Today Bennett and Cas are joined by the richest man in the world*, Colin Platt: creator of PTK. While you may not be aware of this quadrillionaire, he tokenized his way to being king of the world. Other topics discussed include: wash trading, NFTs, and traditional financial issues versus issues seen within the cryptocurrency landscape.

*Colin isn't the richest man in the world in any real sense.

Read about PTK in the Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/9af35678-36d1-3477-93b8-c3990b87b16a

Follow Colin on Twitter @colingplatt

This episode was recorded on Thursday, April 14th, 2022

Today Bennett and Cas talk about the unfortunate tale of Virgil Griffith, who was recently sentenced to over five years in prison for helping North Korea attempt to evade US sanctions.

The story is absurd for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to:

• generally, as a rule of thumb, don't evade US sanctions

• if, indeed, you plan on continuing with your sanctions evasion plan, don't write it down

• the US sentencing and prison system isn't fair

Here's some of the documentaries mentioned:

A State of Mind: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/astateofmind

Secret State of North Korea: https://youtu.be/N-cX1d4BSCI

This episode was recorded on Tuesday, April 12th, 2022.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by pioneering cryptocurrency author and skeptic David Gerard so he can tell us why he was skeptical in the first place and why he continues to be so today.

David's books: 

Attack of the 50 Foot Blockhain https://www.amazon.com/Attack-50-Foot-Blockchain-Contracts-ebook/dp/B073CPP581

Libra Shrugged https://www.amazon.com/Libra-Shrugged-Facebook-Tried-Money-ebook/dp/B08KK9SZP6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Books Recommended:

Extraordinary Popular Delusions http://supernovae.in2p3.fr/~llg/Textes/Extraordinary-Popular-Delusions-Mackay.pdf

The Politics of Bitcoin https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Bitcoin-Right-Wing-Extremism-Forerunners/dp/1517901804

BitCon https://www.amazon.com/BitCon-Naked-Truth-About-Bitcoin-ebook/dp/B00NUIUQ3A

Shameless self-promotion:

Cas' article on Caritas Ponzi Scheme https://thecaspiancey.medium.com/caritas-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-hating-and-love-the-ponzi-26bd8e05c066

Cas on Crypto Island by PJ Vogt https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crypto-island/id1614253637?i=1000556292753

This episode was recorded on Friday, April 8th, 2022

Today Cas (Orson Newstat) and Bennett talk about Cas' previous arrest record and why he's being forced to share his name and discuss an arrest from 16 years ago.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by returning guest and assistant professor of law at Willamette College, Rohan Grey. We're going to speak with him about the ECASH Act (which you can read here: https://lynch.house.gov/_cache/files/1/7/17e47e5a-2bff-42c1-b509-eb8a50931fa6/BDDFF183213326821B5C88B7F326EABB.ecashact-lynch.pdf), a bill he helped author that aims to bring the privacy of physical cash into the modern age.

Follow Rohan on Twitter @rohangrey.

This episode was recorded on Tuesday, March 29th, 2022.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by a brilliant creator, münecat, who recently did a wonderful YouTube video about how Web3 is ushering in a libertarian dystopia.

Watch her video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-sNSjS8cq0

Watch her video on Gary Vee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xpx0l6FXJU

This is the book she mentions at the beginning of the episode: https://www.amazon.com/Life-After-Google-Blockchain-Economy/dp/1621575764

This episode was recorded on Monday, March 28th, 2022.

Today Bennett and Cas are joined by two Salvadoran natives - Mario Gómez, a developer who was arrested in El Salvador for voicing criticism about the Bitcoin bill, and Oscar Salguero, a senior software engineer who has been traveling to and from El Salvador, testing the limits of the cryptocurrency remittance services.

Para nuestros oyentes en español, hay una transcripción disponible aquí: https://cryptocriticscorner.com/2022/03/29/episode-63-we-need-to-talk-about-el-salvador-feat-mario-gomez-and-oscar-salguero/#spanish-transcript

This is an incredible episode.

If you want to follow Mario on Twitter, please click here: https://twitter.com/mxgxw_alpha

If you want to follow Oscar on Twitter, please click here: https://twitter.com/OscarSalguero (or his website https://oscarsalguero.dev)

Here are some of the articles and stats referenced during the episode:

https://video.vice.com/da/video/gangs-of-el-salvador-part-1/5633b710023f0a102ad05e14

https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vk5x/nayib-bukele-ms13-murder-rate

https://camarasal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/SondeoEmpresarial35422_FINAL10032022.pdf

https://diario.elmundo.sv/economia/solo-el-14-de-las-empresas-reporta-ventas-en-bitcoin-segun-encuesta

This episode was recorded on Thursday, March 24th, 2022

Bennett and Cas are joined by their good friend, former executive director of the Zcash Foundation, and current board member of the Mina Foundation, Josh Cincinnati.

We wanted to pretend this was a debate about whether money laundering should be illegal, instead we all pretty much agreed, "Yes, it should." But we had to define it first and discuss the rules and regulations put in place because of it before coming to a peace accord.

Follow Josh on Twitter @acityinohio or visit his website https://ponzico.win

This episode was recorded on Monday, March 21st, 2022.

Today Bennett Tomlin and Cas Piancey are joined by John Reed Stark of John Reed Stark Consulting and formerly with the Securities and Exchange Commission for over two decades. We discuss our frustrations with the SEC, the perceived lack of action, and what John expects to see from them in the coming years.

Visit John's website: https://www.johnreedstark.com/digital-trust-watch/

Or, follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/johnreedstark?s=11

CORRECTION: John mentions Kik as having requested SEC staff disclose cryptocurrency holdings - this was actually requested by Ripple in the ongoing litigation brought against them by the SEC.

This episode was recorded on Thursday, March 17th, 2022

Today Bennett and Cas are proud to have Francine McKenna, former auditor, current journalist, and soon to be professor at Wharton, to talk to us about all the problems with auditing, cryptocurrencies, and, let's face it, Tether's totally garbage attestations.

Francine's newsletter: https://thedig.substack.com

The Chickenshit Club by Jesse Eisinger: https://www.amazon.com/Chickenshit-Club-Department-Prosecute-Executives/dp/1501121375/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Dave Michaels' article on The Big Four: https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-four-accounting-firms-come-under-regulators-scrutiny-11647364574