Crypto Critics' Corner (Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin)

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss Cas' trip to Hong Kong in search of the ethereal Bitfinex headquarters, how and why exchanges continue to try to get away with existing nowhere, and what it means for consumers.

Bennett and Cas are joined by Nikhilesh De of CoinDesk to discuss the ongoing trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, and specifically the testimony of Gary Wang and Caroline Ellison.

Additional resources:

CoinDesk coverage of the trial

https://www.coindesk.com/tag/sbf-trial/

Nik's newsletter about the trial

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/10/13/things-sbfs-defense-lawyers-should-be-freaking-out-about/

Bennett's newsletter about the trial

https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?u=16a900a42513fb7998acad86d&id=4f3209dbfb

Protos coverage of the trial

https://protos.com/sbftrial/

Business Insider Alameda Research All Hands call

https://www.businessinsider.com/alameda-all-hands-meeting-caroline-ellison-shut-down-audio-2023-10

Liz Lopatto Article: 'Sam Bankman-Fried is a Terrible Boyfriend'

https://www.businessinsider.com/alameda-all-hands-meeting-caroline-ellison-shut-down-audio-2023-10

Sketch of Caroline from Nik

https://twitter.com/nikhileshde/status/1711886306131812441

This video was recorded on October 15th, 2023.

Bennett and Cas are joined by Travis Kimmel to discuss the purpose and role of venture capital.

This video was recorded on May 9th, 2024.

In this episode Bennett and Cas discuss what's being termed "shillfluencers," or influencers, celebrities, and other individuals with wealth and power, who use their "influence" to "shill" their investments. There's plenty of people - including billionaires (Elon) and has-beens (Soulja Boy) - who continue to take advantage of their ability to manipulate markets, to the point where it feels like a societal sickness.

But will there be consequences?

Bennett and Cas are joined by Danny Nelson of CoinDesk to discuss the ongoing trial of Sam Bankman-Fried and the testimony of Nishad Singh and Can Sun.

CoinDesk coverage of the trial

https://www.coindesk.com/sam-bankman-fried-trial-live-coverage-news/

Danny Nelson's newsletter about accounting Santa Clause

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/10/19/judge-kaplans-ire-hits-all-lawyers-in-the-sam-bankman-fried-case/

Danny article about Nishad Singh cross

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/10/19/judge-kaplans-ire-hits-all-lawyers-in-the-sam-bankman-fried-case/

Protos coverage of the trial

https://protos.com/sbftrial/

Sam Bankman-Fried on Good Morning America

https://youtu.be/0Hxf4Vf54PI

Sam Bankman-Fried's defense finally wakes up

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/17/23921745/sam-bankman-fried-nishad-singh-house-loan

This video was recorded on October 19th, 2023.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined again by Ed Zitron to discuss how the media and users can fight back against tech deterioration.

Additional resources:

Better Offline

Where's your Ed at?

Ed's Bluesky

The article by Ed discussed during the episode

This episode was recorded on January 3rd, 2025.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey reflect on a fraud that began in the 1980s and ended when the Dot-Com Bubble burst: WorldCom. Are there applicable comparisons to cryptocurrency and securities markets of today? (Hint: Yes.)

Bennett and Cas talk about the most recent scam that's been omnipresent on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media outlets: the verification scam.

If you've spent any time on Twitter or Instagram, you'll have noticed verified accounts with tens or hundreds of thousands of followers that are spam liking tweets (usually about NFTs). But there's a lot more to the story than a simple compromised account. Let's talk about the thriving ecosystem of compromised verified accounts, engagement farming, and public relations firms that all work together to make our lives worse.

This episode was recorded on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022.

Bennett and Cas are joined by Corey Frayer to discuss Gary Gensler's SEC and the limits of regulation.

Additional Resources

Change in SEC rules

This episode was recorded on February 8th, 2025.

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by David Z. Morris to discuss what happened at Enron, the ramifications of its downfall, and how the climate during Enron relates to today.

If you'd like to hear more from David visit his website http://www.davidzmorris.com/ 

his twitter profile https://twitter.com/davidzmorris

or subscribe to his substack http://davidzmorris.substack.com

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by Molly White to discuss Andreessen Horowitz GP Chris Dixon's new book: Read, Write, Own.

Read Molly's review of Dixon's book here and check out her archival cryptocurrency news site here.

Read Protos' article about how a16z gamed the NYT Bestseller List here.

Read Motherboard's article about how many copies of Read, Write, Own were bulk purchased here.

This episode was recorded on February 10th, 2024.

