0:34CI’ve made hundreds of coins since then to understand not only the technology, but what it does to the people who use it. However, I start with who I am because this is not about me, except for the perspective from which I offer that which follows. In 2014, I stated that cryptocurrencies would find a global revolution. As I pen this in 2021, it’s hard to argue that this hasn’t been the case. The increased demand for justice, fairness, and dismantling systemic inequality has coincided with a spike in the adoption and use of cryptocurrencies among consumers. The pandemic may have provided the environment for protest, but it certainly didn’t pay for it.
0:34CRacist oppressors would have one believe decades-old unfounded conspiracy tropes when the reality is far easier And more likely, the explosion in value created by an increased Bitcoin price and the advent of decentralized finance created the retail financial freedom which provided the ability to contribute to mutual aid and therefore add meaningful energy to the demand for and manifestation of actual change. I can say unequivocally that any change we see in the world from cryptocurrency comes not from the technology but what it empowers people to do within their own lives. The opportunity for the Black diaspora in America and around the world should be obvious. Cryptocurrency enables the ability to conduct commerce with the morals and ethos which are valued by the community which uses it.
3:00Kamal HubbardSo Bryce, what do you think about when you hear those words, your words, that are in the foreword of my book?
3:08Bryce WeinerIt is a little awkward, but it reminds me of why we are here and what is really important in what we are doing. I keep a copy around just to show you off to people when they are like, hey, I know this guy, he wrote this book. You should buy it because it is probably one of the best primers on DeFi and how it can help disenfranchised communities that I’ve ever seen.
3:40Kamal HubbardYeah, thanks. I appreciate that. I appreciate you writing that too. So can you also --
3:46Bryce WeinerThank you for the opportunity.
3:47Kamal HubbardOh, hey, I didn’t think there was anybody else that I knew who was -- who shared as much knowledge about this technology in this industry as you have. So I just thought it was the most appropriate move for me to make. That aside, obviously we know each other well, but can you tell our audience a little bit about yourself?
4:12Bryce WeinerUm, I’ve been around crypto since there’s been crypto. Uh, I’ve, I mean, I’ve made more altcoins than probably, uh, anyone else on the planet, um, and monetized them and, you know, analyzed, you know, everything from the technology of, of cryptocurrency to the markets I kind of jokingly call myself a cryptocurrencyologist, um, because I kind of forgotten more than most people will ever know about this stuff. So, you know, uh, we -- Kamal and I have, uh, known each other for years and years, uh, in this business. And, uh, so I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and your audience once again, sir. It’s definitely an honor.
4:56Kamal HubbardYeah, well, thanks again for taking time out. And what can be said about FTX? There’s so much coverage that’s taken place so far, uh, but really this show is about all these bubbling conspiracy theories that, you know, different factions have grabbed a hold of and are beginning to propagate. Unfortunately. So I really wanted to start with everyone’s favorite. Well, I mean, let’s, let’s maybe not start with everyone’s favorite, but there’s so many, uh, facets to this. There’s sex, there’s drugs, and crypto.
5:44Bryce WeinerOh, it’s got everything. Yeah, this is -- this one’s got it all. And, and so that, you know, we’re gonna -- and so I think the thing that everyone should recognize is that we’re all going to end up suffering from SBF and FTX fatigue after a while, because we’re going to be hearing about this for the next year. It looks like this bear cycle is going to extend out for another 9, 10 months. Guess what we’re going to be listening to the whole time? More and more outrageous revelations coming out of FTX. That’s all. I mean, that, that’s literally the next 10 months of our existence in crypto. So we all might as well just get used to it. I mean, and we’re all going to be tired of it. I’m tired of hearing about it already. But boy, is it exciting when -- because some of this stuff coming out, it, like you said, it’s got all of the elements of a Netflix, you know, a Netflix movie right off the bat. Sex, drugs, and lots and lots of money. So, uh, you know, the, the appeal of it is why this has gone unfortunately mainstream in the worst way possible.
6:53Kamal HubbardYes, you’re right. I think crypto’s collapse is definitely going -- this cycle’s collapse is definitely going to be, uh, attributed to SBF and solely him.
7:10Bryce WeinerOh yeah, he’s going to own it. Yeah, and it’s not because it’s, you know, when we talk about how everything started, it was Do Kwon. And there’s a lot, you know, when you talk about conspiracy theories, the first one is how did this all start? And there’s been a lot of effort to try and pin this on SBF from way back in April of this year when things really started to go pear-shaped. And that’s a mistake. That is absolutely a mistake and it’s factually incorrect. SBF did not convince Do Kwon to raid the Terra treasuries. Luna collapsed because Do Kwon stole that money. Then as a result, 3AC collapsed.
