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- Why do you think so many people buy

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into it versus, you know,
the few people who, like you

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saw it as something completely
like erroneous or dangerous?

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- I think people bought into crypto mainly

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because the story is very, very appealing.

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The story of cryptocurrency
has morphed over time

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and I chronicle how
it's morphed in the book

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but by the time it was
at the mania of 2021,

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crypto was effectively
treated as a panacea

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for every ailment of our
regulated financial system.

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It was gonna bank the unbanked,

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it was gonna build generational wealth,

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it was gonna democratize
our financial system,

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you know, all of these things.

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And so the appeal was
quite understandable.

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In addition to that, it was a bubble.

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And so, people saw their
friends making money

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or even people that didn't
know via social media

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and they assumed they could do it too.

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Robert Schiller, the Nobel
Prize winning economist

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talks about how naturally occurring Ponzis

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and basically the price of
a speculative asset rises,

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which attracts attention.

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People see it rise, they
then invest their money

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which then of course crosses rise further

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which then, you know,
attracts more people.

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And so these things kind of
take on a life of their own.

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And that's a best case scenario

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where there isn't fraud with crypto.

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It was kind of both, right?

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It was both a, a speculative mania

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and potentially fraudulent
schemes underneath.

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(ominous music)