Some Future Day

Marc Beckham: [00:01:00] All right, Casey Craig, it's so great to have you on Some Future Day. How are you?
Casey Craig: Good. How are you, Mark? Thank you so much for having me.
Marc Beckham: Oh, it's such a pleasure. I've been waiting to speak with you, very eager to speak with you. I know we connected a few months ago. just to provide some background, like you, you have a really interesting eclectic background. I know that you're a competitive skier or you've been a competitive skier.
Marc Beckham: Can you share with my audience a little bit [00:02:00] of like where you're coming from before we break into a hardcore crypto NFT discussion, please?
Casey Craig: totally. I mean, where to begin? I have a super random background for sure. Um, and it's kind of funny that I ended up in crypto. but yeah, when I was younger, I was a competitive freestyle skier. So I skied, um, halfpipe and slopestyle, which is if you've ever seen the X Games, it's when people are hitting jumps and rails, um, that's one part of it.
Casey Craig: And then the other part is the halfpipe. So yeah, I did kind of fell into it. I've been skiing since I was three. Not many other girls were skiing half pipe and slope style back then. So definitely a niche sport. Um, and yeah, it just became a huge part of my life and taught me a lot of what I know today.
Marc Beckham: How did you get into it, Casey? I mean, that's so hardcore. What, what was the influence? Who encouraged you to get into it at that level?
Casey Craig: It was definitely my dad, but I mean it was also one of those things where not many other other girls were doing [00:03:00] it. The sport itself wasn't even the Olympics yet, so when I was competing, you know, the best you could do was go pro or like, you know, you go to the X Games, but Um, yeah, I mean, my, my dad has always been super enthusiastic about his skiing.
Casey Craig: He grew up skiing. I mean, the poor guy would be leaving, like he, he's a real estate developer in New York. So he would have to leave from New York City on Friday night, drive me to ski practice in Vermont every weekend. So yeah, it was, it was really him. Um, and yeah, it was, it was super fun. It was kind of a little bit of the Wild West at the time, the same way crypto was when I joined.
Casey Craig: So there's definitely a correlation there.
Marc Beckham: So, when you joined, um, it was, it was way before everybody knew what crypto was, way before, um, the pandemic. If I'm correct, I think you started in around 2016, 2017 in the community?
Casey Craig: May 2017, but I mean, I knew what Bitcoin was from the Silk Road. I went to Boulder. So it was, it [00:04:00] was, uh, it was a marketplace that people had used. So I was kind of familiar with it. I knew what it was, but I,
Marc Beckham: the word?
Casey Craig: um, no, it was just talked about a lot. Uh, but no, I didn't personally use Silk Road. Um, ironically, my, one of my best friend's dad was the FBI agent that arrested Ross.
Casey Craig: So he was on the case. So, you know, fun fact, but no, I didn't use Silk Road, but I knew exactly what Bitcoin was, but I mean, Mark, to give you some reference, I wanted to be a journalist when I was younger. I had a really fortunate but short internship at the New York Times. Uh, the piece that I worked on, you know, I'm a high school student helping a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist.
Casey Craig: It actually did end up winning the Pulitzer. I had always had a strong interest in writing. Went to college. So I wanted to, you know, graduate and be a journalist. That was kind of the goal. So I had no understanding of like finance or economics or business. I mean, I was like a creative writing major, [00:05:00] literally, like, you know, so when I started working in crypto, I had to do a lot of catch up and.
Casey Craig: I mean, maybe it's almost better because I joined with such a clean slate. I had no understanding of traditional finance. So I learned, I learned about the crypto market before the traditional stock market. I learned about
Casey Craig: ICOs and tokens and cryptocurrencies before stocks.
Marc Beckham: So, Casey, just to back up a little bit, because I think a lot of the audience might not understand the Silk Road reference, even,
Marc Beckham: um, can you tell, uh, the audience a little bit about what Silk Road was, why it was used, um, and then you had, you know, kind of threw in this FBI agent friend reference. thing. And maybe you can connect it back to that because obviously that's interesting.
Casey Craig: it's wild. So the Silk Road for anyone that's not familiar with it was crypto's unfortunate debut onto, you know, basically into the world. So Bitcoin was created by an anonymous person by Satoshi years prior, [00:06:00] but it wasn't really well known until This guy, um, created an online, marketplace, but it was for anything from drugs to, like, guns to Hitman at one point.
Casey Craig: Um, so everything was encrypted because everyone was paying, all the transactions were done in Bitcoin. So that they were supposed to be anonymous and protected, but I think what started off as a marketplace kind of grew into, like I said, I mean, it was basically supporting things along the lines of potential terrorist acts.
Casey Craig: So it became at a global proportion that was way beyond, I think, what he had intended, but again, I don't know. So yeah, so poor Bitcoin enters the world through this super nefarious Black Marketplace. So that's kind of what it was known for. Uh, so that is Bitcoin's, yeah, foray into the world's conscious I guess you could call it.
Marc Beckham: But then like today, I think there's a [00:07:00] lot of misunderstanding. Like the average person believes that's still the use of cryptocurrency, like the primary use. I think in fact, like when, um, you see terrorist organizations, I believe that even the United States Congress looked at, you know, how much money was transferred. to Hamas, to execute on the October 7th terrorist attack against the Israelis. there was a lot of talk at first that it was, primarily cryptocurrency that, that financed them. But today, in fact, cryptocurrency is used in several other ways. And, and I think the nefarious drug users, um, terrorists, et cetera, it's just a small portion, right?
Marc Beckham: And like, what
Casey Craig: It's a very small portion. I mean, as a PR person, it's a PR nightmare. It was like Bitcoin, Bitcoin entering the scene and news cycle. Directly connected to nefarious activity, but a lot of people don't understand that cryptocurrency has so many other use [00:08:00] cases and utility. I mean, to make it short, the reason why I'm not one of those people that you would call, like, I'm like showing crypto.
