Scam Economy

Quinn Myers, freelance writer and author of the new book Remember the Internet: Google Glass joins the show to discuss Google's new partnership with Coinbase to accept crypto payments for Google Cloud services, crypto evangelists basking in acceptance from Big Tech and Old Finance, how the tech industry and venture capitalists hype crypto and the media eats it up, how this same song and dance is v...

Parker Molloy of The Present Age newsletter joins Scam Economy with Matt Binder to discuss the death of CNN's little known NFT project, the CNN Vault. Parker and Matt take a look at how bizarre it was, the NFT collectors who spent thousands of dollars on a now-dead project, the Associated Press has an NFT marketplace too, and how the mainstream media irresponsibly covers emerging technology like t...

Bonnie Patten, executive director of Truth In Advertising (TINA), joins Scam Economy with Matt Binder to discuss the scourge of celebrity crypto and NFT endorsements. We discuss Kim Kardashian getting fined $1.26 million by the SEC for pushing a pump-and-dump token by EthereumMax, the celebrities hawking NFTs without disclosing that they were paid for their endorsement, TINA's recent work sending...

Leo Schwartz, reporter at Fortune, joins Scam Economy with Matt Binder to discuss his report on GiveCrypto, a crypto charity set up by the crypto exchange Coinbase, the broader realm of crypto philanthropy and the ulterior motives behind it, how GiveCrypto took advantage of its "ambassadors" around the world, how little the charity was able to help and why that is, why even some crypto advocates t...

This month marks the one year anniversary of El Salvador's historic Bitcoin Law, cementing the Central American country the very first country to mark the cryptocurrency as legal tender. So, how's it going? Not good! Salvadoran infosec specialist Domingo Flores joins Scam Economy with Matt Binder to discuss the turmoil the country has faced in recent months, thanks to its Bitcoin-loving President...

It's finally here...Ethereum Merge Day. Bennett Tomlin of Crypto Critics Corner and Protos.com joins Scam Economy with Matt Binder to break down exactly what the Ethereum Merge is, why the crypto world is celebrating its arrival, the difference between the old proof-of-work system and the new proof-of-stake system, how miners are taking the change, the fork, what is staking, sharding?!, the enviro...

Journalist Jacob Silverman joins Scam Economy with Matt Binder to discuss one of the biggest mysteries surrounding the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange...who is Guangying Chen? Silverman breaks down Binance's huge role in the crypto space and its founder Changpeng Zhao aka "CZ," the history of the company's opaqueness on many issues surrounding the business, the leaked "Tai Chi" document, t...

Web3 Is Going Just Great creator Molly White returns to Scam Economy to break down crypto winter aka crypto's summer from hell with host Matt Binder. Matt and Molly discuss some of the crypto and Web3 failures, controversies, and scandals from July & August like Tornado Cash winding up sanctions, Michael Saylor being sued by the DC AG for tax fraud, Martin Shkreli's odd pharma Web3 project hac...

Another BONUS teaser of the Scam Economy Livestream Call-In Post Show! Jon from Australia calls BACK into the Scam Economy Livestream Post Show in early August to talk to host Matt Binder about crypto in the video game space, TikTok creator NFTs, and the Australian based Web3 company, Immutable, which is involved in Gamestop's NFT marketplace.

Coinbase is America's #1 crypto exchange. Coinbase has also had a very, very bad couple of weeks. Ed Zitron joins Matt Binder on Scam Economy to discuss the Coinbase insider trading case, how a former Coinbase product manager was able to slip insider knowledge to his brother and a friend, how the scheme fell apart, just how much insider trading is going on over at Coinbase?, the SEC investigation...

A BONUS teaser of the Scam Economy Livestream Call-In Post Show! Listener of the show, Jon from Australia, called into the Scam Economy Livestream Post Show back in June to talk to host Matt Binder, right after an episode on Celsius and the crypto crash, to discuss a listener who had called into the post show back in February who talked about staking his crypto in Celsius. First, listen to the cal...

Adi Robertson, senior reporter at The Verge, joins Scam Economy with Matt Binder to bring us on the epic journey that is Spice DAO, the decentralized autonomous organization that raised around $12 million in cryptocurrency in order to bid on a rare copy of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s "legendary never-made adaptation" of the classic sci-fi novel, Dune (also known as the Dune Bible). We discuss the $3 mi...

Angel investor Liron Shapira joins Scam Economy host Matt Binder to discuss his viral Twitter thread about the decentralized wireless network Helium, often viewed as the gold standard of Web3 uses cases. We discuss what Helium is and how does it work, how budding entrepreneurs buy expensive hotspots in hopes of earning Helium's cryptocurrency token, who is actually using Helium's wireless network,...

