Earlier in the year, former O.C. star Ben McKenzie became one of the few Hollywood celebrities willing to take a stand against cryptocurrency. In fact, most of his contemporaries like Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Larry David were a little too eager to endorse the sketchy “investment” opportunity, which has experienced some devastating crashes in the time since.
Angered by seeing rich celebs getting paid to convince ordinary people to part with their hard-earned money, McKenzie took his fight to Congress on Wednesday where he did not hold back his thoughts on crypto. Via Mediaite:
“In my opinion, the cryptocurrency industry represents the largest Ponzi scheme in history,” he said, adding that “when the dust settles,” crypto could stand as a “fraud” far worse than the infamous Bernie Madoff scandal.
Crypto investors, including those tied into the FTX collapse, were “sold a bill of goods,” McKenzie said at another point.
“I believe they, and the 40 million other Americans who have invested in cryptocurrency have been sold a bill of goods,” he said. “They have been lied to in ways both big and small, by a once seemingly mighty crypto industry whose entire existence depends on misinformation, hype, and, yes, fraud.”
According to New York Times reporter David Yaffe-Bellany, who interviewed McKenzie earlier in the year when the actor embarked on his fight against crypto, the O.C. star’s motivations are simple. He doesn’t like seeing rich celebs rip off everyday folks.
“I think that he recognized that a lot of colleagues, fellow actors and entertainers were accepting money from the crypto industry and kind of promoting it without explaining the risk that are involved for these kind of experimental financial products and it really bothered him,” Yaffe-Bellany told MSNBC following the actor’s statement to Congress.
Or, to put it another way…
(Via Mediaite)