Ben Mezrich, Author of Bitcoin Billionaires: The Story of Bitcoin and the Future of Money

Ben Mezrich is the author of Bitcoin Billionaires, a story about Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss' foray into digital money. Ben has also written multiple books, including the books that became The Social Network movie and 21. In this conversation, Ben and Anthony Pompliano discuss how he found the Bitcoin Billionaires story, what he learned while writing the book, why he's fascinated by Bitcoin, and what he believes the future of money holds. -----BlockFi allows you to keep your crypto, put it up as collateral, and receive a USD loan funded directly to your bank account. They do loans ranging from $2,000 to $10,000,000, and they're perfect for helping you reach your financial goals of all sizes. Visit BlockFi.com/Pomp to learn more about putting your crypto to work without having to sell it. -----If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to Off the Chain, simply the best podcast in crypto. Let's kick this thing off.

• 0:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Ben Mezrich is the author of Bitcoin Billionaires, a story about Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss's foray into digital money. Ben has also written multiple books, including the books that became The Social Network Movie and 21. In this conversation, we talk about how he found the Bitcoin billionaire story, what he learned while writing the book, why he is fascinated by Bitcoin, and what he believes the future of money holds. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do as well. Before we kick off this podcast, first a word from our sponsor BlockFi. As many of you know, crypto investors store their digital assets on exchanges or in cold storage for long-term safekeeping. However, this strategy doesn't help them grow their investment

• 0:57Anthony Pompliano?

  holdings or build overall wealth. With the new BlockFi interest account, users can now securely store their Bitcoin or Ether at BlockFi and receive 6% annual interest, paid monthly in cryptocurrency. 6% is an absurdly high rate. It's the best rate in the industry. I highly suggest you go check out blockfi.com/pomp. Again, that's blockfi.com/pomp to sign up and start earning crypto today. Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow

• 1:41Anthony Pompliano?

  a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Alright guys, bang, bang. I have been here, super excited to talk to him as I actually just finished reading the book Bitcoin Billionaires. So sir, thank you so much for taking the time to come on and talk about this.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Hey, thanks so much for having me. It's awesome.

• 2:04Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, you uh, you you wrote this book, but you've done a ton of stuff before. Let's just talk about your background uh, previous to uh, kind of diving deep into the Bitcoin world. What what where'd you kind of get your start?

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Sure, so I've been writing for a while. I've written twenty books, um, of which a lot of people read too. So uh, I've had two books that were made into movies. Um, the first book that people have heard of was, the book was called Bringing Down the House, and it was the story of the MIT kids who beat Vegas for millions with a blackjack system. And that was made into the movie Twenty One, uh, a few years back. And then I wrote the book Accidental Billionaires, which was uh, turned into the movie The Social Network about the founding of Facebook. But I write mostly true stories, um, usually about young people who are brilliant, who do something crazy and maybe world-changing. And I'm always looking for sort of people who are really breaking the boundaries

• 2:58Speaker 01

  and then sort of don't do well with authority and then do something incredibly cool. Um, but The Social Network was the movie that most of the people who've come to my books, you know, read or saw at some point. Um, and yeah, I'm always looking for really crazy true stories.

• 3:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. So uh, you wrote the um, the book about MIT uh, that turned into Twenty One uh, first, before Social Network, right?

• 3:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the Twenty One uh, it was my first non-fiction book. Previous to that, I used to write fiction and I wrote medical thrillers. I wrote a book for the X-Files television show. Um, so if you watch the X-Files, I wrote a book called Skin uh, about Mulder and Scully tracking down the skin transplant gone bad. Um, and then I had a TV movie way back when called Fatal Error, which starred Antonio Sabato Jr. and it was pretty trashy. Um, but Bringing Down the House was my first non-fiction book. And I think that book came out in two thousand and two. So that was a pretty long time ago and that movie was around two thousand and seven. And then I wrote Accidental Billionaires about the founding of Facebook. Uh, that book came out.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Around 2009 in the movie 2010. So yeah, that came right on the heels of 21.

• 4:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so what what drew you to the this, the um, Accidental Billionaires and Social Network? Was it just literally young people doing something crazy and it turned into this huge company? Or what elements of it?

