Episode Summary
Executive Summary: Patrick Boyle interviews Zeke Fox about Number Go Up, a social history of crypto mania centered on NFTs, Tether, FTX, and scams. Fox argues the last few years were a historic financial frenzy driven by speculation, celebrity hype, and criminal misuse, with crypto's promised utility far outweighed by bad UX, fraud, and real-world harm.
Main Topics: Crypto as a social history of mania: Fox frames the book as a narrative of the people, hype, and consequences of the crypto boom rather than a technical explanation of blockchain. NFT culture and the Bored Ape ecosystem: The discussion covers Fox’s purchase of a mutant ape, Ape Fest, community signaling, celebrity promotion, and the absurdity of paying large sums for profile-picture NFTs. Celebrity and investor hype: Boyle and Fox debate whether celebrities and venture capitalists believed in crypto or were simply monetizing attention and status, with examples like Snoop Dogg, Jimmy Fallon, Jack Dorsey, and Sequoia. Scams, fraud, and failed business models: The conversation highlights Celsius, FTX, Mashinsky, and the broader pattern of crypto projects promising impossible yields or utility while functioning like schemes. Tether and crypto-enabled criminality: Fox explains that investigating Tether led him to scam compounds in Cambodia and broader criminal ecosystems where crypto made laundering and trafficking easier. Crypto’s weak real-world use cases: Both speakers question whether crypto is practical for normal spending, emphasizing poor user experience, fees, security burdens, and limited merchant adoption. FTX collapse and Sam Bankman-Fried: Fox recounts meeting SBF in the Bahamas, his odd behavior, and the later unraveling of FTX as evidence that the industry’s aura of genius masked severe misconduct.
Key Arguments: Crypto’s main appeal was speculative: users tolerated complexity because they hoped prices would keep rising. NFT communities are shallow and status-driven; ownership of a JPEG does not create durable social value. Celebrity endorsements often functioned as bag-pumping or status signaling rather than genuine belief in the products. Many crypto ventures had obvious Ponzi-like features: early adopters were rewarded, but there was no sustainable long-term revenue model. Tether and similar tools made transnational crime easier by reducing traceability and enabling fast, pseudonymous transfers. Crypto’s supposed benefits for the unbanked are undermined by volatility, friction, and the existence of better mainstream financial rails. Venture capital often entered crypto with an eye toward cheap entry and future price appreciation, not true utility. The industry repeatedly asks outsiders to accept trustless systems that attract untrustworthy actors, making skepticism rational.
Data Points: Book price paid for mutant ape: $20,000 - Fox bought a mutant Bored Ape NFT to attend Ape Fest and report on the scene. Cheapest ape for party entry: $40,000 - Fox says the cheapest ape he could use to access the party had risen to around this level before he bought his mutant ape at a lower price. Price decline in NFT: 50% - Fox notes the ape’s price fell from $40,000 to $20,000 within about two weeks, showing extreme volatility. Bored Ape collection size: 10,000 images - Fox describes the Bored Ape Yacht Club as a collection of 10,000 interchangeable monkey pictures. Reported Justin Bieber ape purchase: About $2 million - Boyle references celebrity hype around Bored Apes as part of the NFT craze. Celsius promised yield: 18% interest - Alex Mashinsky’s Celsius pitch claimed users could earn 18% on deposited crypto. Tether reserves claimed: About $50 billion - Fox says Tether claimed to hold roughly this amount backing its tokens. FTX-related Bitcoin theft value: $4 billion - Referenced in the discussion of the Bitfinex hack and Heather Morgan/Razzlekhan case. Ronin hack losses: $600 million - Fox describes the Axie Infinity/Ronin exchange hack and its later attribution to North Korea. Public housing Bitcoin giveaway: $30 in Bitcoin - Boyle and Fox discuss the Bitcoin Academy and El Salvador-style distributions of small amounts to users or residents. Adults detained in El Salvador crackdown: 2% of all adults - Fox notes the country’s gang crackdown affected a very large share of adults, overshadowing Bitcoin adoption.
Pivotal Quotes: "I felt like I had front row seat. Was hanging out with these hustlers and zealots and con men when things were going great." — Zeke Fox: Fox describing his reporting experience and the atmosphere of the crypto boom. "I was looking at this financial investing in the same silly picture is not really like a very good basis for a community." — Patrick Boyle: Boyle questioning the social logic of NFT and meme-stock communities. "The amount of energy needed to disprove bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than the amount of energy needed to create it." — Zeke Fox: Fox explaining why crypto scams and hype are so hard to investigate and rebut.
Implications: The episode suggests crypto’s next phase will face deeper skepticism, stricter scrutiny, and lower tolerance for hype. Listeners should view many projects as speculative products with serious fraud and crime risk, not normal financial infrastructure.
From the Episode
Yeah, like you're saying, I'm hearing about a couple years ago, like during the pandemic, I felt like everybody was talking about crypto. And my friend Jay was just one of the people that was texting me and saying, oh, I'm making big money trading this or that. And yeah, he made enough on Dogecoin that it helped him pay for this trip to Disney. He was teasing me about it. And I had like resisted all of. I'd resisted crypto as a topic for investigating. Like, if you know my work, I love investigating weird scams. So, you would have thought that crypto would be perfect for me. But I just didn't want to go there. But it took a little bit of this FOMO for me to be like, you know what? I do want to know. Why are these coins going up and up? Is there anything behind all of this? Like, what is going on? Has the financial world just gone insane?
Anybody who's pitched on a crypto thing in the future is going to think to themselves, isn't there like a chance that this one could be a scam? Because, like, from what I remember, a lot of the other ones were scams. Yeah. And, like, why is it going to be worth their time to, like, we're already talking about how the user experience is very bad. Then you have the chance, you have the chance that the one you picked is a scam, which, like, how do you, how do you know that it isn't? Is you know, that's a lot of. And is it worth my time even finding out whether it is or is like in the book? Um, I talk about um the bullshit asymmetry principle, which is like this idea that this Italian programmer came up with. And he says that the amount of energy needed to disprove bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than. The amount of energy needed to create it. And it's like, yeah, so people say these crypto things, they say, I've got this great new crypto company. And if, like, I, as a potential, as an investigative reporter, I'm like, it's going to take me a long time to figure out whether this one is good or not. The last couple of ones I looked into were not good. You know, why bother? Like, I think.
About Patrick Boyle on Finance
This podcast is all about quantitative finance and financial history. Subscribe to hear about financial markets, derivatives, and how investors use quantitative tools from statistics and corporate finance theory. Included are interviews with some of the most interesting thinkers in finance. Occasional longer form financial documentaries, open up fascinating elements of financial markets history. Patrick Boyle is a quantitative hedge fund manager, a university professor, and a former investment banker. To contact Patrick visit http://onfinance.org Find Patrick on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickBoyleOnFinance