The Ceremony

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In November of 2016, journalist Morgen Peck showed up at her friend Molly Webster's apartment in Brooklyn, told her to take her battery out of her phone, and began to tell her about The Ceremony, a moment last fall when a group of, well, let's just call them wizards, came together in an undisclosed location to launch a new currency. It's an undertaking that involves some of the most elaborate security and cryptography ever done (so we've been told). And math. Lots of math. It was all going great until, in the middle of it, something started to behave a little...strangely.

Reported by Molly Webster. Produced by Matt Kielty and Molly Webster. Denver Ceremony station recordings were created by media maker Nathaniel Kramer, with help from Daniel Cooper.

Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Wait, you're listening to Radio Lab from WNYC.
0:20.5	Hey I'm Chad Abumrod.
0:21.8	I'm Molly Webster.
0:22.9	This is Radio Lab.
0:24.5	Robert Kroll, which we'll be back with us very soon.
0:27.3	But today, a story from you.
0:28.6	Well, I guess I was just thinking I should probably tell you just the Morgan and I backstory
0:34.6	of how I heard about the story.
0:37.1	So Morgan and I went to grad school together at NYU.
0:40.2	So I guess I've known her for almost 11 years.
0:43.4	And we're hold up in my apartment.
0:46.4	I don't know, this is like last November or something.
0:49.3	She comes over, she's sitting on the giant, I have a big floor pillow, like a Turkish floor
0:54.5	pillow.
0:55.5	Of course she do.
0:56.5	She's sitting on the floor pillow and then she is like, are you ready to hear the story?
1:01.5	And I said, yeah, and she's like, okay, I need you to take the battery out of your phone.
1:05.8	Really?
1:06.8	Yeah.
1:07.8	And I was, she really said that?
1:08.8	And I was like, what?
1:09.8	I have an iPhone.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.