Casey Craig: I, I've worked in the crypto industry for, I think this is my seventh or eighth year. It feels like a hundred because that's how fast the crypto market and industry moves. Um, but I do believe it just makes more sense for us to use cryptocurrency in our everyday transaction to pay for anything from like, you know, the grocery store to even purchasing a home, than with fiat or the U. S. dollar because it's so prone to inflation, not just in
Casey Craig: the U. S., around the world.
Marc Beckham: Is it tough? Like if I wanted to go today into Whole Foods and use my cryptocurrency to purchase, you know, my, my regular grocery stuff, is that tough to do today?
Casey Craig: Yes, it is. Part of it is to do with Bitcoin's slow transaction times, so Bitcoin's doing another halving, which means basically if you, the blockchain, it almost becomes non reliable. I guess the best way to say it is congested because the coding is kind of [00:09:00] far behind. That's why a lot of people, that's why Ethereum is the number two cryptocurrency in trading volume and popularity because it has a faster transaction time.
Casey Craig: so in short, no, it's not easy for you to go to Whole Foods and buy your matcha latte or kombucha, mainly also because there's not enough credit cards that, you know, are attached to your crypto wallet.
Marc Beckham: going back to your, um, your career, so what was it in 2017, 2018 when you started to get very involved with ICOs?
Casey Craig: Yes. So, so Mark, I moved to New York. I've been in Colorado for five years. By that point, I was a ski bum, basically. You know, I moved from Breckenridge, Colorado. I was skiing every day and selling timeshares. So I wasn't really, you know, I moved Back to New York, my family's here, um, so, needed to get a job, obviously, New York is expensive, uh, didn't get the role I wanted at the New York Times, so, was basically on Indeed every [00:10:00] day, just finding something along the lines of PR, because I heard that it was more, you would be interacting with more people than sitting and writing, and I am a people person, um, so, on Indeed.
Casey Craig: com, uh, my first job was a crypto PR firm based in New York, and when I joined in May, I By the way, this was like one of the craziest job interviews I've ever had too. The questions were so crazy, like they asked me, who would you like want to go back in time and hang out with? And I think I said Mozart because I'd been listening to him that day.
Casey Craig: I mean, it was just like bizarre. And then they called me and they offered me the job, but this is like, you know, we're working out of a WeWork, but when I joined in May of 2017, Bitcoin was a grand. Um, and this was the only crypto PR firm basically in the world. I mean, that is how nascent crypto still was.
Casey Craig: Um, so
Marc Beckham: Bitcoin today? It was at a thousand then, and where
Marc Beckham: is
Casey Craig: 40. Well, yeah, today it's at 40, 000. It's all time high was 69, 000 in November of 2021. [00:11:00] But when I joined in May 2017, it's a grand, there were no really crypto designated reporters. So no one across the Wall Street Journal to CNBC, there were some crypto trade outlets, but it just wasn't on the map.
Casey Craig: and by December of 2017, Bitcoin had hit, uh, 20, 000. So, it was It was crazy. So, yeah, it was literally meteoric, and I'm pretty nuts. I mean, I used to be a competitive skier in freestyle. I like You know, I'm definitely not risk adverse. Um, so this was a very risky, wild industry to join. And I loved every minute of it.
Casey Craig: I still do, especially in the beginning, it was like a rodeo.
Marc Beckham: So how many, so what is an ICO exactly? I
Casey Craig: So an ICO is an initial coin offering. I mean, I guess to try to compare it to an IPO, um, it's when a company or. Doesn't even need to be a company back then, they would create their [00:12:00] own cryptocurrency the same same way that, you know, there's an IPO, there's a stock that you would offer to retail investors or whoever, an ICO would be an initial coin offering where they're launching their own cryptocurrency, but the thing with these ICOs is You know, back then, crypto still isn't really regulated.
Casey Craig: Back then, it wasn't regulated at all. So, I think that's, that was the big momentum behind Bitcoin going from a grand to 20 grand is companies are You know, creating 60 million dollars overnight with these ICOs, I mean, literally overnight. and then it became this ICO frenzy. There was like a Long Island iced tea company that had a huge ICO.
Casey Craig: I mean,
Marc Beckham: many ICOs did you, did you, uh, work with, Casey? Like, how many did you market?
Casey Craig: gosh, it would have been, I mean, at least in that period and that like boom would have been like six or seven. I mean, it was a lot.
Marc Beckham: Wow, that's incredible. And how many, like, are there any notable cryptocurrencies that you were involved in back [00:13:00] then that are still, you know, still around today and have, have blossomed into a solid community? Wow.
Casey Craig: we didn't do their ICO, but Dash is still around. Um, great transaction times. Dash is still around. We, I worked on that. You know, Polymath was one of the biggest ICOs we did that was like literally a 60 million ICO. that was the first big exclusive I've also ever gotten in Bloomberg.
Casey Craig: So that was really exciting. Um, you know, IOHK is still around today. That's a big one. Um, CoinSource is like the first Bitcoin ATM. Uh, so the first. Partial Bitcoin I ever bought was actually in the Staten Island Ferry in the terminal. There's a Bitcoin ATM kiosk
Marc Beckham: What?
Casey Craig: Yeah, so that was the, that was our old, one of our old clients.
Casey Craig: They're still around, you can see them in bodegas and stuff,
Marc Beckham: That's incredible. So what was it like? And like your, your interview for the communications firm was kind of funny when they're asking you who you'd want to come back as, but what
Casey Craig: It was
Marc Beckham: crypto [00:14:00] culture like for these companies that were launching these, you know, ICOs all of a sudden overnight, they turn it to a 60 million, a 100 million dollar valuation, but who were these people?
