As I sit here enjoying a nice Manhattan (yes, it’s the middle of the day – don’t judge me!) after such an engaging interview with Ben Mckenzie about his new book: Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism and The Golden Age of Fraud, I can’t help but reflect on what I just learned about the Crypto industry.

You see from the very beginning I never understood the utility of crypto “currencies” or how they could ever be scalable for real-world applications – the Blockchain, sure, okay, however, it already existed, so the scalability and utility of it all was completely lost on me. As a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU), I take my fiduciary duties very seriously, so when I had many clients (some who did not have the risk tolerance or liquidity to invest in such an instrument) start investing in Crypto as an easy way to make money, alarm bells started to ring; immediately I thought of Tulip Mania in Holland in 1636……Google it, it’s a great read and you’ll understand how it’s applicable.

Obviously, to try and understand what my clients are investing in I started asking questions. Questions like:
· What is it?

· How is this a currency?

· How is it even scalable?

· More importantly, what’s the security like?

I then would get answers like:

Currie, it’s the new future of money. Currie, It’s a currency because people say it is Currie. The blockchain is so powerful. Hahaha, Currie, you don’t understand the code.

I was not comfortable at all with this. I was growing more and more frustrated hearing about people losing money due to hackers/scammers and people “dying” mysteriously. So, obviously, once I saw Ben McKenzie, yes, a former actor from the drama “The O.C.” I was cautiously optimistic that he would utilize his star power to shed some light on this “industry” that was the craze.

After reading his book, TWICE, not only did Ben and his writing partner Jacob Silverman do such an amazing job on their research into the corruption in the industry, I learnt so much more and quite frankly it is WORSE than what I could have ever imagined! Hence the Manhattan.

If you’re reading this now, obviously you have normal questions, like:

Are you and Ben now best friends?

Tune in to find out, likely, however, no.

I mean even if we did become friends it would somewhat resemble the Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney friendship, except I am Canadian and he is a famous actor similar to Ryan Reynolds

Ben has all the fame and money and at the very best I would “try” and be Rob McElhenney of the duo. Although I don’t own a Welsh football team and I have never written, produced, directed and acted in my own show……if you haven’t seen “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” you should. Also, watch “Welcome to Wrexham” on Disney it’s a real tear-jerker for sports fans.

To summarize, Ben ripped apart the Crpyto scam in our 45-minute chat and that conversation comes out this Tuesday at 11 am. It’s a real good one and an unfortunate reality check. Crypto bros look away.

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