• 4:22Speaker 01

  It was kind of a wild thing. So after 21 came out, every college kid with a story started pitching me their stories. So I started getting random emails and phone calls and whatever, just from people telling me stories. And one night at about two in the morning, I get this email and it's from a Harvard senior. And he said, my best friend founded Facebook and no one's ever heard of him. And this was 2007, so Facebook was already a thing, but it wasn't that big. Everyone had heard of Mark Zuckerberg, but no one had heard of anybody else. So I went out for a drink and in walked Eduardo Severin. If you saw the movie, The Social Network, you remember Eduardo. Um, and Eduardo proceeded to tell me this crazy story, you know, he he just started out. He said, Mark Zuckerberg fucked me. That's how he started the conversation.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Um, and I just started, you know, to hear this crazy story about these two best friends who met in this underground Jewish fraternity and they weren't good at getting girls. And then, you know, you know, the story, Mark hacked into the computers and pulled up pictures of every girl on campus and made a website where you could vote on who the hottest girl was. Um, and that nearly got him kicked out of school. And uh, and then he uh, you know, caught the attention of the Winklevoss twins. So, you know, this was uh, for me, 2007 is when I I fell into this story. Um, and I thought it was awesome. I wrote a 14 page book proposal. And my book proposal leaked onto the internet, onto Gawker, remember the website Gawker? And they put my um, book proposal online.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  And that day, Facebook settled with Eduardo for $5 billion. Um, and part of the settlement agreement was he was no longer allowed to speak to me again because they were trying to stop the book from happening. Um, and at that, that's when he ran off to Singapore, never to be heard from again. Um, and uh, and then uh, and and from there, you know, it became The Social Network very quickly. Um, within a year. So it was kind of this crazy, crazy story.

• 6:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And and so as part of the process of writing a book where some of the main characters either don't want to or uh, can't talk to you, like, how do you actually put together the book?

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Eduardo had come to me and then I found the Winklevoss Twins actually on Facebook. I just Facebooked them and they became big sources to the story. Sean Parker became a big source to the story, a big Silicon Valley guy. But Mark, of course, did not want to talk to me. Zuckerberg did not like that I was doing this project. He wanted to stop it. So it gets tricky, you know, you work around the character that doesn't want to talk to you. So had he sat down and talked to me, I'm sure it would have been a very different story because he disagrees with Eduardo and the Winklevoss's point of view, to put it mildly. But, you know, it's a process of talking to as many people as you can. In the Facebook story, there were all these court documents. So we had thousands and thousands of pages of court documents.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  So everybody in that story had been in a deposition. So you actually have all this great dialogue, you know, written down. So you know what was said for the most part. But in the end, you know, you interview as many people as you can and try to be as fair and honest as you can.

• 7:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And then after you write the book, you know, the kind of the first draft or whatever, do you show it to sources or anyone other than the editors and publisher? Or is it kind of the first time they read the thing is when it's actually on bookshelves and people like me or others are reading it alongside them?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  I mean, that's a mix. The process is kind of a mix. Like you don't give your manuscript necessarily to Mark Zuckerberg in case, you know, because then you're going to have a lot of lawyers coming up your ass. I think for the most part, you want it to be accurate. So you run things by sources as much as you need to or as much as you can. You want the dialogue to be close to what was said. You're not going to, the way I write, you know, the dialogue is not going to be the exact same thing that was said. It's just sort of based on the recollections of everybody who was there. So some of the things you run by them, some of them you don't. In terms of the social network, you know, Zuckerberg, we definitely showed him the script of the movie, which he did not like.

• 8:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Before, he reviewed the script, not reviewed, but he got to see it.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  People at Facebook got to, because our goal was to use the Facebook logo. You know, if you remember that movie, everything was very accurate. And so people at Facebook had definitely saw the script.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  You know, Aaron Sorkin is such an amazing writer. That script was was a brilliant Oscar winning script right from the beginning. So it was the kind of thing that even though they didn't like the movie because of what it said, they liked the movie because of how good it was. Um, so that movie was elevated Facebook in a way to such heights that I think in the end it all worked out for everybody.

• 9:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And and when they first read that script, are they able to or did they like push back and say, hey, you got to take this now or this, you know, you got to change how this is said?

• 9:16Speaker 01

  You know, Mark Zuckerberg has said in interviews that he was devastated by it, that it was that it was horrible, that, you know, it just, you know, I don't know if I believe that or not. I it's it's hard to say. They definitely didn't want this book to come out and they didn't really think, I don't think they wanted that movie to ever get made. Uh, but in the end, you know, it had such big names behind it. It was such a uh, an incredible movie that I think there wasn't anything anybody could do about it.

• 9:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. Well, and and the story is so big, right? So so it's uh,

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's changed the world, right? Or it did for a while and and still does in many ways now, not as good away as as it may be initially. Um, but yeah, it was a big, big story. Yeah.

• 9:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. And so after you get through writing the book and the movie gets produced, do you stay in contact with the Sean Parkers, the Cameron and Tyler Winklevosses of the world? Or is it something where you kind of move on to your next thing and then you kind of circle back on the Bitcoin thing years later and then kind of reconnect with them?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I could never have guessed that I'd be writing about the Winklevoss twins again. I mean, of all the people that were in the social network, I would never have guessed that it would be them that would have this second act. I stayed a little in touch, like I I would run into the twins. They didn't love their portrayal in the movie. Um, it was very, you know, alpha male, the mean jocks. They were they were the bad guys, you know, they were the they were the ones chasing the the karate kid around the gym in skeleton costumes. I mean, they were they were like 80s bad guys in that. And so they didn't love it, but they did go to the premiere. Um, so I had stayed in touch with them, but not I did not know what was going on with them. I didn't know that they had, you know, built this massive fortune in Bitcoin. I didn't really know anything about Bitcoin.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Um, I stay a little in touch with Sean Parker. Um, Eduardo had to cut off all contact with me. He sent me a legal restraining order. Broke up with his girlfriend at the time because it was my wife's best friend because he could have no contact with me or he could lose his billions of dollars. So I didn't stay in touch with Eduardo although I would have liked to, but the twins I would see now and again, but no, I didn't know anything about what was going on.