Marc Beckham: Like what were they like? What was their background? Were they super intelligent, or really interesting, or?
Casey Craig: Mark, it was wild. I mean, you've seen Wolf of Wall Street, right?
Marc Beckham: Of course.
Casey Craig: Okay, there is There is definitely some similarities back then to Wolf of Wall Street Um, but to give you a foray of the clients that we worked with, they did range. Crypto is very interesting in the sense that the flashiest people like to remain anonymous.
Casey Craig: Um, But, you know, it kind of varies, but yes, I would call them savants. A lot of, some of the clients were like literally coding savants or some kind of like technological savant. they had such like a unusual knowledge in like these crazy, I can't even, like the, the blockchain mechanisms, it was just wild.
Casey Craig: So [00:15:00] some of them were on that spectrum. the other ones, you know, they're making 60 million dollars overnight. What do you think they want to do with it? They want to party. These are like younger guys. These are not guys that typically came back from a traditional financial background. They're not from a corporate background.
Casey Craig: They are not risk adverse at all. They're also pretty nuts. So yeah, I mean, it was, it was, there was a lot. A lot of parties. It was super fun. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm like 25 years old. I met the two best friends that I have today at that first crypto PR firm. We're going out with clients. There's all these crazy trips.
Casey Craig: It was, it was super fun. Um, it was super fun. It was the first bull market I've ever been a part of and holy shit. It was a blast.
Marc Beckham: So, are ICOs still around today?
Casey Craig: Not really. I mean, I mean, given so many of them, like people are, yeah, they, they made 60 million overnight, but there was no value in the cryptocurrency that they launched. A lot of them [00:16:00] still don't exist today. I mean, at one point there were thousands. We would call them altcoins. So these cryptocurrencies that weren't the major ones, like, you know, Bitcoin or Ethereum, um, and they just, they didn't vanish, but there, there was just no use case behind them and literally no intrinsic value.
Casey Craig: So, ICOs aren't really a thing anymore, and a lot of the cryptocurrencies launched from ICOs are no longer in existence, or no one trades them.
Marc Beckham: So just, talking about the value of cryptocurrency beyond financial value, how do you see a particular cryptocurrency being sustainable, right? Like you mentioned Bitcoin and ETH a little bit, but of course there are others that, you know, my agency works with quite a bit from Cardano to Sol.
Marc Beckham: we worked a lot with Tez. Like what do you think makes up a cryptocurrency today? Um, that could be to create a certain level of sustainability, um, over time.
Casey Craig: And I honestly think it just goes to the [00:17:00] faster transaction times. like is, you know, a Bitcoin has to keep having just to have like a normal transaction time. I think Ethereum might run into that too. So I think it honestly just comes down to the coding and the engineering. Just make it fast enough that I can pay for things in a Whole Foods or in a Bodega, and it's, um, a transaction that can be processed in real time.
Marc Beckham: So I understand that Doge is really, really great at what you're describing. Very quick, very rapid. it's something that Elon Musk got behind for a while. In fact, I think just the other day he was tweeting about it again. and it's like really arguably like the first meme. you know, the meme coin, right?
Marc Beckham: So do you think Doge actually can, come into, uh, the mainstream crypto culture and maybe even take on what you're talking about, especially if Elon Musk gets behind it?
Casey Craig: I mean, whoa, it did. I mean, Doge was like the, the OG meme coin that everybody knew about. I mean, Elon Musk went on [00:18:00] SNL and he made fun of it. They talked about Dogecoin. It doesn't get more mainstream than that for crypto. That was That was like, crypto is like one of its most infamous moments, with Dogecoin, I mean, yeah, we can joke about it and stuff, but you can't argue the transaction volumes, like the amount of like market cap it had at one point, I'd have to look at the high, but It was substantial, but in terms of PR, this is kind of another publicity nightmare.
Casey Craig: Like, yes, people are making money off of Dogecoin, but the whole thing is presented as a joke. No one has ever talked about Dogecoin, as if it's like a serious financial mechanism. That's part of why it became so popular is because it was so amusing. It was like a source of entertainment. Attached to a ton of money, um, and Elon Musk is, you know, let's be honest, he's, he's going on Twitter, he's tweeting about it, he knows, like, he's not a dumbass, he's, like, manipulating the market, but that was kind of all part of it, it was like, whoa, isn't this wild?
Casey Craig: Isn't this, like, funny? Um, but you can't [00:19:00] dispute, like I said, it's, The amount of, you know, the market cap it had, the volume of trading, the money people were making off of it. But, yeah, I mean, we, you know, Coindesk Indices, we just launched Coindesk 20, um, a new index, more to like S& P. And we included Dogecoin in that index, because you cannot dispute its value.
Casey Craig: But,
Casey Craig: you
Marc Beckham: only meme coin in that index?
Casey Craig: I think it's one of the only ones. It might be the only one, but it's, it's definitely one of the only
Casey Craig: I think Coindesk20, that index is one of the only indexes, if not the only one, that has ever included a meme coin.
Marc Beckham: So Casey, what could you just, for the audience that doesn't understand, what is a meme coin exactly?
Casey Craig: Well, um, everyone knows what a meme is, right? You know, it's, it's like, it could be like, it's basically a caricature that comes from social media, something that goes viral, it's always really funny. And Dogecoin was the, this cartoonish picture of a Shiba Inu dog. Um, and it, you know, it went viral and the memes [00:20:00] of like the Shiba Inu dog making these like ridiculous faces, uh, it, it became the Shiba, the pic, that caricature of the Shiba Inu dog became a meme, and then this cryptocurrency that basically, that meme became the branding ambassador for it,
Marc Beckham: It's
Casey Craig: so they were,
Marc Beckham: it's really incredible.
