Oct 9, 2026 · 52 min
Crypto shifts from speculation to political power
Is Crypto Dead? Or More Influential Than Ever?
The episode argues that crypto’s decline as a mass-market craze may conceal its growing influence over finance, politics, and accountability.
- 1Crypto’s promise as future money resembles older experiments with unstable privately issued currency.
- 2FTX’s collapse damaged crypto’s credibility but did not stop the industry’s political and financial expansion.
- 3Tether and Trump-linked ventures show how crypto’s risks now reach beyond retail speculation.
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McKenzie’s discussion of Tether identifies the stablecoin as a remaining crypto risk with implications for trading, payments, politics, and criminal finance.
The brief
Ben McKenzie joins Charlie Warzel to ask whether crypto is dead, dormant, or thriving in 2026—and why losing cultural momentum may not mean losing power.
McKenzie frames crypto less as a connection to physical assets than as a story about money, comparing its speculative appeal with gambling and nineteenth-century private banking.
The FTX collapse exposed how publicity, repeated talking points, and media incentives can manufacture credibility, yet the scandal failed to end crypto’s political ascent.
World Liberty Financial brings the discussion into Trump-linked finance, where alleged conflicts of interest and political fundraising test accountability for powerful actors.
The unresolved risk is Tether: a dollar-pegged instrument used in crypto trading and global payments, with vast reserves and potential criminal applications.
Crypto’s mass appeal peaked around 2021–2022, but McKenzie warns its influence may be spreading into more consequential financial and political systems.