Ben McKenzie, actor, activist and author of “Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud"" gives us the rundown on the best and worst money he's spent throughout his career—from crypto and synthetic blood—and explains what he's learned along the way.
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00:00 I definitely may have made some early mistakes with money.
00:02 The funniest one was my investment with my friend Dave.
00:04 He had encouraged me to invest in this obscure company
00:08 that had supposedly figured out a way
00:11 to produce synthetic blood.
00:12 It was gonna make a ton of money.
00:13 I probably lost most of the money, as did he.
00:16 So when Dave came back to me some 20 years later
00:18 and said I should buy Bitcoin,
00:20 I was listening, but probably not in the way
00:21 that he thought I was listening.
00:22 Hi, I'm Ben McKenzie.
00:23 I'm gonna teach you the worst ways to spend your money
00:27 and the best.
00:27 (upbeat music)
00:30 Let's start with the worst money decisions.
00:37 Investing in cryptocurrency.
00:40 The pandemic had kind of shut down the entertainment
00:42 industry and so I was sequestered.
00:43 I was with my family, I was bored,
00:45 and I basically got FOMO.
00:46 I saw all these knuckleheads getting rich
00:49 on things like crypto, and I figured, well,
00:51 if their dumb asses can do it, then surely I can.
00:54 Economically speaking, cryptos are not,
00:56 they're not currencies, they're not money.
00:57 They're more of an investment.
00:59 Cryptos aren't really attached to anything
01:00 in the real world.
01:01 So at best, they're, economically speaking, gambling.
01:05 There's a lot of volatility,
01:08 and you can end up losing even being right.
01:10 One of the mistakes that I think many, many people make,
01:13 that I made, is thinking that you can see the future,
01:16 even if it's only a short distance.
01:18 I lost over $200,000 betting that crypto was gonna blow up.
01:23 And then I did what you should never do,
01:24 which is double down.
01:25 And then I made a good amount of money.
01:27 One of the reasons that I started speaking out
01:31 about crypto was that in 2021, when I started,
01:35 it was everywhere.
01:36 I mean, it was not just online,
01:37 it was starting to be on TV, and it was on sports,
01:39 something that I love all the time.
01:41 All the ads were either crypto or gambling.
01:44 So it all kind of culminated in the Super Bowl.
01:46 If you think of crypto as something like an MLM or a Ponzi,
01:49 then one of the things you need is you need ever more people
01:52 to get into it in order to keep the thing going.
01:54 But at some point you run out of suckers.
01:56 At some point, even the biggest Ponzi has to collapse,
01:59 has to collapse.
02:00 And you've gotten the most famous people to show for you.
02:03 There is nowhere to go but down.
02:05 This book that I wrote started in a way with a bet
02:10 that I thought the crypto bubble was gonna collapse.
02:12 It's about money and lying.
02:14 And I know about money 'cause I have a degree in econ.
02:16 I know about lying 'cause I'm an actor,
02:18 and I do it for a living.
02:19 What my father would have wanted is for justice to be done.
02:22 You know, on average, most people who have ever bought
02:24 cryptocurrency have lost money.
02:26 I mean, honestly, some of them are funny,
02:28 some of them are tragic, some of them are both.
02:30 The people that benefit are the people at the top
02:32 of the pyramid.
02:34 People like Sam Baikman-Fried,
02:36 who is running the exchange FTX,
02:38 who's now been arrested and charged with fraud.
02:40 People like Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of Celsius,
02:44 who's also been arrested and charged with fraud.
02:46 I interviewed both of those guys for the book.
02:48 But those are the people that end up benefiting.
02:50 Everyone else ends up losing.
02:52 I got lucky getting the role of Ryan Abbott on "AOC"
02:55 when I was in my 20s.
02:57 Thankfully, I had gone to college.
02:58 I had a degree in economics.
03:00 Most of what I did when I first got money
03:01 was just try to save it.
03:03 Young people, especially, when you first make money,
03:06 the temptation is just to immediately spend it,
03:08 especially on things that are gonna depreciate quickly,
03:11 things like clothes, cars.
03:13 I did buy myself a decent car,
03:15 but other than that, I tried to live relatively frugally.
03:18 Now let's talk about the best ways to spend money.
03:21 I like travel.
03:22 I like spending money on travel and exploring the world.
03:25 I like to buy old watches, old vintage watches.
03:28 I often buy them even though they don't work.
03:30 I like wearing watches that don't have any purpose
03:33 and seeing if anyone will ever notice.
03:35 No one ever has.
03:36 I used to like cars when I lived in LA,
03:38 but I don't live in LA anymore, so that's out.
03:41 Favorite saying, which is from John Maynard Keynes,
03:44 famous economist, who says,
03:46 "The market can stay irrational
03:48 "longer than you can remain solid."
03:50 And I almost nearly experienced that myself.
03:52 Find a licensed financial advisor.
03:55 License is key.
03:56 You should form a relationship.
03:58 Find someone that you trust.
03:59 I like to know where my money is.
04:01 I like to have it in things that are pretty consistent,
04:04 pretty stable.
04:04 It's about the long journey.
04:06 It's not about trying to score a quick buck here or there.
04:09 Putting your money into stable investments
04:12 does is it gives you peace of mind,
04:14 so you don't have to think about it too much.
04:16 I see this in crypto a lot.
04:17 I mean, even guys that are making money
04:19 are just obsessed with it,
04:21 and they're spending all of their time
04:22 on their phone and their apps.
04:23 It really is an addiction, gambling addiction.
04:25 It's a very serious addiction.
04:27 I would say to my kids,
04:28 once I'm done paying for college for them,
04:31 trust your gut.
04:32 Never give your money to somebody you don't trust,
04:34 no matter what they're telling you.
04:36 And if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
04:38 Cautiously, I would say.
04:43 Trying to understand the relationships
04:45 between billions of different people
04:47 with billions of different motivations and goals
04:50 is impossible.
04:51 So I would say humility is very important.
04:54 Look on the horizon towards a distant point
04:57 rather than right in front of you.
04:59 Keep your mind focused on putting your money
05:02 into things that are relatively safe and secure,
05:05 people that you trust,
05:07 and that will give you the ability
05:08 to hopefully forget about it,
05:10 and then you can go towards your goal.
05:13 I think that we sometimes conflate money with happiness.
05:15 Money does not bring happiness,
05:17 but having a certain peace of mind
05:20 from prudent financial decisions
05:22 can allow you to be happy
05:25 because you are allowed to not worry
05:27 about your monetary situation.
05:29 Thanks for watching.
05:30 You now know my tips for how you too
05:33 can become one of the wealthiest people in the world.
05:36 Stay humble, stay hustling, go get it.
05:40 (upbeat music)
05:42 (upbeat music)