• 11:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so how do you reconnect or like, you know, learn about all of the Bitcoin fortune and all of that?

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, so basically about a year ago, um, I, a year and a half, I guess, I see a headline in the New York Times and it says, "The Winklevoss Twins are the first Bitcoin billionaires." And that kind of blew my mind because I'd heard of something called Bitcoin, but I didn't really know what it was. Um, and I didn't think the twins would ever be coming back into the story. So I called them up and I said, "I want to sit down with you." And luckily they sat down with me and they proceeded to tell me this crazy story. And so I had not really had any interest in Bitcoin up until that point. People had pitched me Bitcoin stories over the years, um, but I didn't know anything about it. I'm not a math guy. I don't know a lot, uh, uh, you know, about money or anything.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Um, but when I heard the twin story, it really caught my attention because here were these guys who I had thought, you know, were just these bad guys. I thought they were the establishment. They were the guys in the suits. And now they're at the helm of another revolution. You know, they're involved in two revolutions and it can't possibly be by accident, you know? And as I got into it, I became very intrigued by Bitcoin and I really started to think that this is the future. I really became very, very bullish on it and, and think that the technology is spectacular, but also Bitcoin itself, um, makes sense. Yeah. And, and so I was caught up in it and I got very excited about it and, and they let me follow them around for a year.

• 12:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, so you, so, uh, before we get into kind of the details of actually writing the book, maybe give us like a, a two minutes on like what the book is about from your perspective, um, what people can expect if they read it.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Sure. So Bitcoin billionaires to me is the same level of origin story that the social network was. This is the story of, of how Bitcoin came to be, but through the eyes of the Winklevoss twins. It follows them from the moment they first heard about Bitcoin, which was on the beach in Ibiza, um, after their settlement with Mark Zuckerberg to where, you know, they are. At when Bitcoin hit 10,000 and they became billionaires. And it's kind of this crazy story about the beginnings of Bitcoin, about the libertarian anarchist side and Silk Road, that side of it, but also about guys like the twins who are trying to, you know, bring it into the next level, maybe through regulation, through making it more mainstream.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  So it's the story of, you know, this new form of digital gold, of digital money, but through the eyes of these thriller-esque characters. It starts with the settlement. It starts where the social network ends and it goes right through the beginnings of Bitcoin.

• 14:00Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And then, you know, as you're writing this book, they tell you the story initially, right? You get intrigued. Do you immediately start writing? Do you kind of go and do a bunch of research, talking to as many of the other players in the story as you can? What does that kind of initial process look like?

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, so first I sit down with the twins again and again, and they tell me their whole story. Then I reached out to the other characters. So Charlie Schrempf, who, you know, was a big, big part of their lives, you know, they first invested in him. And then when he ended up going to jail, they had to deal with the fallout of that. So Charlie became someone that I spent a lot of time with, reached out to Roger Ver. And fascinating guy, you know, I think crazy, but in good ways and bad ways. I think he's brilliant, but I think he's, he's, you know, he's different. Total libertarian to the level of anarchy and, and, and so, and then I talked to Eric Voorhees, I talked to, you know, as many people as I could that were in the story and tried

• 15:01Speaker 01

  to build it, you know, from there. So yeah, you talk to as many people as you can, you, you write down as much as you can. And then, and then I start writing. And so then I lock myself and I write. So I, my process is two parts, you know, there's the research stage where you run around and try and live the story. And then there's the writing phase where you're just locked up in a room.

• 15:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And do you find that like when you're going through that research phase, are people?

• 15:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Honest with you and kind of, you know, just tell you the truth? Or do you find that they're all kind of jockeying for the best treatment in the book?

