‘Stop Trying to Unmask Satoshi Nakamoto’ Says Actor Ben McKenzie
Uncanny Valley | WIRED
WIRED
4.1 • 571 Ratings
🗓️ 28 April 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
Actor Ben McKenzie (The O.C.) is out with a new documentary, Everyone Is Lying to You for Money, which follows his journey into becoming an anti-cryptocurrency advocate. He says we should all stop trying to unmask the presumed original developer(s) of bitcoin known as Satoshi Nakamoto because it benefits only the mysterious inventor. The actor-director talks with Katie about why he thinks crypto is a scam, and why he says people are falling for it.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From Wired, this is the big interview, where we'll get to know the people behind the headlines |
| 0:08.6 | in conversations that explore the intersection of technology, power, and culture. |
| 0:13.1 | I'm Katie Drummond, Wired's global editorial director, and people of a certain age may know |
| 0:18.3 | my next guest as an actor, but these days you're equally likely to know |
| 0:23.0 | him for his other leading role, crusading against cryptocurrency. In my opinion, the cryptocurrency |
| 0:29.1 | industry represents the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Surveying the cryptocurrency mania during |
| 0:35.6 | the summer of last year, I came to a terrifying conclusion. |
| 0:39.3 | The supposedly multi-trillion dollar industry was nothing more than a massive speculative bubble bound to pop. |
| 0:46.3 | That's Ben McKenzie testifying before Congress on the spectacular collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX in late November 2022. McKenzie, who has an undergrad degree in economics, has written a book on the subject. And now he's out with a new documentary. Everyone is lying to you for money. Very good name, I must say. Ben's here now. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me, Katie. It's an honor to be here. We are delighted to have you here. And I had intended to start with |
| 1:11.8 | that congressional testimony. And I want to get back to that in a minute. But I actually was just at my desk |
| 1:16.1 | upstairs and was reading this New York Times piece that came out today. We're talking in early April. |
| 1:22.7 | This episode will come out in a few weeks. But it was this sweeping investigation, yet another |
| 1:26.7 | sweeping investigation into the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. And I'm not even |
| 1:33.0 | interested in talking about who Satoshi is. Like I, I am not, I haven't cared about that for a really |
| 1:40.1 | long time. But this piece came out and I knew we were talking and I'm just so curious about |
| 1:45.5 | your impressions of this sort of like mythology and and online fascination and almost sort of |
| 1:52.9 | obsession right with this like mythical figure, this magician, this wizard who created Bitcoin |
| 2:00.0 | and sort of catalyzed this entire movement that we're now talking about. |
| 2:04.4 | What are your thoughts on that? |
| 2:06.0 | Sort of like, why does that exist? |
| 2:07.5 | And how does it feed into what you're sort of getting at around cryptocurrency today? |
| 2:13.0 | Yeah, I mean, if you think of crypto as a story, right, as not really, it doesn't really function as a currency |
... |
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