Casey Craig: mean.
Marc Beckham: I think before Elon owned X, didn't he, um, declare that he was accepting Doge as payment at Tesla?
Casey Craig: Yes, I think so. I mean, I know that Tesla's always accepted Bitcoin, um, and I think he did, he did say that they would accept Doge, and that kind of brings more validity to it, but just to kind of explain, like, how ridiculous it is to have a meme coin, um, I mean, imagine if the U. S. dollar was, you know, people think of the U.S dollar, it's like this regal piece of paper, and it has, you know, you know, like, it has George Washington on it, but imagine instead of it being associated with, you know, the U. A dollar, like a dollar bill. It was associated with a cartoon [00:21:00] character of like George Washington making a funny face. I mean, no wonder cryptocurrency has a publicity problem.
Casey Craig: Most people think it's a joke because that's how they've leveraged it to hit the, you know, to hit consumers.
Marc Beckham: So when you talk about, um, Elon, like basically like pumping on X to, uh, enhance the value of Doge, how does that really impact the market? Like have you seen Like, I, like, literally, I think it was just recently where he was talking about Doge again. It was the first time I noticed that in a long time.
Marc Beckham: Like, do you see an instant, um, rise in the value of, of crypto when, when big figures like Elon publicly talk about them? Sure.
Casey Craig: Well, Elon for Doge specifically, um, and he's done this with Tesla stock too. I mean he, when he's gone on Twitter before he owned X, And he would talk about Tesla stock, it would either go up or down. I mean, same with him and Doge. And if you read the tweets, they're not serious. They're, again, a joke.
Casey Craig: They're like humorous [00:22:00] and kind of entertaining.
Marc Beckham: I agree.
Casey Craig: I didn't notice his last tweet and how the market correlated. But in the past, I mean, Doge would be pumping overnight based on something that he said. It was like his endorsement behind it, which wasn't even as serious as an endorsement, him mentioning it was enough to set the market.
Casey Craig: In frenzy.
Marc Beckham: yeah, it's funny because like, we're looking, you're, we're calling out like the, um, absurdity of a meme coin and an animated figure that can become ubiquitous through the use of social media communications. But yeah, crypto is very serious. Like you work at Coindesk, which is without a doubt, I think the preeminent cryptocurrency like Web3 marketplace reporting platform, definitely on par with what Bloomberg is doing for fiat currency and, and, you know, uh, these marketplaces.
Marc Beckham: So it's pretty serious now. Like what is CoinDesk? Could you explain to the audience, like how important
Marc Beckham: CoinDesk is also for the [00:23:00] culture? Wow.
Casey Craig: is a lot more serious, +especially now, post Bitcoin ETF approval and SEC regulations. But Coindesk is, we are one of the oldest news sources for covering crypto. Blockchain, then Web3, um, we've been around for 10 years, uh, which is amazing for a news organization in this space.
Casey Craig: Uh, you kind of have to think of crypto as in dog years, like one year is literally 10 years, so Coinesk has been around for a while. Um, but we have the largest group of crypto dedicated journalists in the world. Um, we have, last year we won The George Polk and Gerald Loeb Award, um, which are basically the Academy Award and Golden Globes of journalism for, uh, our editorial team's scoops on the FTX collapse.
Casey Craig: Um, you know, November 2nd, Ian Allison published a story exposing the holes in Alameda trading sheet, um, part of FTX. [00:24:00] After that, we had subsequent scoops, but, you know, Ian Allison published a story on November 2nd about FTX, 32 billion. 32 billion dollar valuation was wiped to zero 10 days later. Um, I mean that just kind of shows you the impact of journalism.
Casey Craig: Why CoinDesk is so important for the industry, and I'm not saying this just because I work there. It's more because I believe in the ethics of journalism integrity. I mean, we were just talking about how Elon Musk can tweet a joke and it sends the market moving. But what about all of the factual, hard evidence, whether it's good or bad for crypto?
Casey Craig: It seems to get always lost in the noise, and that's why I think Our kind of traditional approach to journalism, but covering this very nascent space is really important because there's not many sources that you can go to where, you know, it's 100 percent accurate. It's been thoroughly vetted. Um, so that's Coindesk.
Casey Craig: And I think that that is our biggest role, you know, in the industry. We have [00:25:00] covered
Casey Craig: see
Casey Craig: so many different, you know, market cycles by now, so many different trends. We've interviewed, you know, the top thought leaders in the space. We've broken so many scoops, um, which, you know, if you're not familiar with the word scoop, it basically means through incredible work of journalism, you're publishing a news breaking story first, through sources and, you know, it's just kind of It's like a big win.
Marc Beckham: So, let's talk about, a little bit more about the scoop of the Sam Bankman Fried situation back in, in November. When CoinDesk broke that news, how reliable were the sources? I mean, it really, really, I think was Super impressive when this broke out, I saw like little bits and pieces of it emerging months before on Twitter with some of the hardcore, personalities that focus in on, um, let's say nefarious actors in the crypto space.
Marc Beckham: But, you know, for sure, you know, your entity brought this out to the world. So, um, let's start first with like, [00:26:00] how did they know that they were getting reliable information?
Casey Craig: Absolutely. So, great question. So, the reporter that broke it, Ian Allison, he had his source, or what we call a whistleblower, which is someone who gives you inside information. his source he had known for several years. So, this wasn't like a random person that reached out. It was someone he had a personal relationship with.
Casey Craig: when we got the trading sheet, We had all, you know, we had our executive editors looking at it, we had everyone is Analyzing it, then we also sent it to an accountant firm, I believe, like a third party one, just to, just so that we would have a third party professional opinion on like exactly what we were looking at.
