to me. I think he may have had me over for practice. Like honestly. The show is sort of about some of the nuts and bolts of of doing this kind of work and sort of asking for maybe future stories that people end up with like this where you have a ton of people, obviously pushing the story and it appears that sandbach when freed was talking to all of them at once like how do you try to stand out in a situation like that and like how did it change the calculus of what you doing knowing that there was like seven other writers trying to write exact the same story and, varying publishing deadlines. So with that particular story, i decided that first of all, i was on my book, leave had started, but i was like, i knew businessweek like this story. I got to bring this back for and we got to publish it. We got to publish it quick and that was one where like evan was saying, i thought that i could distinguish myself because im like, youve spent a long time thinking about crypto. You what you think about this, you know what you think happened and you can say it. And i was able to press sam and i was able to i just wrote in the story things like he said this, but it didnt seem very believable for this reason and and i felt like that was not unfair because sitting with sam would also tell him that i was like, what . You just said that make that doesnt make sense to me. Or like i dont think its true for this reason. Um, so i think that, um. Yeah, knew that my story would be different because a lot of the other people who jumped into the were not that well equipped. Interrogate his responses. And also because i was on book leave, i was able to just go and talk my way into his house and i didnt to like make any proposals or anything is a weird question like whats it like reporting on someone whos in such a deep crisis that theyre like, you know, almost having like a some form of like a public breakdown in front of you. So i really we didnt communicate that much leading up to the interview. So when like i walked in really had no idea what to expect. I wasnt sure hed be all alone. Like i wasnt if hed be, like, utterly despondent. And when i met, he was really i mean, im sure was keeping up a brave face, but he seemed like exactly the same that i had, you know, six months earlier when he was, like the rich, one of the richest guys in the world and the of crypto. Um, so thats what surprised me he seemed he seemed really unfazed and i dont know if he was maybe a little delusional at that point that he was going to raise 10 billion and bail himself out. But i will say i felt like it was a really sad situation and like regardless what i thought of what sam, i was just like. I mean, the interview went on forever, and i called. I was like, im really tired. And then the because hes got all the good, steady drugs. So can i get one of those patches . But i know when i got out of there, i was just like, wow, im really looking to going back to and being with like my normal, my wife and like awesome kids and like my normal life and im, this isnt my life life. Speaking of getting back to your wife, also kids, you did a lot of for this book. You you were all over the world for this. And you also describe in a way that i really appreciate as a reporter flying somewhere and then just getting the door close in your face. And im wondering how you went about deciding where to go after the door had been closed on your face many times. Um i mean some people were really generous hosts like. I was surprised often by the people that i met that just like, let me in and talk to me. I feel like ive never, i, ive never been sad that, like i went anywhere at all. So maybe that to like, figure out something to do really like helps you come up with something. And i also worked with in most, of the countries that i went, i worked with like really amazing reporters who had either covered the topic before or have been like working, researching for me and were like pretty prepared im so that enabled me to do it a lot, a lot faster than otherwise. I dont have time to credit all of them. But when i went to the philippines i was working with gil ramos, who was like a veteran fixer, and she was just like, all right, welcome to the philippines. There have been this big crypto bubble there and this sort of pokemon ish game, and she was just like, lets go to Cabanatuan City and going to track down the first guy who played this game. And then we did. And i dont even like i like i dont speak tagalog. So like that was all her. And yeah, we were able to so some of these places i didnt i able to do it like quicker than i might have imagined. How did you think about like weaving all the different threads together to make coherent book . Because theres like is the major tether arc, theres the sbf arc and then theres all of these ways that theyre actions sort of influenced normal lives all over the world. Its a pretty sprawling story like, i dont know, like if it was a movie would be like one of those, like syriana kind movies where youre seeing it from all different angles. How did you turn that into a single narrative that was possibly the biggest challenge . And like the thing that i work the hardest at on the in the writing process and my editor, paul leitch i crowd like on so that was of his main comments when i turned in drafts like we need to weave why is the narrator from this place to that place like