7:10Bryce WeinerThen FTX went stop hunting on 3AC’s orders, shorting them all the way into the floor. FTX picked up contagion. Then on top of it, on top of just picking up natural contagion, they ended up being who they are. It was the destabilization of Luna and 3AC that started to get the whole house of cards over at FTX teetering on a precipice. Then CZ just yelled, fire. There’s this video circulating that I love, from The Office when it’s, today smoking is going to save lives. And every time I watch it, I just die laughing because that is exactly what happened in these markets. Just tossed a cigarette into a trash can and went, oh, look, a fire.
8:46Kamal HubbardYeah, I caught that video. I think maybe just for the sake of the audience, let’s take a step back. We know what a lot of these abbreviations are, but some people don’t. FTX, when people hear FTX, all that, that was the name of the exchange. I don’t know what FTX actually stood for other than, I don’t know, who knows?
9:16CYeah.
9:17Kamal HubbardBut when we’re talking about SBF, we’re talking about Sam Bankman-Fried.
9:23Bryce Weinerthe CEO. And, and it’s important because in the, in the documents that just came out this last week that were filed with bankruptcy courts, it’s important to note that when we say SBF and Sam Bankman-Fried, he owned 90% of every company we’re talking about, be it Alameda Research or FTX, the exchange arm. Um, and he was CEO of FTX. So, you know, when we say SBF, he is where the buck stops. There’s no arguing that there were other people that had any sort of executive authority other than him because he owned everything. And they didn’t have any board meetings. So, you know, they’re an LLC. Um, I’m not sure what they were, but they, they didn’t have any board meet -- yeah, I, I don’t -- they didn’t have any board meetings at all. They kept no corporate records. They don’t even have a list of employees. There is literally no documentation inside this company whatsoever, and Enron had better accounting.
10:27Kamal HubbardYou also mentioned Do Kwon. Can you tell folks who Do Kwon was?
10:36Bryce WeinerDo Kwon is a Korean gentleman who was the leader of the Luna Protocol. There was a stablecoin that was backed by BTC. The whole point of it was you buy BTC, you put it in a stablecoin, then suddenly your BTC is worth more, and then you buy more, etc. Great plan, except he stole all the money. All of the Bitcoin that was supposed to be bought off the market and held is gone. So with that being said, you know, it was just straight theft. Like, he’s wanted by the authorities in South Korea for those things, and he’s literally on the run from the police. I think he’s hiding in Europe somewhere and doing podcasts.
10:36Bryce WeinerLike, he was just on some show doing a podcast with Martin Shkreli. And it’s like, these people are crazy. They have no, you know, they have no sort of self-awareness whatsoever. So, you know, Do Kwon is a crook that earlier this year began the collapse of the crypto markets by literally stole the Bitcoin and then dumped it on the markets. And that’s what crashed the price. I mean, that’s literally what did it. We can look at it, we can see it on the blockchain, we can trace it directly from the Luna accounts to exchanges. It was just utterly shameless. There was no effort to hide it whatsoever, just completely liquidated all the BTC that was there and kept the money.
10:36Bryce WeinerThat $8 billion hole, and you notice the $8 to $10 billion is the number that keeps rolling around, because it created a black hole. Suddenly, markets collapsed, and options and futures markets collapsed, and people lost millions and millions of dollars, including hedge funds, which is one of the other abbreviations I mentioned was 3AC. 3 Arrows Capital was a hedge fund that was invested in Luna. When it collapsed, 3AC was overleveraged, and it collapsed. That’s what we call contagion, when we have one financial institution which has a critical failure, and it has a cascade effect on all of its business partners. Then Three Arrows Capital collapsed.
10:36Bryce WeinerIn these times of market turmoil, if you are a shrewd market participant, you can make money by pushing a collapsing company over the edge. And that’s when -- that’s what FTX did. So when Three Arrows Capital started to teeter on the edge of the precipice, FTX started making money poking at them and pushing them over the edge. Turnaround, 6 months later, FTX had that same scenario happen to them because they began to teeter on the edge. Then Changpeng Zhao, the CZ, the CEO of Binance Exchange, the largest in the world, started to poke at him, and it pushed them over the edge. FTX is probably where the contagion stops.