Casey Craig: and, you know, we were able to verify it through third party verification with the accountant firm, our own team, you know, and the source, you know, we knew that they worked. Inside this company, and we knew that what we had was legit. Um, what we didn't know at the time when we broke that story is how much more we would uncover.
Casey Craig: It was the [00:27:00] tip of an iceberg. And then from there, we had another major scoop, um, where we kind of exposed the culture of Sam, that Sam Bankman Fried was running at FTX. The really amusing That amazing isn't the right word. I think it's a very entertaining, but super fascinating story on, you know, Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison, and like the, the group of like the higher ups at FTX all living in this penthouse apartment in the Bahamas, and
Marc Beckham: They were all living together, Casey?
Casey Craig: Yes, they were all living together and like partying and like dating each other. I mean, I think the reason why, I think it was like eight, I'd have to look it up. Um, it was quite a lot. I mean, but I mean, the, I mean, imagine if like we found out that like Jamie Dimon had been living in. Like a commune or something crazy.
Casey Craig: I mean, that's kind of, you know, this is someone, Sam Bankman-Fried was a global figurehead for crypto. New York Magazine had what I thought was a brilliant headline after we published [00:28:00] everything. You know, the virtue was the con. Here is someone who had literally shepherded crypto into the mainstream. He was the golden boy.
Casey Craig: He's getting Tom Brady to endorse crypto. He's getting, you know Celebrities and all of these, athletes and, people that everybody in the world recognizes. And he's also, you know, over the summer, St. Bakeman Fried is saying he's going to help other crypto companies that were like falling under bankruptcy.
Casey Craig: He's, he was this 30 year old whiz kid, golden child. FTX is. And the story of him living, you know, in this crazy bohemian penthouse when they're dating all each other and partying, I mean, it just kind of shows like what, what was really going on under the surface.
Marc Beckham: Yeah, I have to be honest, like, I didn't read that article. I didn't realize that he was living in like this hippie commune type of environment with like up to eight people.
Marc Beckham: it's kind of interesting on a lot of different levels. Like you mentioned, um, [00:29:00] Sam Bankman Fried's connection with celebrities and Tom Brady, but what about the politicians?
Marc Beckham: I understand he was either the number one or the number two largest donor to the Democrat party. Um, they must have, you know, I'm sure they must have known his background and who he was and how he was living, right?
Casey Craig: no, well, they didn't. I mean, now, now they do, but yeah, he was a huge donor to the Democratic Party. You know, I think some of it since his parents were professors at Stanford, I think maybe even in political science, but yeah. I mean, I think that's part of that whole, you know, headline that I thought was so ingenious is, you know, the virtue was the con.
Casey Craig: He's pretending to save the world. Meanwhile, he's just frauding billions of investors. Like, I mean, it was. It was, it's, it's a wild, it's a wild story, um, and I think what's
Marc Beckham: reach out to him during that time period
Casey Craig: yes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Marc Beckham: and he just ignored?
Casey Craig: actually, so the story that I'll send you, um, here, let me make sure I get the headline right, uh,
Casey Craig: it's a brilliant [00:30:00] headline, so, it's by Tracy Wang, she won an award for this in New York Press Club, and, um, was part of the group that won, got the nod, but, um, The headline is Bankman Freed's cabal of roommates in the Bahamas ran his crypto empire and dated. Other employees have lots of questions. The whole operation was run by a gang of kids in the Bahamas, a person familiar with the matter told Coindesk, and Tracy had actually interviewed Sam, um, on this before the FTX fallout, so she pulled from like an older interview, I think she even got into the apartment, um, but I can send you the article, but it was, it's wild, you know, I mean, I think that's something that I always thought Sam Bankman Fried was a funny poster child for crypto because he's, He looks like the stereotype, right?
Casey Craig: He has shaggy hair, he's You know, looks kind of like an unassuming, like, down to earth guy, wearing all these like, rumpled t shirts as if he found them on the floor of his apartment, you know, he's, he's just so focused on saving the world with crypto, and he was just a degenerate. [00:31:00] That's what the article exposed, is he was an absolute, absolute degenerate.
Marc Beckham: Right. So, you know, that's It's terrible for cryptocurrency. It's terrible in many different ways. It pulls down confidence, um, in, in cryptocurrency as a new form of currency and financial value. It also, you know, to a certain extent you lose confidence. It's terrible. faith in humanity, Casey. So what were like the implications at that point in time to the industry as a whole?
Marc Beckham: Did that accelerate the decline of the cryptocurrency marketplace in general? Thanks
Casey Craig: my God. It was, it was, I mean, the fallout from the market was terrible. I mean, even, you know, Coindesk, it had impacted our parent company directly. So it had financial implications on us. so if anyone ever questions, you know, Coindesk journalism ethics, I just point to how FTX impacted our parent company and ultimately us, you know, I mean, we, we suffered from the [00:32:00] fallout as well, literally, um, after the story came out.
Casey Craig: You know, you can also, you can also argue that Sam Bankman-Fried is the reason that, uh, Tom Brady and Gisele got divorced. Tom Brady had invested so much into FTX that he lost. I mean, yeah, I know it is also because he decided to come out of retirement for football, but you could argue that SBF broke up one of the greatest celebrity couples of all time.
Casey Craig: He could have been the catalyst for it.