what is what this chapter have to do with that chapter . And im pretty proud of like how it turned out i think it like reads like a real story but that was like, i was like worst case we have like collection of entertaining essays. Best case, this is like a really good story and that was the goal that i was working on throughout all the writing and revising i feel like we get we get a lot of galleys. So a lot of times have like im like, is this a thinly veiled collection . Is this a single book . And to me, this really did feel like a single book where you kind didnt unders, you wouldnt understand, like where these ideas came from. That like led to a village in the philippines or like i kept in cambodia without of grounding yourself in like an italian surgeon has idea one theyre not plastic i shouldnt give them the full surgeon title. And the overarching mystery me that started it all. Did you feel like were you still are you still trying to solve that mystery . Do you feel like theres still a mystery . Honestly, yes. And i felt like by on this trip to cambodia, when i saw heather being used like a wallet, i rarely saw used in the real world and never seen tether for sure. Id never seen that used anywhere, even at these coin conferences. A lot of times if you tried to pay with bitcoin for like beer, theyd be like machines down. So the i get to im on a bus from Ho Chi Minh City i the border into cambodia. Im in this town notorious for for forced labor and like scam in the parking lot of one of these scam casinos where like lots of workers are being held against their will. Theres like little booth thats like trade tether for dollars and just like this, this is nice part about it being a book and not like a New York Times article. Like, to me, thats like a very mean like that doesnt prove anything. But to me im like, wow, ive been looking at this this for two years. And this where i find like the first time i see the tether logo in the real world, like i felt like i had gotten to some sort of answer, but definitely, yeah, like spoiler alert like tether hasnt crashed. Its bigger than its bigger than ever. And the company is make if you believe their numbers theyre making tons money. The Plastic Surgeon all the other top people are are billionaires and they now its because Interest Rates have gone up and they can invest in safe u. S. Treasuries and earn big returns. And like i still have my about the whole company but like i dont know ive looked into for a long time i didnt find like evidence that they were lying about their assets now and like i dont know well see happens like im not im not convinced the storys over but i cant yeah i cant control happens and ive had to call it sort of my book. Yeah. Yeah. I was just sort of like, i mean, you start sort of what the smoke around tether and as you said it it hasnt collapsed its bigger than and you know basically how much like the individual personal personality is that these people of these people behind these companies matter like the fact that these guys all have these colorful slightly scammy past its like how much of what youre doing is reading into people versus sort of like finding out things about the business and what you think looking back sort of from what you knew about these people at the beginning up till now. Yeah, i mean, i have sort of like a rule of thumb which that if somebody did like one scam, they probably another scam and like if theyre like if they did one scam in the past and now they have new thing like the odds are good its also a scam. Like its not always true, but, um, and so like that was the that was definitely like born sometimes and in crypto world like with celsius Alex Muszynski who had like this really insane past and said all sorts of crazy things. Um, but then yeah, i dont know, it wasnt always, um, and partly its because of the crypto traders react to this differently and they arent like if you, if they hear like, oh, such and such protocol, like the founder was associated with the Exchange Quadriga which failed like they wont necessarily just dump all their tokens and go put their money at jpmorgan. They might even be like, well, its kind of cool. Like hes, you know hes hes ambitious. Yeah, yeah. The normal rules didnt quite apply a while. Theyre ill do one more and then we can do some audience questions if there are some. So get those ready. But have you heard i mean theres people you describe in very colorful ways in the book thinking about brock pierce example buck pierces name. Yeah. Have you heard from any of these people about the way that they are described the book. Um. I, i dont, some of the people have read it and i havent some, but definitely theres a lot of people i havent heard from where im, im certainly like curious what they think and. Like im, im not like a heartless person. Like i really care. I feel like when i go the book, my duty is to the reader. I have to write what i think i have to tell whats really going on and. I cant worry too much about what the people involved. Will will think about. But then when i writings over, im back to being like. Im a person and i do care what they think. Um and brock someone that hes like, one of the most colorful characters, this whole world. And i think he like, enjoys being a colorful character and getting attention. So im not sure that hell like it, but hes not one who i think will sometimes some these guys like to be in the mix and to be thought of as like an important player, even if if im saying that they dressed in johnny depp cosplay. Yeah, maybe you should describe just a little bit because itll give a good flavor, the kind of character youll find in this book. Um, so mean the bahamas and my friend is like i was this party last night. It was on this yacht. It was crazy. Like, everybody was so and then like people are doing billion dollar deals over there. People are doing shots over there and like she pulls out her phone, shes like, check these videos. And she shows me one instance. A guy with long hair and a scorpion tattoo on his shoulder and hes its i know im from pictures its brock pierce whos like one of the founders tether who ive been wanting to spend time with and so i i had his contact information. Im like, hey, brock, can i come to your yacht which was like more like a mile offshore. Its like a really big, i dont know, like a 100 foot yacht or something. And like, okay. And he sends a speedboat to pick me up was really dramatic. And hes he used to be one of the stories. Hes in the mighty ducks. Hes a he was a successful child actor. So like he knows he knows from drama. Um, and im on the yacht and i see him hes addressing this, like, small crowd of people who seem kind of confused, and hes like, hes about five, five. Hes wearing a long leather vest, no shirt. Hes got diamond shape, pink sunglasses. He always wears like fedora with like playing cards it or feathers. Hes got like all sorts of flair and he talks like he talks in total riddles. When i asked him, you know, why you create tether, he was like, im a dula for creation i only take on missions. Impossible. And the funny thing is, i like hes hes, you know, he, he, he likes this, like he likes talking to reporters and saying stuff like this and i, he was one of the characters in my i wrote a businessweek story about tether before the book. Um, and afterwards i had a meeting with like a documentary producer and they were like, oh, kind of interested in like making a documentary about crypto. Nothing came of it, but theyre like really like our favorite part is this the guy who said dula for creation. Do you think he talked to . And im like, theres no way. Ill definitely like, unless you hire me like this. Theres only one way youll get to brock pierce, master zeke. But. But, yeah. Meanwhile, hes just like. He travels with a videographer just because like theres not enough cameras around. All right, do we have any audience questions . I think im going to have you look at this, mike. I ive got a question on the vc side of things. So you have firms like a c investing in acxiom infinity or simple x, etc. , at multibillion dollar valuations and in some cases like a few months, it crashes 98 . Do you have any sort insider knowledge on the terms theyre getting tokens under and whether or not theyre still turning a profit even after it completely, thats like thats really good question. And if if my book deadline had like another year that definitely wanted that to be a chapter because. Your description of this is accurate and that one. Yeah, so many of crazy ideas got back with like tons money from venture capitalists, especially andresen horowitz. One clue is that like these tokens that regular people buy as you said, have gone down lot. But based on a report in the publication, the information, the returns of Andreessen Horowitz is crypto are quite good. So like that seems like a good clue that the smart money is not buying like the same things that crypto people are buying. They must be getting in earlier or getting some sort of like good terms terms. Anyone or well keep going. All right, you have questions, just raise hand. So then the issue of the sort of ongoing nature, if i had another if i had another, if i had another chapter. Are you sick of reporting you . Obviously, youre going have to talk about crypto a lot. Now, the next coming months. But at what level are you ready . Continue reporting on or youre. Ive seen enough. I mean, im definitely ready to move on now, but i feel sad about the things that i saw much but i do the thing i regret is like the things i didnt see you know like im always like was some better crypto party that did not go to that. Maybe aaron went to yes. And like i wasnt on the day that el salvador announced adopted bitcoin the official currency when brock threw a big party and jake paul was there but there were like protests in the street where protesters were like burning like bitcoin. And im like, you know. It had occurred to me that like, maybe i should go that day, but like i have, like a job, like i have kids, like not able to just like drop things at a moments notice because theyre there might be going on. But i did feel when i got this is my first book like when i got this book deal was like, i really want to go all out and so like do i can to make this a book, great book and to find out as much as i can. Um, so i feel like ive proud of how much i did do, but id, yeah. Kick myself. I didnt do more well. The bubble is still going, you know. Now i feel like, yeah, i do feel like the storys over and i dont feel like theres im not waiting for like the next crypto cycle. Get going. What was the most surprising thing like going in sort of with the attitude that you started with what what surprised you what was not what you expected so so i mean i write