Bennett and Cas discuss DJT, which is not Donald Trump's official token, and it seems likely Barron will not even claim this mess that Martin Shkreli embroiled them all in.

Protos Reporting on DJT

Cas' Op-Ed on Pirate Wires

Daniel Kuhn's Article for The Block

This video was recorded on June 22nd, 2024.

Today Bennett and Cas are proud to have Francine McKenna, former auditor, current journalist, and soon to be professor at Wharton, to talk to us about all the problems with auditing, cryptocurrencies, and, let's face it, Tether's totally garbage attestations.

Francine's newsletter: https://thedig.substack.com

The Chickenshit Club by Jesse Eisinger: https://www.amazon.com/Chickenshit-Club-Department-Prosecute-Executives/dp/1501121375/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Dave Michaels' article on The Big Four: https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-four-accounting-firms-come-under-regulators-scrutiny-11647364574

Today Bennett and Cas discuss Reginald Fowler, a former part-owner of the Minnesota Vikings and co-owner of Crypto Capital Corp - cryptocurrency's shadow bank of choice for years. Reggie recently pled guilty to numerous counts of... we'll just say financial malfeasance, and now faces up to 90 years in prison.

For background on Crypto Capital Corp, listen to episode six of Crypto Critics' Corner: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crypto-critics-corner/id1557045965?i=1000523117384

For a read about Ravid Yosef, read this piece by Cas: https://thecaspiancey.medium.com/that-time-an-internet-nobody-tracked-a-woman-on-the-hook-for-850-million-and-then-let-her-get-d5d93149c837

Today Bennett and Cas rant about the ineffectiveness of the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and its mostly failure fraught 87-year history.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss the deteriorating situation in the United States, including the press conference by David Sacks, the destruction of the SEC, the future of crypto legislation, and the ongoing takeover of the federal government by freaks.

Additional resources:

Wired reporting on the names

Reuters reporting on the SEC:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/secs-republican-led-commission-tightens-oversight-probes-sources-say-2025-02-02/

Additional episodes mentioned in this episode:

Episode 161 – Is there one good regulator between the SEC and the CFTC? (feat. Sean Tuffy)

Episode 162 – Humiliate your local billionaire (feat. Ed Zitron)

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by Mario Gibney, host of the Unhashed Podcast and employee at a Bitcoin lending service called Ledn. We debate pre-philanthropic billionaires, lending services in the Bitcoin and DeFi industries, and other weird topics.

Follow Mario on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Mario_Gibney

This episode was produced by Asher Hirsch.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss Tether's ability to survive and grow, as well as how they have found safety in Donald Trump's future administration.

Read more here.

Additional resources:

Bloomberg reporting on Bank Fraud

Wall Street Journal reporting on Tether sanctions violation

This video was recorded on November 23rd, 2024.

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by Jonathan Reiter and Patrick Tan of ChainArgos to discuss Prime Trust, TrueUSD, stablecoins, and offshore finance.

This episode was recorded on Tuesday, June 27th, 2023

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss the lawsuit filed against Binance and Changpeng Zhao by the CFTC. This video was streamed live on March 27th, 2023. Additional resources:

Complaint https://www.cftc.gov/media/8351/%20en...

Coverage of the complaint https://protos.com/cftc-lawsuit-again...

In this episode, Bennett and Cas discuss the confusing concept of what a "Tether redemption" would look like: an ever-shifting definition built on a stablecoin with an ever-shifting definition of what 1-1 backed by traditional fiat currency means.

Though we haven't seen an actual Tether redemption shown on Twitter, or otherwise, for the world to see, we look forward to someone coming forward with one shortly!

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin discuss the executive order signed by Donald Trump.

You can read the executive order yourself here. This episode was livestreamed on January 24th, 2024.

Today Bennett and Cas talk about what's going on with the Ooki DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization), why the CFTC is suing them, and why it's okay that Ooki DAO is not okay.

This episode was recorded on Tuesday, September 27th, 2022 and edited by Bennett Tomlin.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by the portfolio manager and chief strategist for Simplify Asset Management, Michael Green (on Twitter @profplum99).

In one of our most wide-ranging discussions, we had the opportunity to pick Mike's brain on what inflation means for the U.S. and the world, how the Fed should respond, the Canadian Trucker Convoy / Protest, and what all of it might mean for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.

Mike specifically mentions The Trades of March 2020, a book by Alex Gurevich, available here: https://www.amazon.com/Trades-March-2020-against-Uncertainty-ebook/dp/B09NX372KG

This episode was recorded on Thursday, February 17th, 2022.