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Right. Well, I think that for the most part, you know, I know how to work my way through that. So I don't come in with like a notepad and a tape recorder like a traditional journalist. I try and become a part of their lives, become a part of their story. I kind of sidle up to them and go out to clubs and do whatever it is that they do to try and sort of get them to be honest. But, you know, there's a mix of that going on. I think people always see themselves as the main character in a movie. And so when I approach them, they're telling their story in a way that would look good on the big screen to some extent. But I do think that you do get to their honest level. And when you read the book, Charlie Shrem is Charlie Shrem in this story. I don't think, I think I got him very, very right.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  And Charlie's read the book and has said that, you know, it made him cry. I mean, he really felt those scenes. I think I got the twins right. I'll tell you with the social network, I think I got the twins exactly wrong. I think that that was an incorrect portrayal of them. Because, you know, when I first met them, they're like something out of Greek mythology. They walk into the room and they're these gigantic Olympic athletes and they're billionaires. And you're kind of, I'm picturing every 80 movie I ever saw. You know, they're the, they're the bad guys chasing John Cusack around or chasing the karate kid around. And I was terrified of them because in high school I hid from guys like that. But, and that informed the view of them that's in the social network. I think now that I've gotten to know them again, I think they're much smarter than people realize.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  They're brilliant, you know, speak multiple languages. They're very intense people and they're very sort of, you know, intimidating to some extent, but they're, they know exactly what they're doing. So I think I got them right in this telling. So yeah, you try and get the characters as right as you can. But in the end, you know, people will like some aspects of it and not like other aspects of it.

• 17:27Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And, you know, look, you've written a bunch of books and some of them have been incredibly successful. Even for you, like when you come up with this story idea, do you just call up a publisher and you're like, hey, I want to write another book and they just accept it on the spot? Or what's that process like once you have, all right, I want to write about this Bitcoin billionaires? Like what do you do?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  So I do things a little differently than other people. So once I've done some research, I write a 15-page treatment about the story and I actually take it to Hollywood first. Um, I usually sell the movie rights or the TV rights somewhere. Um, and then I bring it to the publishers. You know, I have a publisher that I'm working with, so they get to look at my next book before anybody else does. Um, but usually I come in with already a set up movie situation. Um, and then I send them the proposal and if the publisher likes it, then I, then I sell it to them. Um, often I auction it off, um, to whoever wants to buy it. But, you know, I've been doing this a while. It wasn't like this in the beginning of my career, but at this point, you know, if I find the right true story to tell, um, you know, I can usually find the right publisher to publish it.

• 18:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And I'm assuming once you hear the story, you pretty much know from a gut standpoint, yeah, that's got a shot to, to be big and, and good and popular versus, you know, the other story.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know. I'll tell you, I try and write stories that I think are really about important world-changing things. So, you know, Bitcoin, as I dug into the story and as I came up, you know, with the plotline following the twins around, I feel this is a really important international kind of project. So I knew it would make waves everywhere. Um, so yeah, I'm always looking for something very big, you know, Facebook, Bitcoin. Um, i- i- it can't just be a great story. It's got to have that element to it that appeals to everyone in the world because it's coming out, you know, in 20 countries. It's not just coming out here. Um, so you want everyone to sort of be excited by it. Um, you have to be able to tell the story in one sentence, you know? If you can't tell the story in one sentence,

• 19:22Speaker 01

  it's very hard to sell. So all of my books come down to that elevator pitch, um, whether it's, you know, six MIT kids who took Vegas for millions, or, you know, the guys who changed the social order with Social Network, or, or, um, you know, the, the, the most incredible second act in history and, and the, the revolution involving money. I mean, this is, these are big stories to me.

• 19:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. And so, uh, what's the logic behind going and selling the movie rights first?

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Um, a couple of reasons. Number one, people don't read books that much anymore. You know, the book industry isn't what it used to be. And I feel like for a story to reach a lot of people, it has to have that element to it, some sort of a movie or television possibility. Um, it extends the life of the story and it just creates a much bigger platform for it. I mean, every story in a way is a platform. Um, so I, I feel like that synergy is important. Look, I, I love writing books and all I ever really wanted to do was be an author of books. Um, but I also know that people don't consume stories the way they did 20 years ago. Um, most people are, are either looking at their, on their phone or watching something on their phone or their iPad or something like that.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  And so as a storyteller, you know, I understand that my story has to be more than just a book. Um, so I feel like selling it in Hollywood first, um, gives it that opportunity to be a bigger than just a book. Um, but you know, I, I had a lot of success with 21 and the social networks. What opened up all of these pathways there with producers and actors and things like that. So I have a way of taking it out there and not just taking it out in the book world.

• 20:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so I'm assuming that means that there will be a Bitcoin billionaires book or a movie?

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, there will be a Bitcoin billionaires movie. It's going to be, uh, uh, distributed by Columbia, who did the social network. And, uh, we're looking at, uh, I want Armie Hammer to play them again. I think Armie is amazing. So that would be incredible. Um, I don't know who else could play them as well as Armie, but we'll see. Um, but it's still early stages, you know, we don't have a screenplay yet or anything like that. But I, I, I do believe it will be a very big movie.

• 21:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And, and is there a world where they'd play themselves?

• 21:28Speaker 01

  I don't, I, I, I'd have to ask them. I don't know if they've ever acted. I mean, I don't know if, if that's even something that they're, you know, they're pretty busy with Gemini and all this stuff they're doing in this space. So I don't know if that's, that's going to happen. But, uh, usually I think it's, you know, I doubt that they want to play themselves in the movie. I don't know if anybody's ever, ever done that in a big feature. So it would be interesting.