in the book like this probably not what youre looking for but like i went in thinking was pretty dumb. Like i never could have guessed like depth of its stupidity and. Like i do kind of feel i do feel that way. Um, but yeah, i think i was surprised that i, you know, like some of this stuff does seem like axie infinity. This was like the pokemon game that became kind of like a crypto and it was especially popular in the philippines and. Crypto people had like really just talked about how this was going to be. This was like this was like their shining example of web3. And like i went there and im like my cabdriver had like borrowed lots of money and lost it on buying these crypto pokemon and like was really bad for like his life and yeah, i didnt really expect like i wasnt thinking, i dont know, i mean, i was expecting more like the when met people who had like lost their savings on crypto that wasnt that surprising. But to see that effect on people around world surprised me. And i was also surprised by the ability of crypto people to just like memory hole anything bad that happened and just like where you would hear about stuff and youd hear about it and then like it would fail. And that was just like as if, as if it never happened or like we knew that one was bad, you know. Are you going to attend the sbf . Trump i definitely want to definitely want to see it. I havent quite figured out how im going to write about it, but im im certainly curious. Its then what makes it most interesting for me that there is a guy in the book who i really liked, who i met was one of sbf lieutenants named nishat singh, and he just seemed the sweetest guy and like he almost seemed to me like he didnt know very much about crypto. Like he was so caught in like his workaholism and becoming a billionaire that he hadnt stopped to think much about what was going on. He had since like pleaded guilty serious crimes and is going testify. Hes supposed to testify against sam and theyve known each other since they were. So to me like, i dont know, its im im most interested in seeing like this group of friends who now are like going to be on the stand talking about each other. Theres a degree to which like a lot of these crimes are like very, very modern and also like timeless, you know, like starting a shadow bank and then the shadow bank doesnt actually have all the money. It was mostly that was like a popular thing to do in the wild west also. Yeah. Like how much of this do you think is sort of truly unique and versus like universal human like fraud themes that play out through time and often like touch on sort of novel technological developments. No, i think that a of these scams are not are not that and ive spent a lot of time writing about about penny stocks which are similar to me to a lot of like cryptocurrencies where some guy says like hey, i got this great gold mine like you know time to invest and like he doesnt really have the gold mine people invest. He sort of does some manipulation to get the stock up. And then once the stocks high, he dumps his shares and runs and like i think that explains like a i dont know do you think no i think thats very acting. I mean also like organized crime got very involved in the penny stock market as it got larger and when people see theres like easy to be made, it sort of attracts other human archetypes that exist throughout time. Thats like one of my favorite periods, wall street history. I was not there to report it, but its depicted in like one episode of the sopranos whether they call it their company their dot com company like what . Onyx what . Mystics yeah. And like thats real. Like, ive met this, im sort of like a fan, like a scam aficionado, so ill look up the guy who ran like the real live mystics and be like, you want to get a beer . Like, what are you up to days and and ill say that like these guys like to talk about their jobs like same as me. Its fun for me. Like im talking about work, you know, most of my friends are sick of about it and its, you know, this guy, the mystics guy also like wife is bored about hearing about what this so like hes ready to tell me how like he came up with sort a great story, you know, hes going to make, you know,. Five bucks a share from these suckers or whatever or better if he already did it. And but yeah, thats last one. So i mean, you described this as like, okay, im paraphrasing here, but like one of the sort of greatest media, Financial Media in human basically and now that youve written about it, do you feel like you will continue to have that that that love of scam, that interest in scams or will everything seem small in comparison to the vast target rich environment that youve just encountered . I know ive been thinking about a lot like im actually been considering stories that are totally different, dont have to do with scams, but im sure you feel that way. Like. After writing like the mastermind, like youre never going to get like a how do you top a character like paula leroux like because i really want to go into a story thinking its going to be my best story ever. Yeah i mean, i feel like the the saving is that theres always new stranger characters entering the u. S. And so the question is, are still willing to live in that world again. Oh yeah. They just need to come up with, like, cooler scams. All right. Thank you all for coming . Thanks for listening. And try to book