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin are joined by Cynthia Cooper and Daren Firestone to discuss the history of one of the largest corporate frauds ever, Worldcom, and what it means to be a whistleblower. This video was recorded on October 13th, 2022.

Additional resources: Cooper Group http://www.coopergroupllc.com/index.php Extraordinary Circumstances https://a.co/d/9O4C9Vz Levy Firestone Muse https://www.levyfirestone.com/ cryptowhistleblower.com https://cryptowhistleblower.com/ Cynthia Cooper's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiaco... Daren Firestone Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/daren-fir...

Today Bennett and Cas talk about a civil suit brought by a former contracted employee of Celsius Network against the entity itself claiming that Celsius Network has, effectively, been run as a Ponzi scheme (and doesn't have the funds to pay back its debts).

This episode was recorded on July 7th (before Celsius Network filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection) and was produced by Asher Hirsch.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by two Salvadoran natives - Mario Gómez, a developer who was arrested in El Salvador for voicing criticism about the Bitcoin bill, and Oscar Salguero, a senior software engineer who has been traveling to and from El Salvador, testing the limits of the cryptocurrency remittance services.

Para nuestros oyentes en español, hay una transcripción disponible aquí: https://cryptocriticscorner.com/2022/03/29/episode-63-we-need-to-talk-about-el-salvador-feat-mario-gomez-and-oscar-salguero/#spanish-transcript

This is an incredible episode.

If you want to follow Mario on Twitter, please click here: https://twitter.com/mxgxw_alpha

If you want to follow Oscar on Twitter, please click here: https://twitter.com/OscarSalguero (or his website https://oscarsalguero.dev)

Here are some of the articles and stats referenced during the episode:

https://video.vice.com/da/video/gangs-of-el-salvador-part-1/5633b710023f0a102ad05e14

https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vk5x/nayib-bukele-ms13-murder-rate

https://camarasal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/SondeoEmpresarial35422_FINAL10032022.pdf

https://diario.elmundo.sv/economia/solo-el-14-de-las-empresas-reporta-ventas-en-bitcoin-segun-encuesta

This episode was recorded on Thursday, March 24th, 2022

Today Bennett and Cas have the distinct privilege to have on Molly White, the creator and maintainer of www.web3isgoinggreat.com - a beautiful showcase of all the disastrous projects that have plagued the Web3 ecosystem thus far. We ask Molly why so many grifters are interested in blockchains, her goals with her website, and why the Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Jamie Dimon are paying her billions to FUD cryptocurrency.

Follow all of Molly's projects: www.web3isgoinggreat.com - blog.mollywhite.net - follow her on twitter - @molly0xFFF - @web3isgreat

This episode was recorded on Friday, February 25th, 2022.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss the long, complex, and fraught history of DAOs (or Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) and try to understand the current hype cycle.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss how Coinbase plans on creating a media company to confirm its own version of the facts and report its own version of the truth. Is journalism entering its final death spiral or are VC bros just losing their minds?

Read more here:

https://protos.com/coinbase-crypto-exchange-media-content-marketing-journalism/

https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/05/31/a-rant-about-coinbase-media-and-coinbase-fact-checking/

Bennett Tomlin  and Cas Piancey are joined by Ed Zitron to discuss NFTs and why they became popular and why they are so empty.

This episode was recorded on February 1st, 2022.

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin are joined by Andrew Bailey, author of Resistance Money, to discuss Tether on Tron and Bitcoin.

This video was recorded on September 9th 2024.

Resistance Money

Patrick McKenzie and Tyler Cowen podcast

Cas Piancey and PJ Vogt podcast

Bennett's newsletter about Craig Wright

Bennett's article about Fei

Bennett's newsletter about Terra-Luna

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey talk with Oliver Beige, an engineer turned economist, who tell us whether decentralization is sustainable and how tribalism plays a role.

Bennett and Cas are joined by Vincent Woo to discuss Effective Altruism and Effective Accelerationism.

⁠Vincent Woo 's video about Honest Charlie⁠

⁠Vincent's reporting on Lambda School⁠

⁠Vincent's Twitter⁠

This episode was recorded on May 1st, 2024.

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by Doomberg - Twitter and Substack's favorite Little financial Chicken - to discuss Bitcoin's, and cryptocurrency in general's, biggest threats for maximum liquidations and pain (including, but not limited to: Microstrategy, El Salvador, and Tether).

Follow Doomberg on Twitter @Doomberg or subscribe to their Substack at doomberg.substack.com

If you'd like to subscribe to Bennett Tomlin's FUD Letter, please visit https://TheFUDLetter.com/#/portal/ for details.