Marc Beckham: that's interesting and terrible and, and sad, um, all at the same, same time. But, so you use the word virtue a full ti a few times as it relates to Sam Bankman-Fried. Um, if I understand correctly, like, what he was doing was creating a situation where he would Donate and give back. He was inspiring people to invest in cryptocurrency and as an entity, give back to pro social initiatives. so do you feel like that was just a marketing angle for him? And in fact, he didn't really care about these causes? [00:33:00] I
Casey Craig: you know, billionaire whiz kid because it was better marketing or just because he like literally didn't realize what he was doing was wrong and he just thought he was maybe doing the right thing and that's kind of an interesting thing to look at because one of our reporters that went to You know, when he first got, um, like the trial, not the trial, but also when he was first arrested, she sat directly behind his parents and his parents, the whole time she said through their mannerisms and she's hearing them mutter under their breasts, you know, they, they don't believe what he did was wrong.
Casey Craig: Like they still believe and maintain his innocence and he was a good kid. So I don't know, maybe because of the way his parents reacted and the way, you know, maybe he was raised as. Maybe it was in marketing. Maybe he just [00:34:00] literally thought he was doing the right thing. Maybe he thought he was like a Robin Hood character.
Casey Craig: Who knows?
Marc Beckham: Do you think he was a bad guy?
Casey Craig: I mean, I've never met him, you know, but I think I guess he's, yeah, I mean, I think he, you know, I think, yeah, he was a bad guy. I mean, he, he stole billions and billions of dollars of people, you know, the, that implication on people's personal financial lives is, um, irreversible and, you know, it's permanent damage.
Casey Craig: So yes, I think he was a bad guy. Do I think he was evil and maybe knew exactly what he was doing? I don't know. That's kind
Marc Beckham: there's a ton of virtue signaling in our culture these days, like beyond cryptocurrency. do you think like just generally speaking that, um, society would be doing better today if we weren't so wound up with virtue signaling? And in fact, we were just really committed to these causes. Um, why are companies Waving flags during specific moments of time [00:35:00] to show that they support a particular group of people or a particular cause.
Marc Beckham: But it seems like the rest of the year, these virtuous companies and entities are quiet about these issues. So have we been like fooled in general beyond Sam Bankman Fried as it relates to these, these virtue signaling entities? all
Casey Craig: Um, and I, I mean, I personally think that virtue signaling is just not productive. Um, it's kind of like what you would call like fake news or like false advertising. instead of spending your time virtue signaling, you should just find a way to like concretely give back in a productive manner.
Casey Craig: one of the most amazing things I've ever worked on and I had the privilege to work on is, um, last year I was a communications advisor to, uh, the part of the Ukrainian government, um, it's called Ukraine Invest, so Ukraine Invest is the part of Ukrainian government that raises, um, funds, you know, to directly get back into the economy, obviously given the Russian [00:36:00] Ukrainian war, this was something that I was just felt really privileged I could help with, um, mainly with, uh, with, Uh, advising them on strategic U.
Casey Craig: S. communications and media, but, you know, it was, it was funny how, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm paying so much more attention to, to what was going on over there and how many companies for publicity would say that, uh, They were giving back or politicians that wanted to help and didn't do anything. They just did it as a PR statement.
Casey Craig: Um, so
Marc Beckham: as if it's enough to post the Ukrainian flag on your Instagram,
Casey Craig: precisely, precisely. And I mean, yes, that's helpful, but you should do something about it. I mean, there's just so many ways and there's so many resources out there to, it's not giving back. It's just to, if you're virtue signaling, stop spending your time signaling and just do it.
Marc Beckham: Right,
Marc Beckham: So, so since that debacle, um, to the cryptocurrency market, right, since you guys broke that news and, and, you know, to a certain extent, all these cryptocurrencies broke their [00:37:00] backs with regards to valuation, we've seen like a strong rebound. we You know, I think the, Bitcoin, announcement of BlackRock and, and in participation with the SEC of the Bitcoin ETF has really had a positive impact on the marketplace.
Marc Beckham: So can you take a second and just explain, you know, what this Bitcoin ETF is as it relates to being a financial instrument, who can invest in Bitcoin now and why that's had such a positive impact on cryptocurrency?
Casey Craig: Absolutely. So, the Bitcoin ETF was, um, approved last week by the SEC, uh, for BlackRock. And, you know, it's January, and only in November, so basically about, you know, less than three months ago, Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted at trial, um, for felony fraud. So, yes, I guess we got some kind of redemption, but the crypto market hadn't, it still hasn't recovered to what it was before FTX.
Casey Craig: But Now that the Bitcoin ETF has been approved by the [00:38:00] SEC, this is one of the reasons why I think regulation is a good thing within reason in the US, is it makes crypto legit and valid. If the SEC puts a stamp of approval on it, plus backed with BlackRock, one of the biggest financial institutions in the entire world, the most credible, legit, um, it shows that crypto is, those people believe in it, they believe in the longevity of it.
Casey Craig: Um, the use cases for it. So I think it's a great moment for crypto. And I mean, anyone could see that you couldn't turn on the news without hearing about it. And the reason is because, wow, what a kind of boomerang moment since, you know, FTX collapsed November, 2022. And since last November when he was convicted.
Marc Beckham: So crypto bounced back a little bit. I think you had used the words, selling the news. Um, you know, when we spoke earlier today, can you talk a little bit about how, uh, cryptos come back down to earth a little bit since, um, you know, the, the robust exuberance [00:39:00] from, you know, surrounding the announcement of the approval of the Bitcoin ETF?
Marc Beckham: Thanks
Casey Craig: did see it, you know, with, um, Robin Hood and GameStop during the pandemic, a lot of like, like retail investors. I think it's, it's amazing. It's through, uh, technology. It's But, like, anyone can invest in anything with apps.
Casey Craig: It's easy, basically. The threshold is lower. Um, so, with crypto, though, something I have always noticed, because of the nature of crypto, it's not attached to a bank. You do it individually through your computer or phone. The biggest market movers are from news, um, and crypto 7, 365 day market, um, so people, they know the Bitcoin ETF is coming, uh, you know, crypto, poor Bitcoin is at like, I don't know, 27, 000 in December, maybe a little, you know, right around there.
