The actor, best known for his starring role in "The O.C.," has become
an outspoken critic of a volatile market driven by speculation. Who's listening?

By David Yaffe-Bellany

ROCKDALE, Texas -- Ben McKenzie was driving his father's silver Subaru
through Texas farmland, talking in breathless bursts about money: who
has it, who needs it, what makes it real or fake. He detailed the
perils of cryptocurrency exchanges, the online brokers that sell
Bitcoin and Ether to speculators, then delivered a glowing endorsement
of "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," a 700-page book by the
economist Thomas Piketty about income inequality and the power of
wealthy capitalists.

"If they can make money on it, they'll do it," Mr. McKenzie, 43, said
as he sped past cattle farms and run-down gas stations one morning in
March.

Mr. McKenzie was on his way to Whinstone U.S., a crypto mining
operation about an hour outside Austin, where rows of energy-guzzling
machines generate new Bitcoins. Over the last six months, as A-list
celebrities have shilled for digital currencies and NFTs,
Mr. McKenzie, a TV actor best known for his starring role in "The
O.C.," has become an outspoken skeptic. He's written critically about
the #ad for little-known coins that Kim Kardashian posted on Instagram
and earnestly asked Reese Witherspoon to stop proselytizing about the metaverse, all while acknowledging that he's not a financial expert.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/style/ben-mckenzie-crypto.html

--
(Please remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)