Digital Social Hour
Ray Trapani: How I Lost $800,000,000 in Crypto and Survived Prison | DSH #1585
24 Oct 2025
Chapter 1: What challenges did Ray face during his probation?
If Centra happened under Trump, we would have never got arrested.
Chapter 2: How did the Netflix documentary about Centra Tech come about?
They removed the whole crypto SEC regulation force. They removed it.
Chapter 3: What impact did the documentary have on Ray's life?
Right now, Centra would be like, if anything, one of the most legitimate projects in the space. Centra was way more legit than all these coins. Trump would have probably invited you to the White House.
Okay, guys, we got Ray out here in Las Vegas. He's from the BitCon documentary. I'm sure you guys might have seen it or at least heard of it. It was number one on Netflix for a while. Thanks for making the trip finally, man. Thanks.
Chapter 4: What led to the downfall of Centra Tech and its scandal?
Thanks for having me. Yeah, I know you were dealing. We were trying to set this up, but you were on probation still, right?
Yeah.
Chapter 5: How did the opioid epidemic influence Ray's story?
And like while on probation, like I just didn't want to like talk about like the full picture of everything. And, you know, I just didn't want to like upset. Like you always worry that you like upset the PO and somehow it comes back to you.
yeah but now you're free huh yeah you can say whatever you want a couple months a couple months off probation it's crazy like i still feel like i'm on probation because it was eight years of probation eight years yeah so you had to tell him every time you left the house right
Nah, I was, like, the first two years, basically, I was on house arrest, and then they give you curfew, but then I had that off.
Chapter 6: What was Ray's turning point during his arrest?
It was only, like, if I traveled out of state, but still, like, everything was monitored. Like, I'd have to explain, like, any single, like, if I went to, I took my kids to Disney, I would have to tell them how I paid for Disney. Wow. You know, so, like, any single little thing, I would have to tell them exactly how I did it, how I afforded it, you know, so, like, it just... Holy crap.
Chapter 7: How did Ray navigate his legal representation?
It was just, like, you know, having someone view every single thing you do is just... That awful situation.
That's nuts. How did the documentary come about when you first got approached for that? Were you pretty hesitant to share that story and everything?
Uh, no, like realistically it was during COVID. What happened was during COVID, I was so bored. And then like my boy hit me up because everybody was just laid off and like doing nothing. And then like, uh, we started writing a book. So I just started going to his house every day, one of my best friends.
And we were just like, basically like we'd record for like an hour and a half, like tried like chapter by chapter. And then we'd like, just write out exactly what we recorded and then just like move on to the next chapter. Then through trying to sell the book. basically we, we got an agent and then that agent just like randomly was like, Oh, this, you know, person wants to interview.
They're connected to Netflix. I did that. Like, and it was funny. Like I did it, like I dressed up like real proper suit and tie and everything like pretty much like, like, like, yeah, like a reformed criminal, you know? Yeah. And, uh, And then like right away, like within weeks, they were like reaching out to do a deal and try to like, you know, figure out how to do a documentary.
And then like, it was, it was crazy. Cause like they liked it so much that they like a lot of documentaries are done by other production companies and sold to Netflix. This was like a deck, like fully funded by Netflix. Wow.
That's pretty rare.
So they push it harder.
Yeah. Holy crap.
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Chapter 8: What insights does Ray provide on the current state of cryptocurrency regulation?
So, oh, so you wanted this to come out. You were ready to share everything.
Yeah. Yeah. Like I was like, cause like the thing is, is when you, when you get like, uh, in trouble, like how I got in trouble, like I cooperated. So you admit to all your crimes already. Right. So there wasn't like anything I had to hold back as far as crimes go. You know what I mean? Like I was just able to like, kind of say every single crime I ever did. And like, I knew.
that in all reality like i was saying it was a scam on tv right it wasn't like i was like denouncing the scam it was the same thing that i said like you know in court and everything like that so uh i i knew that like it wasn't gonna hurt me and i knew it was like kind of At that time, I was struggling. They basically had seized all my assets. So I was trying to just make my way back.
And it really did work out for me. It helped me out a lot. Nice. How did you feel about the reception of how the viewers took it? What was crazy about the documentary was the first cut they sent me. And it was very Wolf of Wall Street. They put in the party stories, the orgies, the crazy stories like that. And, like, that was fun. Like, it was, like, they lionized me in a way.
Like, Wolf of Wall Street, like, he's still lionized. He's not even looking at, like, a bad guy. 100%. And then, like, they send it to, like, a group of, like, 100 people that Netflix picks.
Hmm.
And when they send that to the 100 people, basically they rate it and they say how they feel. And then they never showed me a second cup before they put it out. So I was just waiting to see it come out. And then when it came out, it was just fully demonizing me. They took out all the fun parts. They took out the part that we actually finished building the tech.
Like all like the finalized part, like people don't realize that, but like we put 50 million into the development, even though like we raised the money illegally and we lied when we were raising the money. So like the indictment, people don't realize the indictment is all about like how we raised the money.
It wasn't like what we did after the fact and how we tried to clean it up and do the right thing after the fact. It was all about how we raised the money and rightfully so like. You know, so like they didn't paint like the true story. They painted it just like old. If you watch any documentary about crypto on Netflix, it's all about like trying to make it look like a scam.
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