Note: This episode was recorded on Friday, January 21st, 2022

Bennett and Cas revisit the Harmony Horizon bridge exploit from last year, discuss why the Lazarus Group is targeting cryptocurrency so much, and go over the billion plus lost on cryptocurrency bridges over the past year.

Special thanks to ZachXBT, who uncovered the movements of Lazarus exploit funds as they were happening.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined again by Molly White, the single best archivist of web3 fraud (on her website https://web3isgoinggreat.com/), to discuss the difference between criticism during a bull market and a bear market as well as a host of other topics.

This episode was recorded on June 16th and produced by Asher Hirsch.

Follow Molly White on Twitter @Molly0xFFF

In this episode Bennett and Cas are joined by CoinDesk journalist Nikhilesh De to discuss how to report on cryptocurrency. 

This episode was recorded on August 5th, 2022.

Follow Nik on Twitter.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey talk about the concept that maybe stablecoins play an intimate role in how successful a fork of a major cryptocurrency is or whether the cryptocurrency forks at all.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by David Z. Morris to discuss the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, and the testimony against him so far. This includes longtime friend Adam Yedidia, FTX leader Gary Wang, and investor Matt Huang.

Additional resources:

Protos coverage of the trial

https://protos.com/sbftrial/

Bennett newsletter about opening statements

http://us2.campaign-archive.com/?u=16a900a42513fb7998acad86d&id=4f3209dbfb

Semafor reporting on loans

https://www.semafor.com/article/12/07/2022/charity-money-launched-sam-bankman-frieds-empire

Tara Mac Aulay tweet about leaving

https://twitter.com/Tara_MacAulay/status/1592985303262072834?cxt=HHwWhMDU1a_stZssAAAA

WSJ reporting on XRP bet

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/alameda-sam-bankman-fried-ftx-crypto-crash-11672434101

Reporting on MobileCoin losses

https://protos.com/mobilecoin-the-project-that-doomed-ftx-a-year-before-terra-luna/

WSJ reporting on Cohen & Everdell

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sam-bankman-frieds-defense-team-led-by-battle-tested-lawyers-11673217199

Where to find David:

Flesh/Markets

https://davidzmorris.substack.com/

Protos

https://protos.com/author/dmorris/

Unchained

https://unchainedcrypto.com/author/davidz/

Twitter

https://twitter.com/davidzmorris

This video was recorded on October 8th, 2023.

Bennett and Cas discuss the ongoing struggles of regional banking in the United States, and why these issues with the system persist.

This video was recorded on March 6th, 2024.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by Leo Schwartz from Fortune to discuss his feature article about Circle, USDC, and why the stablecoin can't seem to overtake Tether in marketcap or volume.

Read the article here.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss the history, function, positives, negatives, flaws, and potential benefits of Bitcoin.

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are lucky enough to be joined by the "Batman of Cryptocurrency" - pseudoanonymous Twitter user ZachXBT (https://www.twitter.com/zachxbt).

We ask him what it's like uncovering every fraud and scam in crypto, why he does it, and whether the Cryptocurrency Batcave has a secret "nuke scam project" button.

Donate to Zach either at his ETH address: zachxbt.eth

Visit his website here: https://investigations.notion.site/

Here's a list of links that were discussed during the episode:

https://t.me/s/Crypto_Deleted

https://etherscan.io

https://twitter.com/search-advanced?lang=en

https://www.nansen.ai

https://www.breadcrumbs.app

https://revert.finance

https://t.me/EtherDROPS_bot

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by Rohan Grey to discuss how the government could provide unlimited deposit insurance against banks collapsing.

This episode was recorded on March 15th, 2023.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by Ed Zitron to discuss how Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss portray themselves as the regulated alternative, but frequently flout the rules.

Additional resources:

Ed's newsletter about Gemini Earn

Better Offline

HTX is probably insolvent

This episode was recorded on March 12th, 2024.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by James Seyffart to discuss what has prevented a spot Bitcoin ETF, and what things may make it easier for that to finally happen.

This episode was recorded on May 23rd, 2022 and produced by Griffin Davis.

Today Bennett and Cas will be talking about how $3.5 billion dollars (of $4.5 billion) worth of Bitcoin stolen 6 years ago was found and seized by the US Department of Justice.

We discuss Ilya Lichtenstein, Heather Reyhan Morgan, what this means for all the Bitfinex tokens, and if it's possible the funds won't be returned to Bitfinex at all.

This episode was record on February 12th, 2022.

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss a really interesting and weird idea: the El Salvador Bitcoin Volcano Bonds offered by El Salvador in collaboration with Tether, iFinex, and Blockstream.

