CRYPTO CRAPTO

Looks real to me.

The chilly day of January 2, 2018 should have changed my life. My background colleagues and I were in Midtown, walking back and forth for the TV series Daredevil. One of the extras was bragging about how well his investment in Bitcoin was going. 

I had heard about Bitcoin for a while but didn't understand the concept. You want to know what naive is? I thought Bitcoin was an actual thing. Unafraid to show my ignorance, I asked the guy to explain it to me. 

Oh boy, was he delighted to give me the lowdown; it was as if someone had asked me about the development of Vitaphone. Please, make yourself comfortable for 20 minutes. You'll regret you ever asked me. 

By the time he was finished -- or, rather, when I finally cut him off -- I was both excited (at the idea of a simpleton like me being able to strike it rich overnight, or at least overweek), and confused (why would you invest in something that's really nothing?). 

No more bills from the oil company!

Returning home later that day, I giddily told my wife just how amazing Bitcoin was: People are using enough computers to mine crypto to heat their homes in the winter! 

I didn't understand how you could mine something that didn't really exist. All I knew was Laptops + a hundred bucks = Millions of dollars and plenty of heat, too!  My wife nodded politely, then asked me what was for dinner. 

Who would you trust more?

Now that I'm reading Going Infinite, the saga of FTX founder and all-around nut Sam

Bankman-Fried, I'm glad I never got further to investing in crypto than that conversation. Having recently seen video footage of Sam during an interview with author Michael Lewis, it became clear that rich people who probably figure out their restaurant tips to the exact percentage were willing -- eager -- to throw millions, billions of dollars at a guy in a stained t-shirt, cargo pants, untied shoes, and hair that never got within a mile of a comb, all because he promised to make them even richer. 

This was in the name of effective altruism, a nice way of justifying their blind greed. Of course, what he was really doing -- and this is shocking -- was making himself richer, while still looking like a homeless high school dropout. For a math genius, it sure was odd how he misplaced ten billion dollars -- and, judging by Going Infinite, thought of it the same way you would losing a Bic pen. I mean, I go into a panic when my wallet's missing five bucks.

By the time of FTX's sudden bankruptcy, I had been so out of the crypto loop that I had forgotten this was the same company that had the Super Bowl commercials with Matt Damon and Larry David -- two guys who made their fortune not through crypto but work (and fabulous agents). 

Let me guess -- he's against it.

A year later, and Sam is now facing a possible century-long prison stretch. You'd think this would have tarnished the FTX brand forever. But again, I prove my financial ignorance; a fellow named Tom Farley is one of a trio of investors looking to buy what's left of that money crypto pit. 

Unlike Sam, Farley wears a nice suit and has some credibility, having previously run the New York Stock Exchange. If the deal goes through, former FTX investors will be offered shares in the company to partially make up for their losses. It's a good deal -- let some other suckers invest in something that doesn't exist. 

                                                                       **********