Former OC actor Ben McKenzie on crusade to take down 'stupid' cryptocurrency

> Crypto is really only good for gambling, betting the price of this or that crypto is going to go up or down, and, crime

Crime is a pretty broad category. Sure you can use crypto to scam people and dodge taxes, but illegal does not equal immoral. Piracy, leaking evidence of war crimes and police abuse, leaking source code to hurt controversial companies, donations to banned groups, even hosting source code for illegal tools. Not all of them benefit from crypto itself but adjacent technologies that need a blockchain like Arweave and ENS.

Then there are things like drug dealing and prostitution that have real world harms but not everyone agrees they should be criminal. It's great to have a bunch of different payment methods that can be as anonymous as cash (Monero) or fully programmable with smart wallets to protect you from scams, all without any corporate cartel that could block you.

Cyberleek is a great example for both sides of the debate. They used Solana programs and Arweave to make their site uncensorable, but also created a token donation system and market cap goals to make thousands of dollars in the process (a lot for someone probably based in Russia). Is it all morally wrong, or all right, or only wrong for the money side?

It's Jim Gordon btw, nobody watched the OC surely.

Celebs having opinions that get amplified because they're celebs is simply embarrassing all round for everyone.

No idea what the OC is, but the guy looks familiar.

its largely a scam yes, but that doesnt mean it has no utility. Happy for it to get this sort of marketing tho.

Every time an individual blanket labels the entirety of Cryptocurrency as a "Ponzi Scheme" just reveals their lack of knowledge. Plenty of them are, and plenty of them aren't in the fact that they aren't scams, or don't even fit the definition of a Ponzi. He can try to pry my Monero from my cold, dead hands.

Though I've never heard of The O.C., but I'm sure there comes yet another comedy from the actor.

Don't call it that [0]

[0] - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s78adWHXQ8U

Somebody should probably let him know about this site:

tftc.io

I'd be educational for him, I would think :)

Original ABC article, including video of interview: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-24/ben-mckenzie-cryptocu...

I turned off when he said that Bitcoin is issued by corporations. The interviewer calls him out on it and he doubles down. That's blatantly false, and indicates poor research and / or poor understanding.

It may be true for plenty of other cryptocurrencies, but it's definitely not true for some, including Bitcoin. In fact, 99% of cryptocurrencies are scams, but that's because they can now be created in seconds with little knowledge or skill.

Feels like he's pushing an agenda, especially with the use of the term 'corporations'. Which is amusing, since it's the lack of trust of big-finance that (so the story goes) led to the creation of Bitcoin in the first place - the 2007 GFC in particular. Although electronic money was being dabbled with since the mid-late 90s, and that base formed the foundation of what Bitcoin was built on.

This is probably just advertising for his documentary, really.