Bennett and Cas discuss the philosophy of Effective Altruism, how it influenced Sam Bankman-Fried, and how it contributed to the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research. This episode was recorded on July 27th, 2023.

Bennett and Cas are joined by their good friend, former executive director of the Zcash Foundation, and current board member of the Mina Foundation, Josh Cincinnati.

We wanted to pretend this was a debate about whether money laundering should be illegal, instead we all pretty much agreed, "Yes, it should." But we had to define it first and discuss the rules and regulations put in place because of it before coming to a peace accord.

Follow Josh on Twitter @acityinohio or visit his website https://ponzico.win

This episode was recorded on Monday, March 21st, 2022.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by Eric Roesch to discuss Elon Musk, ESG (environmental, social, governance), and the Golden Age of Fraud.

Roesch, an environmental policy expert, tells us about the history of ESG, why it doesn't effectively combat the issues it claims to, and how Elon Musk - the wealthiest man in the world - has used ESG, government subsidies, and asking for forgiveness instead of permission to hoodwink the American public.

This episode was recorded September 20th, 2023.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by Lily Francus, director and quantitative research strategist at Moody's Analytics, who helps us understand the underlying risks, rewards, and caveats of participating in the decentralized financial industry.

Follow Lily on Twitter @nope_its_lily or join her free Substack here https://nopeitslily.substack.com

This episode was produced by Asher Hirsch and recorded on Thursday, April 28th, 2022.

Bennett and Cas discuss Wyre, another cryptocurrency payments processor involved with fraud.

Protos coverage of Ryan Breslow's many disasters

Protos coverage of Wyre problems

This episode was recorded on October 20th, 2023.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey talk about the recent incredible hack of the cryptocurrency bridge, aptly named, Wormhole. Did $320,000,000 worth of ETH evaporate? Yes. Did Jump Crypto 100% cover that? Also yes.

Today Cas Piancey reads an article titled "Finding Finex" - a piece written in 2020, two years after a trip to Hong Kong - that describes his fall down the stablecoin rabbit hole and search for the offices of Bitfinex and Tether.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey talk about the history of Ponzi schemes, the definition of Ponzi schemes, and why they're both pretty tired of hearing everything described as a Ponzi scheme (hint: it's because most things aren't Ponzi schemes).

Bennett and Cas discuss the risk of contagion in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and how the leverage between lenders and trading firms contribute.

This episode was recorded on June 16th, 2022 and produced by Asher Hirsch.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss the recent Wall Street Journal report that reveals that Tether and Bitfinex falsified bank records in order to try to maintain access to banking.

WSJ article discussed on the show.

This video was recorded on March 3rd, 2023.

Today Bennett and Cas talk about Sam Bankman-Fried's parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, who are alleged to be holding onto property and money that the FTX and Alameda Research estates are looking to claw back.

Read more about it here.

This episode was recorded on September 20th, 2023.

Today Bennett and Cas discuss the recent Southern District of New York move to charge a former OpenSea employee, Nathaniel Chastain, with wire fraud and money laundering charges related to insider trading.

This episode was recorded on June 5th and produced by Griffin Davis.

Today Bennett and Cas discuss walking the fine line between beneficial and frank skepticism and full-blown conspiracy theorist, and how sometimes the line can get a little blurry.

This episode was recorded on November 4th, before everything spiraled into an utter sh*tshow.

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey talk about the proliferation of cities associated with blockchains, why the concept in and of itself is silly, and go through some historical and current examples.

If you'd like to listen to Bennett and Cas' other podcast, Innovated: Blockchain City, you can listen here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/innovated-blockchain-city/id1611390567

Bennett and Cas are joined by Molly White (@molly0xfff) to discuss the ongoing testimony of Sam Bankman-Fried.

Molly's newsletter

Web3 is Going Great

Protos Coverage of the Trial

This video was recorded on November 1st, 2023.

Today Cas (Orson Newstat) and Bennett talk about Cas' previous arrest record and why he's being forced to share his name and discuss an arrest from 16 years ago.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by returning guest and assistant professor of law at Willamette College, Rohan Grey. We're going to speak with him about the ECASH Act (which you can read here: https://lynch.house.gov/_cache/files/1/7/17e47e5a-2bff-42c1-b509-eb8a50931fa6/BDDFF183213326821B5C88B7F326EABB.ecashact-lynch.pdf), a bill he helped author that aims to bring the privacy of physical cash into the modern age.

Follow Rohan on Twitter @rohangrey.

This episode was recorded on Tuesday, March 29th, 2022.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss the unlawful actions of the Trump administration, including unlawful deportations.