• 21:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I can't think of one, but, uh, the, the last one that I saw somebody do that, uh, what is the, um, Fifteen seventeen to Paris or whatever about the uh

• 21:58Speaker 01

  Oh, the actual guys were in that. Oh, that's cool. I didn't see that one. So yeah, I mean, you know, it's an interesting idea, but I don't think that that's something that'll happen though.

• 22:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, in that one, I don't quote me on this, but I think Clint Eastwood is either him or Steven Seergood, you know, some big name is the director and it was a requirement in there and they said, I'll only do it um uh if they act, if they're the actors for themselves, which I thought.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  That's great. Uh, I mean, I think that's, that's an interesting way to go, but I don't see that happening here, but who knows?

• 22:29Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. Um, all right. So as you're writing the book, what, what were like the biggest surprises to you other than just the, the overall story, right? Hey, the second act um obviously is uh is incredibly impressive, but were there other surprises either with Bitcoin or, or the story that maybe people don't know if they read the book?

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I mean, I think how the settlement went down with Mark Zuckerberg was something I didn't really know about. And it's this really cool scene, you know, where um they had been in negotiations back and forth forever and nothing was happening. And finally Cameron uh suggested that let's just sit down with Mark Zuckerberg in a room and talk this out, you know, without the lawyers. So he presents the idea to Zuckerberg's lawyers and Zuckerberg's lawyers come back and say, uh, he says, okay, but there are some concerns and these, what kind of concerns? Like security concerns. And it turns out that Mark was afraid that they were gonna beat him up, which is really comical. And, and then um, you know, Cameron's like, well, does he think that one of us couldn't beat him up? He can only, so anyways, he ends up having the meeting with

• 23:29Speaker 01

  just one of them in a glass room surrounded by all the lawyers sitting outside. Um, it was a really cool scene and, and in the end, you know, they get sixty five million dollars, which turns into five hundred million dollars after the IPO because they take it in stock. So I didn't know any of those details. I'll need to do social network. Um, and that was cool. In terms of Bitcoin, you know, I love the whole Satoshi Nakamoto story, you know, the idea of this out of nowhere, this, this person appears and then disappears, you know, whether it's one person or multiple people. The mystery behind that, you know, to you, it's probably something you, you know very well, but coming into this from an outsider, it's a really spectacular story in the origins of something like this. Um, that people just don't know who this person is. Uh, you know,

• 24:13Speaker 01

  you might have a guess. Um, and that's, that's uh, that's cool. I think that's very cool. Um, so you know, a lot of things like that. Um, you know, the personalities involved are so over the top, some of these people, um, that, that it's, it's, it's fascinating. Um, so yeah, there's been a, there's a lot in the, in the book, but also, you know, in just my own research into Bitcoin, that it's just full of drama. There's, there's, you could, you could make an incredible movie or television series about all the different ins and outs of the story.

• 24:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. And so, uh, anything that you went into as like a preconceived notion that ended up not being true, like as you just kind of learned the Bitcoin story, you were like, oh yeah, of course this can be part of the book. And then it either didn't make it in for editorial reasons, or just ended up not being what you thought it was?

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, that's a good question. So, you know, in looking at the beginnings of Bitcoin, I, I think what's really interesting, I think, uh, about the story and the way I present the book is you've got this split down the middle of philosophies of the people who are the libertarian anarchist view that Bitcoin is going to take down governments and take down banks. And, you know, you can just hide with it and not pay taxes. And I think in the beginnings, that was kind of the beginning stories of Bitcoin. Um, and then you have the twins coming in who are guys in suits, who are men of Harvard, and they come at it at a very different angle, which is that, you know, it needs to be a part of the system that needs to be regulated to some degree. It needs to be something that middle America

• 25:40Speaker 01

  can gravitate towards and Wall Street can gravitate towards. And this sort of battle between these two different ideologies, um, became centered to the book in a lot of ways. And I didn't know a lot about that beforehand. Um, so the whole Silk Road story and, and, and how important that is to the beginnings of it, but then becomes something that actually proves the opposite, that it doesn't need Silk Road. It doesn't need to be this sort of dark libertarian fantasy for Bitcoin to survive and succeed. In fact, quite the opposite. I don't know. I love that, that whole pull between two different, and Charlie Shrem is at the center of that. So what's intriguing to me is through this character, you have these both sides and he's kind of torn apart by going either the libertarian fantasy or

• 26:24Speaker 01

  going towards the Zuckerbergs, you know, wearing a suit and tie. Um, and I think that that's the crux of this story. So yeah, there's so much to it. Um, that really blew my mind.