10:36Bryce WeinerThis was a clique of individuals. Bitcoin is very cliquish. This was just one clique in high school. This was like if the jocks all got suspended all at the same time for doing something stupid. The high school still happens. Everyone else still goes on. All of the other extracurricular activities are still there, but there’s no football season. That’s what happened with FTX. It just took out one section of the market, and we just have to wait to see how far that spreads.
14:40Kamal HubbardRight. I appreciate that background. And really what that does is that puts us at a fork in the road where a lot of people say, hey, this whole thing that happened with FTX was a deep state psychological operation, psyop. Right. I see you laughing because this is the stuff that’s on the internet nowadays. Right?
15:09Bryce WeinerNo, you’re right. And what we talk about here is You know, most people have heard of Occam’s razor, which is the simplest explanation is usually the best. There’s another called Hanlon’s razor, which says, do not attribute to malice that which can be easily explained by stupidity. And so, you know, first you have to have the simplest explanation, and then you have to have the one where it’s either conspiracy, malice, or it’s just people being stupid.
15:42Cgreedy.
15:42Bryce WeinerAnd the facts really aren’t there to support a conspiracy like that. You know, they gave -- and, and, you know, the, the, the conspiracy alt-right has been trying to make fetch happen with this for about, well, ever since it happened. And you’ll see varieties of anti-Semitic memes pop up and trying to tie it to Ukraine and, and saying there was money laundering. which, by the way, there’s no evidence of any -- see, to launder money, it has to go out of your left pocket and into your right pocket. And, you know, it makes it look like it does stuff in the middle, so it just doesn’t look like you’re shuffling the money around.
15:42Bryce WeinerThe money never comes back out of Ukraine. That’s where the whole money laundering thing falls down. There was a partnership between FTX and the government of Ukraine to convert cryptocurrency donations into fiat, but just collecting FTX’s regular fees. There was no extra money changing hands. The amount of money that Ukraine collected was like $100 million, and FTX takes like 0.125% or something like that. It was just executing a regular trade. And they didn’t charge any greater fees than that. That was the appeal of it to the Ukraine, because the Ukraine gets to keep more of the money than if they use PayPal or some other system.
15:42Bryce WeinerWell, and the Ukraine, by the way, has been -- has had Bitcoin legislation on the books since like 2016. They have already had government scandals about politicians in the government. This is pre-Zelensky. politicians in the government laundering money for criminals using Bitcoin and passing legislation that allowed them to do that. They have already gone through things that the US has not even seen yet. To raise questions like, well, what is the Ukraine doing messing with Bitcoin in the middle of a war? Well, the Ukraine is more Bitcoin savvy than the United States, and has been for years. long before Putin invaded. There is a better argument to say that Putin is invading to try and get a hold of Ukrainian Bitcoin.
15:42Bryce WeinerThat is a much better argument than to say, well, what is Ukraine doing messing with Bitcoin in the first place? They are way better at it than we are. With that being said, I am sorry, go ahead.
18:10Kamal HubbardWell, yeah, I will go back to the reference in The Fork in the Road once we talk about the deep state psyop, uh, funny business, right? People will say, well, what about Gary Gensler, you know, and his connection to SBF and his family and FTX?
18:32Bryce WeinerYeah, and that’s a function of the MIT mafia. You know, there’s a -- there’s the, uh, the, the digital currency something group up there, and they’ve had shady ties going all the way back to Brock Pierce and Epstein. So we have a media group, I think it’s MIT Media Group. So they’re no strangers to controversy in recent years. And so what we’re seeing now is an additional controversy within those same circles, where the dean, I think, of the economics department is the -- and you need like a chart to graph all the relationships here. But Sam Bankman-Fried’s girlfriend is a girl named Caroline Ellison. Her father is the Dean of Economics at MIT.
18:32Bryce WeinerGary Gensler is a professor at MIT of economics. So, you know, in the academic hierarchy, Caroline Ellison’s dad is her -- is Gary Gensler’s boss. But Gary is also Chairman of the SEC. So what we -- what it shows is, you know, white people being white people and taking advantage of the system and the privilege they were born into in order to create chaos and mayhem and steal money from everybody else. Like, I, you know, it is what it is. Same old song and dance. And there’s nothing new here in this entire -- cryptocurrency is utterly irrelevant. to, to the crimes that were committed. Utterly irrelevant. Theft is theft.
18:32Bryce WeinerThe, the lies are lies. Fraud is fraud. And the cryptocurrency played absolutely no role in this other than happened to be where it transpired.