Additional episodes mentioned in this episode:

Episode 21 – Bitcoin

Playlist of videos about El Salvador

Additional resources:

Reporting on the illegal deportations

This episode was recorded on March 16th, 2025.

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by John Reed Stark of John Reed Stark Consulting and formerly with the Securities and Exchange Commission for over two decades. We discuss our frustrations with the SEC, the perceived lack of action, and what John expects to see from them in the coming years.

Visit John's website: https://www.johnreedstark.com/digital-trust-watch/

Or, follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/johnreedstark?s=11

CORRECTION: John mentions Kik as having requested SEC staff disclose cryptocurrency holdings - this was actually requested by Ripple in the ongoing litigation brought against them by the SEC.

This episode was recorded on Thursday, March 17th, 2022

Bennett and Cas are joined by Dr. Ángela Vergara - an expert in company towns and co-author of Company Towns in the Americas. We try to address why they tend to fail, how they usually harm employees, and why they've never really gone away.

If you want to follow Dr. Vergara on Twitter, you can find her @vergara_angela.

The new podcast Bennett and Cas will be hosting is available here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/innovated-blockchain-city/id1611390567

Dr. Vergara's book is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Company-Towns-Americas-Working-Class-Transformation/dp/0820333298)

You can follow Protos @Protos on Twitter, or visit their website www.Protos.com

This episode was recorded on Thursday, February 24th, 2022.

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey bring you up to date on an old character in an old story: Michael Patryn - er, should we say Omar Dhanani? Or 0xSifu? It's all up for debate, because on January 27th, 2022, the cofounder of QuadrigaCX, a now defunct Canadian cryptocurrency exchange - reappeared in a big way: by being the chief financial officer and treasurer for one of the biggest decentralized protocols around today.

So now what?

Read the initial thread exposing Michael Patryn here: https://twitter.com/zachxbt/status/1486591682728673282?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by pioneering cryptocurrency author and skeptic David Gerard so he can tell us why he was skeptical in the first place and why he continues to be so today.

David's books: 

Attack of the 50 Foot Blockhain https://www.amazon.com/Attack-50-Foot-Blockchain-Contracts-ebook/dp/B073CPP581

Libra Shrugged https://www.amazon.com/Libra-Shrugged-Facebook-Tried-Money-ebook/dp/B08KK9SZP6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Books Recommended:

Extraordinary Popular Delusions http://supernovae.in2p3.fr/~llg/Textes/Extraordinary-Popular-Delusions-Mackay.pdf

The Politics of Bitcoin https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Bitcoin-Right-Wing-Extremism-Forerunners/dp/1517901804

BitCon https://www.amazon.com/BitCon-Naked-Truth-About-Bitcoin-ebook/dp/B00NUIUQ3A

Shameless self-promotion:

Cas' article on Caritas Ponzi Scheme https://thecaspiancey.medium.com/caritas-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-hating-and-love-the-ponzi-26bd8e05c066

Cas on Crypto Island by PJ Vogt https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crypto-island/id1614253637?i=1000556292753

This episode was recorded on Friday, April 8th, 2022

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey review Liberty Reserve - the first stablecoin and the first stablecoin shutdown by US regulators.

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin are joined by Laurence and Josh Cincinnati to dis1cuss the value of satire in cryptocurrency, ordinals, Justin Sun and more.

This was recorded on January 30th, 2023.

Bennett and Cas  are joined by Joseph Politano to discuss what Donald Trump's election will mean for cryptocurrency.

This video was recorded on November 26th, 2024.

Read more: https://cryptocriticscorner.com/2025/01/06/episode-159-what-trump-means-for-bitcoin/

Where to find Joseph:

Apricitas

BlueSky

Twitter

Additional resources:

Pence opposes RFK Jr.

Bennett's newsletter about Justin Sun buying tokens

Joey's post from November 2022

Today Bennett and Cas discuss the SEC's settlement with the creators of an NFT called Stoner Cats and whether or not it means any NFTs offering royalties to creators could be considered securities.

This episode, unfortunately, is absent Bennett. Quick summary of why Zhao Dong ended up being sentenced to prison time in China.

If you'd like to read more:

https://protos.com/renrenbit-zhao-dong-bitcoin-billionaire-pleaded-guilty-money-laundering/

https://medium.com/coinmonks/another-usecase-bites-the-dust-e64ba9b95c6

https://medium.com/coinmonks/zhao-dong-still-matters-heres-why-cff29d6089fd

https://thecaspiancey.medium.com/zhao-dong-the-final-word-e3417eea12f

Lawyer Preston Byrne joins Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey for a wide-ranging discussion that goes from his own crypto journey (of skeptic to believer) to regulatory and legal risks for stablecoin operators.