• 26:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. Look, I, I, as in the beginning, I, I actually just finished, I listened to it on Audible and, uh, you know, I, I know a decent part of the story already, but there was a lot of parts I didn't know. Um, and the way that you wrote it, uh, you know, it's this like, Really well done mix of entertainment and information that frankly, as I was listening to it, it was just very obvious like this would make a great movie. So it's cool to hear that that will happen at some point. But we did a great job.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know, I also, I became very pro Bitcoin, I will tell you through the whole process. I really, I really see this as the future. I mean, there's no way in 25 years, we're going to be walking around with wallets and paper money like medieval peasants bartering for things, you know, it's, it's, it's gonna be me being able to text you money instantly with nobody between us. And how we get there will be interesting and sort of act three of the movie. But, but Bitcoin makes sense for the world we're moving into. And, you know, my parents' generation immediately think, oh, scam or tulips or whatever, all these things they throw out. But when you really look into it, none of that makes sense.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  It really is an incredible technology and, and I think going to be enormous. So I, I think the twins were really on to something. And, and it's interesting that they dove into this because they're not the kind of guys you would expect to look at something at the time was dominated by, by darker elements. And but see this kind of future out of it. So yeah, it's fascinating.

• 28:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, the, the one scene from the book that, that I think really just was crystal clear and you, you could almost envision a movie or it actually happening was when they're kind of making the decision to go and put what ends up being, you know, 10, you know, over $10 million into Bitcoin. And they basically, they go back to their parents' house and they're kind of talking to their dad about it. And it's kind of just like, you know, hey, we have this belief, but like, what is our conviction? Right? How convicted are we? Are we willing to bet, you know, 10, 11 million bucks on this thing? And the way that it's, you know, written in the book, I think it's pretty powerful to see even the people who, you know, ended up kind of having the most conviction in terms

• 28:51Anthony Pompliano?

  of dollars into, into Bitcoin in the early days. It was still a little bit of like, hey, is this real? Right? Is this actually something that can happen?

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Right, I mean, when they first looked at it, they were like, it's either the next big thing or it's bullshit. And they were looking at, you know, the people that were already into it, and Silicon Valley had completely missed the boat on it, you know, and yet the smartest people in the room were involved. So it was kind of the engineers, the people who were on, who had built the internet, were looking at it, while the people who became the big names in Silicon Valley were not. And so it's kind of, it was an incredible moment that they dove in. I mean, they end up buying 1% of Bitcoin, and then investing in Charlie. So they took a big bet, and the fact that they still held on through all of that craziness. You know, I always talk to people now, and they're like, oh, I wish I had bought it at $10. But every one of them would have sold it at $20. You know, you would have

• 29:45Speaker 01

  bought at 10 and sold it at 20. It's not like you would have held it to 100, and then 1,000, and then 10,000, and then 20,000. I mean, who would do that? Unless you truly believed in this future. So that, to me, is fascinating.

• 29:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, holding on the way up is one thing. The bigger thing is to go, you know, so if they were buying in 2013, they'd gone now through two 80-plus percent drawdowns, right?

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Which is pretty incredible. What's next for you?

• 30:15Speaker 01

  So we're gonna work on the movie for Bitcoin Billionaires, and I'm looking for my next book. You know, I don't have my next story yet, and usually in the process of a book tour is when I get pitched the most stories. So I'm out there, you know, on Twitter and Instagram fielding pitches right now. I would love to write another big story, set maybe in finance, or maybe in technology, I don't know. But I'm always looking for that next big book. But this book's gonna come out in a lot of countries, so I'll be out there talking about it for a while, and we'll see, we'll see what happens next, yeah.

• 30:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. And I'm assuming the stories that you look for are less like investigative journalism, and much more kind of... Have an entertainment factor to them, right?

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Well, there has to be a thriller aspect to it. There has to be something exciting and incredible. And it has to be a somewhat untold story. You know, set in a world that we all recognize. So, you know, the, the, the genre, the thing that we're talking about might be Bitcoin. But the story of the twins ride in Bitcoin isn't well known. So I want to find that kind of unknown story that allows me to tell a bigger story. So it's tricky. Um, it has to be big. It has to be international. It has to be, you know, uh, but, but you're right. I'm not a journalist like diving in to some story that's in the news tomorrow. Um, it's more like something that has this drama behind it, this sort of Shakespearean elements to it.

• 31:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. Um, and then before we finish up, uh, you wrote a book on UFOs, which I normally talk to people about aliens on the podcast. So we've got to talk about this. What, how did you end up, one, learning about UFOs and two, writing a book about?

