Most Celebrities Shill for Crypto, Ben Mckenzie Investigates it| VICE Culture Club Ep10

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:30)
You said this place was steps from the water.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:32)
We just haven't found the steps yet.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:35)
How much did we save?

**SPEAKER_5** (0:37)
Enough. Enough to get lost?

**SPEAKER_6** (0:41)
Or you could book a stay with Hilton.

**Sam Bankman-Fried** (0:43)
Welcome to your ocean front room.

**Ben McKenzie** (0:45)
Just steps from the water.

**SPEAKER_6** (0:46)
The Hilton sale is on now. Book on hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20 percent to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises, it matters where you stay.
Hilton, for the stay.

**SPEAKER_9** (1:00)
Kayak gets my flight, hotel and rental car right. So I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong.

**SPEAKER_10** (1:07)
Bro, Skycoin, way better than points.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:10)
Never fly during a Scorpio full moon.

**SPEAKER_9** (1:14)
Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with Kayak and get your trip right.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:23)
Bad advice?

**SPEAKER_9** (1:25)
You talking to me? Kayak. Got that right.

**Ben McKenzie** (1:30)
Crypto was really small at that point. It only came into existence in 2009 is when they actually put it into function. So Bach's interesting too. He does not like me.
He refers to me as a crisis actor.

**Jackson Garrett** (1:45)
Oh, we're that deep.

**Ben McKenzie** (1:47)
I mean, what are you even talking about, dude?
How does that apply to me? Do I need to be doing this? No, I don't need to be doing this, right? And anyway, it kind of to me shows his colors. You know, Mr. Bach, he might be nervous, he might be on to something.

**Jackson Garrett** (2:17)
What's up, this is VICE Culture Club. I'm your host, Jackson Garrett. I'm your guide to what's going on at VICE, and hopefully what's going on in the world this week. Got a really great interview coming up with Ben Mckenzie. He's best known for his acting roles on the OC, Gotham, Southland, but he's become one of the world's biggest crypto critics. He has testified before the Senate Banking Committee. He's written a book called Easy Money, and now he's got a documentary coming out called Everybody's Lying to You for Money. We had a really interesting conversation about NFTs, shitcoins, the guy behind who created Bitcoin, and how it's usually just used for a crime. So if you're interested in that kind of stuff, stick around, here's the interview. Ben, welcome to the show.

**Ben McKenzie** (2:54)
Thanks. Thanks for having me.

**Jackson Garrett** (2:55)
How did you get into all this? I know you started acting, and now you've been spending the last six years doing crypto.

**Ben McKenzie** (3:02)
Yeah, probably about five years since 20 Yeah, maybe even six. Jeez, oh God, that makes you feel really old. Yeah, I was an actor for a long time. Over the pandemic, I had all this time on my hands, right? Showbiz was just shut down, and I had made a bunch of TV series. I loved what I did, what I do, but I felt like I needed a new adventure, and I would just kind of tear my hair out with like, what's the next thing? Buddy of mine came to me and said I should buy Bitcoin, because Bitcoin was in the news a lot. This is like 2020, 2021, prices going up.
My buddy Dave says I should buy it, and my buddy Dave has given me terrible financial advice before he went to a wedding, and some guy said you should buy this stock in this company.

**Jackson Garrett** (3:51)
You know what stock it was? Me and my family watched your doc, and it was a blood stock of some sort, and my family also had a blood stock story.

**Ben McKenzie** (3:58)
No way, really?

**Jackson Garrett** (3:58)
Yeah, it was one called Cool, C-O-O-L.

**Ben McKenzie** (4:02)
I can't remember that might have been it.

**Jackson Garrett** (4:03)
It's probably early 2000s maybe. We might have had the same bad investment.

**Ben McKenzie** (4:06)
Yes, cool. Yeah, yeah, so anyway, when Dave came back to me in 2020, to say I should buy Bitcoin, I was like, I'm not doing that. But I am interested in it because I have a degree in economics, that's what I study in college, or one of the things I study. And I hadn't used it in show VICE, because it's the last thing people want to hear about is the dismal science over the craft service table.