Casey Craig: It wasn't good. People know that [00:40:00] the Bitcoin ETF is coming, so even before the approval, Bitcoin is pumping. Just the fact that they know it's coming, that the SEC is talking about it, is enough where people are investing in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is like, I think it hit like 47, you know, before the Bitcoin ETF, and then a ton of people sold.
Casey Craig: Because they were selling the news. So, um, you know, that is something that we saw happen, but in no way do I think that this shows that people have lost faith in crypto, or that Bitcoin's going to go back down again, or we're going to enter another crypto winter. I think the crypto winter has thawed. Um, you know, and if for anyone that's not familiar with the term, a crypto winner is when you're in like a very severe bear market and you basically plateau at like a super low across all the cryptocurrencies.
Casey Craig: Crypto is naturally a a very volatile market. People are used to extreme up and downs. So it's kind of like as if it like lies low for a while, like a winner. Yeah,
Marc Beckham: what you're saying [00:41:00] is that, um, crypto is sensitive to the zeitgeist. Crypto can be moved literally by social media, um, by, let's say, bullish people talking in positive terms about a particular currency.
Casey Craig: I mean, you could literally argue that the biggest market movers are all zeitgeists for crypto. You know, BlackRock and the SEC are, are like huge traditional figures and you have to remember that like cryptocurrency for the most part, most of the people buying and trading cryptocurrencies are, I think, under the age of 30, under the age of 40, maybe it's changed.
Casey Craig: It's always been a lot more attractive to younger, um, younger, I don't even, like, not even investors, younger consumers.
Marc Beckham: you think a lot of that has to do with what cryptocurrency stands for? Uh, for example, anonymity, freedom, or do you think it's just because they're connected to computers and devices, so it all comes natural? Is [00:42:00] it all of the above?
Casey Craig: I think it's because it's connected to personal devices. I mean, you could do the virtual signaling of, oh, it's going to save the world, or, you know, decentralized ecosystems, and yes, I mean, there is some, you know, use cases that have supported that, but I think it's just, people always make this answer so complicated.
Casey Craig: It's as simple as, it's easy to buy crypto on my phone or computer, like with an app through Coinbase or Kraken or whatever. Um, I don't need to open a, you know, checking account or go to a bank. I mean, it's just. And in some ways, it's so much more simple, especially for younger generations who their whole life is kind of operated through apps.
Casey Craig: So I think that's the main reason.
Marc Beckham: So if the, if the market could be moved by influencers that have big social media profiles, uh, we speak about people like Elon Musk, but a lot of the whales are anonymous or pseudonymous. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like what is a whale? And then can you [00:43:00] highlight a few of them, um, that you might be aware of on Twitter that have, you know, immense power and influence in the market, in the crypto marketplace?
Marc Beckham: all
Casey Craig: so a crypto whale is someone, crypto whales are the biggest holders of like Bitcoin or ETH or crypto or even an NFT collection. They hold the majority. Um, you know, they're the majority investor and that means that they could have like hundreds of millions, if not billions in their wallet. Um, so they are the biggest holders and a lot of whales are typically anonymous.
Casey Craig: Why wouldn't they be? You know, all it takes is usually they diversify it, but I mean, theoretically they want to be anonymous because the thing with crypto, it's not as protected as a bank. Like if someone stole a million dollars from you or hacked into your wallet and got it, there's no one like Chase that you could call that could, you know, there's no insurance policy on this.
Casey Craig: So that's a big [00:44:00] reason why they want to remain anonymous. I think it stems to Satoshi. Who created Bitcoin, has always been an anonymous figure. It's part of the culture. Um, I think that's why it has this like dark web, you know, a little bit vibe. Um, but I mean, I don't blame them. There's no insurance policy to get your money back if it's ever stolen or you're hacked.
Casey Craig: Um, but, so, with the Twitter influencers, what's interesting is a lot of the biggest, like, market movers are from these anonymous Twitter profiles. There's no picture. It'll be like a JPEG. No one will ever know who they are. Um, you know, and it starts from Telegram, but like also they've really leveraged Twitter and Reddit to move the most markets.
Marc Beckham: How are the Telegram communities working? You mentioned Telegram. I think it's, you know, for me, it's really interesting. I'll often be, on the receiving end of invitations for these
Marc Beckham: Telegram. Yeah. Yeah. So tell, tell everybody about that a little bit.
Casey Craig: I mean, I think it's funny. I, I can't even, like, good luck texting me. I'm so bad at it. So, Telegram is like [00:45:00] this whole other chat and like sub chat, but, you know, the same way with like, crypto is decentralized naturally by the way it's built. I think crypto communities are decentralized. I think most of the people in crypto that talk to each other the most, they never meet in person.
Casey Craig: They're doing it through these chats and Telegram is encrypted, so it's safe for them, but Yeah, but the thing is, I mean, these Telegram group chats, like there is so much valuable information in them. Um, so this isn't like a text thread going on. There's, there's like serious market moving information that's going on in these group chats.
Casey Craig: Um, I guess it's the same way that you could argue, you know, if you're a J. P. Morgan and you're using BBM, I think, as their messenger, all of the encrypted data and information, you know, in that messaging system, um, or like on Bloomberg Terminal, but this is happening on Telegram, which anybody could download.
Marc Beckham: right. So Casey, it's interesting that, that, um, mentality also happens in the NFT world and the [00:46:00] NFT world has really, you know, arguably collapsed, um, with cryptocurrency. In fact, I don't think that, the dollar value of the NFTs, or let's say the demand of more expensive NFTs has bounced back yet, although, The cryptocurrency value has increased. I'm curious from your perspective, are NFTs here to stay?