Visit his Twitter to see more from Preston https://twitter.com/prestonjbyrne

Today Bennett and Cas talk about Craig Steven Wright, the self-proclaimed "Satoshi Nakamoto," and lawyer, doctor, ninja, and creator of Bitcoin Satoshi's Vision.

Frances Coppola - "infamous" nocoiner and author - joins Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey to teach everyone a thing or two about inflation, deflation, hyperinflation, and stablecoin regulation.

Cas and BT discuss Crypto Capital Corp, a defunct, fake, Panamanian money services transmitter that helped service almost every important cryptocurrency exchange, owned and operated by Reginald Fowler, Ivan Manuel Molina Lee, and Oz and Ravid Yosef. 

Today Bennett and Cas are talking about recent moves by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) to slow down token listings and perhaps even fundamentally alter the business models of every cryptocurrency exchange located in the United States.

Episode recorded on July 28th, 2022.

In this episode Bennett and Cas discuss the concepts of regulatory capture and regulatory arbitrage - systemic problems that aren't unique to any particular industry, but have helped dissolve public trust of regulators and enriched some of the worst companies and individuals.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined, once again, by David Z. Morris, the chief insights columnist at Coindesk, to discuss what's happening with Evergrande, why it matters for other regions and industries, and how the property market on the Chinese Mainland operates.

Bennett and Cas discuss Justin Sun's empire, and the fact that he does not seem to have enough money.

Additional resources:

Protos coverage of Poloniex and WBTC

Protos coverage of USDD reserves at HTX

Protos coverage of TrueUSD market-cap collapse

Protos coverage of false Diplomatic Immunity

Protos reporting on stUSDT

This episode was recorded on May 1st, 2024.

Today Bennett and Cas talk about Terra, a stablecoin that uses an algorithm to stay pegged to numerous currencies (mainly the US dollar). Recently, Do Kwon, the creator of Terra, and its token that buoys the stablecoins it supports, Luna, decided to spend $10 billion worth of Luna's reserves to buy Bitcoin.

What does this even mean? Let's figure it out.

Bennett's appearance on the Blockchain Debate Podcast to discuss algo stablecoins: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/motion-algo-and-fractional-stablecoins-are-flawed/id1493609456?i=1000530171560

The FUD Letter's discussion of Terra: https://bennettftomlin.com/2022/02/06/is-terra-stable-the-fud-letter/

The episode was produced by Asher Hirsch and recorded on Sunday, April 24th, 2022.

Bennett and Cas discuss the tools they use to investigate various frauds and scams.

Coverage from Protos of an entity fraudulently pretending to be associated with Tether can be found here.

Here's a list of tools used in this episode:

OpenCorporates

Companies House

EDGAR

FinCEN

Crunchbase

RECAP

PACER

The New York Times

Wayback Machine

BuiltWith

Etherscan

BreadCrumbs

Some other episodes of CCC mentioned can be found here:

Episode 56 – This Man Murders Scams (Feat. ZachXBT)

Episode 100 – A Skeptic’s Guide to Skepticism

Episode 127 - Let's Talk About Number Go Up (Feat. Zeke Faux)

Playlist of videos about Bitfinex and Tether

This episode was recorded on July 11th and 16th, 2024.

Today Bennett and Cas discuss Prime Trust (again) after the Nevada-based trust company admitted that previous C-suite executives had made numerous mistakes and mishandled over $80 million in cash and cryptocurrencies.

Today Cas and Bennett are joined by law professor at American University Hilary Allen to discuss whether or not web3 and DeFi are shadow banking 2.0, and if they will lead to another 2008 financial crisis.

Hilary's paper available here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4038788

Read more: https://cryptocriticscorner.com/2022/10/27/episode-97-defi-as-shadow-banking-2-0-feat-hilary-allen/

This episode was recorded on August 3rd, 2022 and edited by Griffin Davis.

Today Bennett and Cas talk about the unfortunate tale of Virgil Griffith, who was recently sentenced to over five years in prison for helping North Korea attempt to evade US sanctions.

The story is absurd for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to:

• generally, as a rule of thumb, don't evade US sanctions

• if, indeed, you plan on continuing with your sanctions evasion plan, don't write it down

• the US sentencing and prison system isn't fair

Here's some of the documentaries mentioned:

A State of Mind: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/astateofmind

Secret State of North Korea: https://youtu.be/N-cX1d4BSCI

This episode was recorded on Tuesday, April 12th, 2022.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss their fear that Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and DOGE will destroy the dollar by going after Federal Reserve independence.

Additional resources:

Coverage of Elon Musk imagining problems at Fort Knox

Federal Reserve Audits

Additional episodes mentioned in this episode:

Episode 163 – What the Elon Musk coup means for Finance

Episode 164 – CFPB RIP 🪦

Episode 165 – Elon Musk’s Valentine’s Day Massacre

Episode 55 – Company Towns – Past, Present, and Future (feat. Dr. Ángela Vergara)

This episode was recorded on February 19th, 2025.

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss Donald Trump's new project, World Liberty Financial, as well as Justin Sun's shenanigans, the MakerDAO rebrand, and more.

This video was recorded on October 26th, 2024.

Bennett and Cas talk about Justin Sun (or Sun Yuchen): billionaire, creator of TRON cryptocurrency, citizen to five-ten countries, and egomaniac who has managed to outrun and outpace law enforcement for years.

Read the fantastic The Verge article about Justin: https://www.theverge.com/c/22947663/justin-sun-tron-cryptocurrency-poloniex

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey discuss the gutting of the Southern District of New York by an illegal and unconstitutional order to drop charges against Eric Adams so he can better cooperate with the Trump Administration.

Read more here

Additional resources:

Initial Memo

Danielle Sassoon's Response

Emil Bove's response to Danielle Sassoon's resignation

Hagen Scotten resignation

Reporting on additional resignations

Additional episodes mentioned in this episode:

Episode 163 – What the Elon Musk coup means for Finance

Episode 164 – CFPB RIP 🪦

Playlist of videos about Sam Bankman-Fried trial

This episode was recorded on February 14th, 2025.

Bennett and Cas are joined by Sam Kessler from CoinDesk to discuss the witnesses that the defense has been calling to the stand, including Sam Bankman-Fried.

CoinDesk trial coverage:

https://www.coindesk.com/sam-bankman-fried-trial-live-coverage-news/

Protos trial coverage:

https://protos.com/sbftrial/

SBF's Kamikaze Defense:

https://protos.com/sam-bankman-frieds-kamikaze-defense/

The Jury Finally Hears from SBF by Liz Lopatto:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23935683/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-fraud-direct-testimony-jury

This episode was recorded on October 28th, 2023.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by the richest man in the world*, Colin Platt: creator of PTK. While you may not be aware of this quadrillionaire, he tokenized his way to being king of the world. Other topics discussed include: wash trading, NFTs, and traditional financial issues versus issues seen within the cryptocurrency landscape.

*Colin isn't the richest man in the world in any real sense.

Read about PTK in the Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/9af35678-36d1-3477-93b8-c3990b87b16a

Follow Colin on Twitter @colingplatt

This episode was recorded on Thursday, April 14th, 2022

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by Blockworks author Sam Reynolds, a Taipei-based reporter, who discusses the early history of Tether in Taiwan and what can be implied by their issues with their early banking partners.

Bennett and Cas discuss a class action lawsuit against Deltec Bank and Trust in the Bahamas that alleges that it was instrumental in moving customer funds from FTX to Alameda Research.

Coverage of the lawsuit

the lawsuit

Farmington State response

Coindesk coverage of Alameda Research insolvency

Affidavit in support of MUFG seizure

This episode was recorded on March 6th, 2024.

Bennett and Cas dive into what happened at QuadrigaCX - once the largest Canadian Bitcoin exchange.

If you'd like to read a more detailed piece you can find "Death Fraud" here:

https://medium.com/coinmonks/death-fraud-6920cc93d0a7

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by Ben McKenzie (star of Gotham, Southland, and The O.C.) and Jacob Silverman (author of Terms of Service and writer for The New Republic and Slate) who discuss the ideas behind their upcoming book about cryptocurrency, their issues with celebrity shilling of speculative assets, and how it really feels like corporate greed is eating our democracy.

Here are some of the books and movies mentioned during the interview:

Lying for Money by Dan Davies - https://www.amazon.com/Lying-Money-Legendary-Frauds-Workings-ebook/dp/B078WFT5JV

The Future of Money by Eswar Prasad - https://www.amazon.com/Future-Money-Revolution-Transforming-Currencies/dp/0674258444

The China Hustle - https://www.amazon.com/China-Hustle-Dan-David/dp/B07BQH2LQG

This episode was recorded on Monday, February 14th, 2022

Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, to discuss NFTs, the proliferations of fraud, and whether or not algorithmic stablecoins are viable.

Follow Mark on Twitter @mcuban.

This episode was recorded on Tuesday, June 7th, 2022, and produced by Asher Hirsch.