It doesn’t take an Economics professor to get the vibe that cryptocurrencies are all one big scam, a bubble waiting to burst, running on the fumes of celebrity endorsements. But considering how many celebrities are signing on to the scams, perhaps we do need a celebrity endorser of No Crypto, a celebrity face of This Is All A Huge Scam. Enter Ben McKenzie, an actor-turned-anti-crypto activist. He’s working on a book called Easy Money with New Republic journalist Jacob Silverman. Ben chimes in online constantly now about how this is all a huge mess and people are going to lose a lot of money. Ben chatted with The Cut about his new calling:

His background: Before he began his TV career, McKenzie studied economics and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia. To him, cryptocurrency appeared brazenly shady, operating largely without regulation and ballooning in a pandemic economy awash with cash. He became obsessed with one of the few criminal investigations taking place: the Justice Department’s probe into tether, the largest stablecoin on the market, for bank fraud.

The scam: McKenzie has aligned with other “no-coiners,” who believe the whole scheme is a bubble on its way to bursting. The value of major coins has been dropping, and the crypto whales need to be fed by a new surge of participants — that’s where celebrities come in. Crypto is “a boring thing,” McKenzie says. “You’re trading on your phone. So the main thing you gotta do is elicit an emotional response. It’s Damon telling you, ‘You’re a wimp, come on, you can do this,’ ” a reference to Matt Damon’s crypto.com spot. “Or it’s Larry David” — in his Super Bowl ad — “saying, ‘I’m an idiot, but you, you can make a bunch of money.’”

Regular people will lose money: McKenzie thinks celebrities are going to help ensnare regular people desperate to get in on what appears to be, from the outside, a boom so big there is room for everyone. (Young people, he believes, are most vulnerable.) “Don’t worry about my buddy Dave because he’s fine,” he says. “All I really care about is that people who can’t afford to lose the money don’t lose it.”

Whether he’s worried about alienating A-list celebrities: First of all, McKenzie says, “they’re here,” putting his hand above his head to indicate a stratum of stardom, “and I’m …” He moves his hand to somewhere near his neck. Also “I’m old enough where I just don’t care anymore,” he says. He suspects most celebrities don’t actually understand what they’re helping to sell — they, too, can be lured in by the promise of a big payday (like the rumored $100 million spent on the Damon ad) or of getting in on the ground floor of something “revolutionary.” Which gives McKenzie and his econ B.A. a purpose. “I feel like a dork Liam Neeson in Taken; I have a particular skill set, and I’m using that particular skill set. I’m an econ dork, and I have a megaphone.”

On capitalism: “The stuff that I was taught in college about capitalism I don’t see in reality. The rules are much more sporadically enforced, and the outcomes are quite disparate.

[From The Cut]

I’ll admit that, as someone with a BA in Economics, I can’t really explain the ins and outs of why cryptocurrencies are a giant scam, but I know it in my gut. It’s the same way I know in my gut that celebrities have oversaturated the market with their individual makeup lines because they saw how successful Rihanna and the Kardashian-Jenners were with their lines. My point? The crypto thing is, to me, a financial fad being manipulated by the same old con artists and Ponzi schemers in $3000 suits. I’m glad Ben is doing this work, honestly. It’s really cool.

Huh https://t.co/HPVYX89gwj

— Ben McKenzie (@ben_mckenzie) March 1, 2022

Oh https://t.co/RaepX2Ca3L

— Ben McKenzie (@ben_mckenzie) February 25, 2022

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.