Ben McKenzie

And we wrote different articles for different places like the Washington Post and

intercept and places like that and we were doing it to do our research but also to prove our bona fides to sell a book we sold a book proposal and we went out in 2022 to actually go into the real world again we're getting out of the pandemic and back into irl and we were going to south by southwest in austin to give like a talk and i should just turn a camera on it's not that expensive i'll just ask my agent find me some guy with a camera and a sound pack the worst is i'm out 750 and the first day

We show up at South by we're on the floor of the convention center.

And I see a booth for this company called Celsius, which is super sketchy already because it's like, give us your crypto.

We'll give you this return on your crypto.

It's really high rate of return.

It's like 15%.

That's like literally the definition of a Ponzi scheme or one of the definitions of a Ponzi scheme or one of the tells of a Ponzi scheme.

And yet they were operating, they were being sued by the Texas securities regulator at that time, but it hadn't been adjudicated yet.

So they still could technically sell their customers on it.

And I look at the booth and I'm just like, and then I look over the other side of the room and there's the CEO.

Just like Alex Mashinsky.

He's sitting with these other guys.

And then I'm like, well, I got to do this, right?

And he can't answer me because he's like, we're the opposite of bank.

We're about the community.

He's a Ukrainian.

I can't went to his accent, but he's like, we were about the, I am going to do it.

Apologies to any Ukrainian friends.

I'm a big pro Ukrainian.