Quinn Myers, author of the upcoming book Remember the Internet Vol. 3: Google Glass, joins Scam Economy to discuss his piece for MEL Magazine about the workers who decided to take their paychecks in crypto. Quinn and host Matt Binder discuss the different types of people who took part in this program, how Coinbase made it extremely easy for people to convert their hard-earned pay from this jobs in...

Just like crypto, Elon Musk is all hype. So, they're a match made in heaven. Scam Economy host Matt Binder takes a look at Elon Musk's history of promoting cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and, his favorite, Dogecoin, whether or not he's telling the truth when he claimed he "never told people to invest in cryptocurrency," how Elon's love for crypto helped create the current crypto bot problem...and how...

Yet another crypto lender, Voyager Digital, has frozen its customers' funds, pausing withdrawals, and just filed for bankruptcy. But this time, it's even more looney than usual. Ed Zitron joins Matt Binder on the show to discuss how Voyager claimed it was an FDIC insured bank an...SURPRISE! Voyager was not a bank and it was not FDIC insured, how the company gave out huge loans to relatively few en...

Logically.ai UK editor Ernie Piper and Senior OSINT Analyst Nick Backovic join Matt Binder on Scam Economy to discuss the tech-based anti-misinformation firm's report on the QAnon influencers scamming their followers with crypto pump-and-dump schemes. We discuss the QAnon conspiracy theory and how its conspiratorial right wing beliefs fit perfectly into the cryptocurrency scams, the Stellar networ...

Mike Burgersburg of Dirty Bubble Media joins Matt Binder on Scam Economy to breakdown his reporting on the crypto lender Celsius, how they contributed to the crypto crash, why they've frozen all of their customers accounts, its founder Alex Mashinsky and his interesting past, is Celsius a ponzi?, what is CEL token, how his @MikeBurgersburg account was hacked just as he was reporting on Celsius and...

Crypto critics David Gerard & Amy Castor join Matt Binder on Scam Economy to talk about the "Jenga stack of interconnected time bombs" that is this week's cryptocurrency crash. David and Amy breakdown how the entire crypto space is like a Jenga tower and all it takes is for one rug pull to knock down the stack, how Terra/Luna set the stage for the plunge, what Celsius is and why it was the nex...

Leo Schwartz, reporter at Rest of World, joins Scam Economy with Matt Binder to discuss his recent piece interviewing people from around the world who had invested in the stablecoin Terra and lost everything they had in the crash. We also discuss the predatory nature of crypto and DeFi, why people in countries like Argentina, Iran, and Nigeria invest in crypto, how the industry preys on the most e...

Michael Edison Hayden of the Southern Poverty Law Center joined Matt Binder for a LIVE episode of Scam Economy as part of the Digital Void Festival: Brooklyn on May 26 at Littlefield's. Matt takes a look at the two biggest crypto communities: the "artists"/hucksters of Ethereum (Gary Vee, Jimmy Fallon) and the cryptonazis of Bitcoin, how the real split in cryptocurrency is the 99.99% vs. the 0.01%...

Longtime Wikipedia editor and Web3 is Going Great creator Molly White joins Matt Binder on Scam Economy to discuss why Wikipedia stopped taking cryptocurrency donations, how the Wiki community came together to make it happen, what happened when crypto advocates tried to stop the decision, the history of Wiki and cryptocurrency, and much more! Check out Web3 Is Going Great @ https://web3isgoinggrea...

EMERGENCY POD! The crypto market is in a free fall. What is happening?! Bennett Tomlin of Crypto Critics' Corner joins Scam Economy with Matt Binder to break down what stablecoin Terra (UST) is, why it lost its peg and what that means, how its sister coin Luna factors in to all this, and how this all led to one of the biggest crashes across the entire cryptocurrency market – one that has Bitcoin a...

Creator of Web3 is Going Great, developer Molly White joins Scam Economy with Matt Binder to discuss the insanely high Ethereum gas fees from over the weekend where people were being charged thousands in fees for transactions as low as $5, how this was caused by Bored Ape Yacht Club owners Yuga Labs, and shows everything wrong with the Ethereum network (and crypto more broadly.) Also, after the SC...

Salvadorian developer Mario Gomez joins Matt Binder on Scam Economy to discuss his arrest over his activism against El Salvador's Bitcoin laws, why El Salvador is going all in on Bitcoin and making it an official currency, how it all started with an American project in the the Central American country called Bitcoin Beach, what shady dealings El Salvador's authoritarian president Nayib Bukele coul...