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Sure. So the book is called The Thirty Seventh Parallel. And so I was, you know, a skeptical person. I'm come from a scientific family and lots of science in my background. And what I, I had heard this story about this sheriff, uh, this deputy sheriff in Colorado, who had been fired from his job because he was investigating cattle mutilations in Colorado and had started to think about UFOs. And so he was fired from his job. He ended up getting an RV, putting his family in the RV and going from UFO hotspot to UFO hotspot investigating. And he started having these crazy run ins with this company called Bigelow Aeronautics. Now Bigelow makes pieces for the International Space Station. They have a huge, uh, uh, contact with NASA.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  They have a big Defense Department budget. They're a multi-billion dollar space company run by this guy named Robert Bigelow, who is this billionaire who is obsessed with UFOs. And it turns out that the US government has been outsourcing their UFO studies to Bigelow Aeronautics for the past 20 years. And in fact, if you get an FAA manual that all the pilots use in their training, and you turn to the page where, uh, it says what a pilot is supposed to do. If they see something, they don't report it to their own airline, or they'll get fired. They don't report it to the US government. They report it to Bigelow Aeronautics. And it's right there in the FAA manual. So it's this kind of weird conspiracy going on.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  So I didn't come at it from someone who believes in UFOs. I came at it, you know, as a journalist, and I was investigating the story about this guy who quit his job and became obsessed with UFOs. And I started running into this strange company that that has been studying this for 20 years in secret. And so it's really wild. It's a wild story. And through the process of writing that book, you know, I came to the conclusion that that whether or not there has been a UFO crash landed here or not, I can't give you the definitive answer. But I do believe that there's no reason to think it couldn't have happened. It certainly could have happened. And there is definitely a cover up going on for decades now

• 33:59Speaker 01

  about the investigations that have been going on at very high levels. So I believe there is information that the Air Force has at this point. And I do believe that there have been at least a couple incidents that are still not clearly understood, even at the highest levels. So anyways, you know, the book was called Thirty Seventh Parallel, and it opened my eyes up to this very strange thing. You know, 99.9% of UFO sightings are just, you know, a meteor, or it's an airplane, or it's some sort of thing like that. But there's still those few incidents that are really interesting. And I will also say this, nearly every president we've had

• 34:43Speaker 01

  has believed in UFOs and has attempted to get these files opened up. And the Air Force has refused to open these files up. And Hillary Clinton, you know, when she was running for president, said one of the things she would do was open up the Air Force's files on UFOs, and she was unable to become president. No president has been able to do this. So it's intriguing. There's definitely something there. And, you know, just recently, there was a New York Times report about Navy pilots who have been seeing things up and down the coast. And there's no clear answer to what's going on. So it was an intriguing process, you know, writing that book. And it definitely opened my eyes up to something that's been going on and hasn't really been studied.

• 35:26Anthony Pompliano?

  So two things on this. One is, did you see the Harvard professor, I think it's astrophysicist, who believes that there was a spaceship that came into the galaxy?

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, Omamami, Omamami, or whatever. So yeah, that's a fascinating story, you know, that this weird-shaped asteroid came by and then through some sort of process was able to power itself out. So if you, you know, the Harvard astrophysicist basically studied the way that this asteroid flew by, and it seems unlikely that it was a natural situation, because it basically slingshot through our area and then flew right back out. And it happened very quickly, so it was really impossible to study. And the shape of the object was very probe-like. And so this actually dovetails with what I wrote about.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Because what I found intriguing is that the reason people used to not believe in UFOs was for a couple of reasons. One, we didn't believe that there was life on other planets. But now, we're pretty sure there probably is life on other planets. And secondly, we believed that they were just too far away. But we've actually now gotten to the point in our technology that we can reach these planets that could support life with technology we have available today. And in fact, there's a program called the Starshot Program, which is, they're gonna make postcard-sized probes and fire them off using solar power, essentially. They're like laser sails. And they're gonna shoot them off at one-fifth the speed of light.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  And they'll be able to reach Alpha Centauri, where the closest of these exoplanets is, within 20 years. So it's not really that long a process where we're gonna have probes flying by. So it seems likely that if another intelligence was out there, and they were going to study their universe, they would be firing probes off as well. So, you know, it's very possible that at some point, some sort of probe did fly by us or crash into us. Because that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna shoot thousands of these things out in many directions. And it's being funded by this Russian oligarch. Stephen Hawking was involved in the project. So, you know, it makes sense that at some point, you know, something like that will happen.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  I believe in our lifetimes, we will make some sort of contact. I'm I'm pretty sure of that.

• 37:51Anthony Pompliano?

  So.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Based on the amount of of evidence that's been out there, the amount of money that's being poured into this. And the way our technology is moving so quickly forward, we'll be able to see so much farther, you know, within the next 10 years. And we'll be able to reach so much farther that if there's life out there somewhere, we'll find it.

• 38:08Anthony Pompliano?

