Ben McKenzie Says Crypto Has a Secret Ingredient: Male Loneliness

Ben McKenzie had a question: “When did WIRED die?” Specifically, the actor-director wanted to cognize erstwhile did WIRED “‘DIE,’ each caps.”

McKenzie wasn’t asking for himself; helium was engaging successful the time-honored personage contented of speechmaking mean tweets. Although, successful this case, the entity wasn’t himself truthful overmuch arsenic the work hosting the event. McKenzie, who famously played Ryan connected The O.C. earlier becoming a starring dependable of crypto skepticism, was sharing the signifier with WIRED elder analogous Andy Greenberg for the archetypal of what volition hopefully beryllium a bid of smaller events that we are calling WIRED@Night.

Last Thursday, astir a 100 radical gathered astatine lawsuit spouse Ace Hotel Brooklyn to sip drinks from Aplos, Faccia Brutto, The Sorting Table, and Manojo and ponder the aboriginal of cryptocurrency.

McKenzie, coauthor of Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud, has a caller autarkic documentary successful theaters called Everyone Is Lying to You For Money. Greenberg, who often writes astir crypto scams, talked to him astir scenes from the publication and movie, successful which McKenzie traveled to places similar crypto hub El Salvador to recognize wherefore the exertion inactive has truthful overmuch entreaty contempt its less-than-stellar reputation.

One of McKenzie’s explanations? Male loneliness. “It’s the longing for community, existent community,” McKenzie said, noting that crypto exists online arsenic a benignant of utmost gambling, thing that truly exploded into the mainstream during the Covid-19 pandemic. Here’s to much IRL antidotes to that benignant of integer isolation.