  So you are definitely in the camp of there's likely to be life out there and we will also come in contact in our lifetime.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Well, I think mathematically, there's definitely life out there. I mean, there's almost no, there's no way of looking at the size of the universe and the amount of planets there are that could support life. And think there isn't life anywhere else. I mean, that that's just crazy. So there's definitely life out there. Whether we'll find it or not is the second question, but I think as our technology develops, sooner or later, we will. Um, yeah, I think we will. And I don't know how we'll react to it. But um, but and the government has taken this seriously. I, you know, the idea that it's just crazy. Um, it actually was a government program to make people think that it was a joke. So back in the 50s, um, when the government used to deal with people seeing UFOs.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  They actually had a department whose job it was, was to try and make a joke out of it. Um, so they would send air force generals to these conferences, um, to try and make it seem very humorous. Um, because that was the way you defended against people looking at it scientifically. There's no way a scientist could ever look into UFOs without being ridiculed. And that was actually part of a government project to make people not look into it. Because they were hiding their own, um, black ops project. So the government was working on, you know, uh, stealth bombers and things like that. So they didn't want investigative journalists studying UFO sightings because most of them were stealth bombers or drones.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  So to hide their drones and their stealth bombers, they would make anybody who looked into UFOs look crazy. So it was an interesting, you know, and there's documentation of all this. So, you know, you couldn't look, if someone says, "I saw a UFO," a respectable journalist or scientist can't go look into that because they get ridiculed. But the reason the government doesn't want you looking into that isn't because they're hiding UFOs, it's because they're hiding whatever project they're working on next. So it's really interesting. It's an intriguing way to, you know, an intriguing story, for sure.

• 40:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. The, the thing that somebody said to me recently on the podcast that I thought was really compelling was they said, you know, "If, if you're Christopher Columbus, it's great that you discovered a new land," right? "But if you are the Native Americans, you don't want to come in contact with Christopher Columbus and all of his people who are going to come to your land," right? And so they were making reference in terms of, you know, there's a lot of people who say, "Hey, I wanna, you know, it'd be great if we had contact" and all this stuff during our lifetime. But there's an element also of, look, we tend to think of ourselves as the superior species, right? You know, humans are better than animals and all this stuff. But, but there's a world where that might not be true and then we might not be actually as excited about coming in contact with another, you know, kind of

• 40:56Anthony Pompliano?

  intelligent life form if, if we end up being inferior to them and they've got some ability to, you know, rule over us or something like that.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it, and yeah, it never works out for the less intelligent life form, you know? In, in history, you know, it, it never works out for the, for the, the technology lower species. So, you know, yeah, the odds are bad if you run into a, a higher species for you. But, you know, at the same time, you have to keep looking because that's what we do. You have to keep looking outward and outward and outward, because that's how you develop as a culture. So, I don't know. It, it's, uh, it's an interesting thing, but I, I do think there's a lot more. That should be looked at, and that already is.

• 41:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. All right, man. Where can people find the book? Bitcoin Billionaires?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, Bitcoin Billionaires is everywhere. You can get it on Amazon. It's in every bookstore at this point. Or you can go find me on Twitter at Ben Mezrich or on Instagram at Ben Mezrich, and I'll tell you where it is. So the book is everywhere, so hopefully people will gravitate towards it.

• 42:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, I rarely, rarely, rarely endorse things, but I have to say that after reading it, I highly suggest everyone goes and picks it up because it was really entertaining and then now you got me excited to see when the movie comes out. But it sounds like that's probably months away at this point, if not more, so I'll have to patiently wait until that comes out.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. And yeah, that's awesome. I love talking about it and I'm glad people are liking it. So thank you.

• 42:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. Well, somebody's gonna have to thank Cameron and Tyler. It sounds like not only was the book written, but they and others got you infected with the virus. You are a pro Bitcoin.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  They did. They brought me into the Bitcoin fold, and I am a big believer in it. So I think it's the future. It's the future of money, and I hope the rest of the world realizes it soon. But I have no doubt that Bitcoin is going to be a big part of our future.

• 43:01Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. You're spoken like somebody who is a Bitcoin enthusiast for sure, which is awesome. So thank you so much for taking the time to do this, and then maybe we'll have to do it again when the movie comes out.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  That sounds great. I'd love to do it again. Awesome.

• 43:15Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Thanks so much for listening to that podcast. Before I let you go, one more word from our sponsor, BlockFi. Their new interest account allows you to securely deposit your Bitcoin or Ether at BlockFi and receive 6% annual interest paid monthly in cryptocurrency. This rate actually compounds, so you receive a 6.2% APY, which is very attractive given the alternatives. So you can actually take your Bitcoin, you can deposit it with BlockFi, and get paid an interest rate of 6% in return. Go check out blockfi.com/pomp. Again, blockfi.com/pomp to sign up and start earning interest on your crypto today.

• 43:54Anthony Pompliano?

  Hey everyone, Pop here. If you liked this episode of Off the Chain and want to help us take crypto to the top of the Apple, Spotify, and other podcast charts, please do us a favor and rate, review, and subscribe. To review, simply go to the Off the Chain homepage, scroll down until you see the five blank stars. Taking 15 seconds to fill those stars in and leave a quick review goes a long way in helping us take the entire crypto ecosystem to the top of the charts. I appreciate you listening and see you next time on Off the Chain.