Casey Craig: I thought, I hate, Mark, I hate saying this. I always thought NFTs were so stupid. I swear to God, I just like, the boom came and, I thought it was so fun. You know, NFT parties were some of my favorites. I, I love, well, to start off with, I love art. My mom worked at the Whitney for a while, um, and I've always grown up going to museums.
Casey Craig: I have a tattoo from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on my body. Like, I love art. I have a deep appreciation for it. Um, so when NFTs first came on, I thought, this is What an interesting way for blockchain to kind of celebrate art. I mean, it makes sense if you kind of, because I [00:47:00] don't, I don't know if you know this, but a lot of the classic paintings, like the ones that are literally priceless from masterpieces, um, from, yeah, like these masterpieces, sometimes they're even used, uh, have you read Goldfinch?
Marc Beckham: No.
Casey Craig: It's just a fictional book about this specifically, but, um, uh, it's a fictional book, but it's based on something that does happen. You know, some, some of like the biggest mafias or like biggest kind of, you could call underground settlements or transactions are sometimes done with these in like priceless masterpieces, because it's a great, like great store of value, I guess you could say.
Casey Craig: but there's also no way to. Yeah, thank you.
Marc Beckham: So, are you saying
Marc Beckham: that the NFT, the NFTs were used for money laundering?
Casey Craig: I'm not, I'm not saying that per se. I think I'm just saying, so I guess what I meant to say is these masterpieces have been, you know, stuck in storage facilities and, you know, Switzerland or wherever, and those. There's not [00:48:00] many, there's not a great way to authenticate them either.
Casey Craig: So I thought with like NFTs, I thought, wow, blockchain would be a great way to authenticate these priceless paintings and masterpieces, but then we can also keep track of them so that they're not getting lost in these random, you know, underground marketplaces and, you know, we can keep track of them. Um, so I thought, wow, NFTs could be a great use case for this.
Casey Craig: I, in my mind, I'm thinking of like NFTs, like, you know, Picasso's, you know, and Van Gogh's. What happened is NFTs became per crypto, all about these caricatures, these cartoonish characters, you know, the, some of the biggest NFT collections are, they look like essentially like anime or like, you know, the doodles.
Casey Craig: So it wasn't, you know, and again, I. I do prefer classical art over modern art, but I don't think anybody would argue the fact, like, why would a cartoon be worth a million dollars, five million dollars? So I [00:49:00] thought, at least from an aesthetic standpoint, it was a bit disappointing, and I thought it was, I thought it got out of hand.
Casey Craig: I thought it was ridiculous.
Marc Beckham: Well, think about it this way though. During the early 1900s, when Picasso came onto the art scene in places like Paris, um, one painting that he shared was La Mujer en el Espejo, which I think today is in MoMA. And art critics and the, um, gallerists and the community They ridiculed him. They thought that La Mujer en el Espejo was shit. And here we
Marc Beckham: are fast forward a hundred years later and it's, it's priceless. It's on the wall at MoMA. So do you think Bored Apes will be the next Picasso?
Casey Craig: I hope not. I hope not. Does that make me snobby that I'm saying that?
Marc Beckham: Well, it depends. Like what's the, you have to tell us what your tattoo is now.
Casey Craig: Oh, it's actually, so it's not a painting. It's from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Um, I love like, uh, I love, you know, ancient [00:50:00] Egypt, Egyptian civilization, and it's my favorite wing in the Met. So it's, it's actually not from a painting. It's from that. Um, but, so, but, but back to the Bordet Yacht Club, this is something that was interesting.
Casey Craig: So the. The art world is historically and notoriously so elitist. It's so snobby, you know, it's, it's a very hard world to break into. You either have to be so specialized and an expert, well connected, or have a ton of money. There's really no other way in. It's very Very elitist. Um, with NFTs, you know, the Bored Ape Yacht Club, I think one of the most appealing things wasn't these really ugly looking monkey characters that also, I thought they ripped off from the Gorillaz album, but no one else agrees with me.
Casey Craig: They literally, I mean, It was ripped off from the Gorillaz album, you know what I'm
Casey Craig: talking about?
Marc Beckham: see what you're talking about. A hundred percent.
Casey Craig: People were like, oh, Bored Ape Yacht Club It's like, they literally ripped that off from the f*%@*ng Gorillaz album. Anyways, so not even original artwork, but what [00:51:00] people loved about Bored Ape Yacht Club was the community.
Casey Craig: I mean, you're getting invited to these sick waves, and they have like, super famous musicians and rock stars playing there, and it was cool, so Yeah, you're buying the board ape, you're buying the NFT, like you're really buying into the community and the exclusivity, which the art world is so notorious for being exclusive, but it's such a difficult world to break into.
Casey Craig: If I wanna break into the Board eight Yacht club, I just have to buy the NFT and like, boom, I'm in and I'm cool.
Marc Beckham: But yet Sotheby's and Christie's still remain committed to the NFT space. They've built in not just, um, sales offerings, but entire staff and staff teams, like they've teamed up to create like a significant vertical surrounding NFTs.
Casey Craig: Yeah, I mean, how could they not? It's, it's millions of dollars, you know, I went to, uh, Christie's last year, had a, where are we now with, um, Beeple? Uh, so if you're not familiar, Beeple [00:52:00] sold the highest NFT it was $69 million for, I can't remember what it's called, but it's essentially a digital art piece, but it's like a collage of a lot of other images and it.
Casey Craig: no offense to Beeple. I actually do think Beeple is very intelligent and interesting. It's just not something I would personally want, especially something that's not tangible, that I couldn't hang, you know, in my home. Um, so they're asking, you know, the guy that bought it, you know, are you glad with your purchase?
Casey Craig: Because it has lost all value. I mean, I think it was down like 80%. And someone asked him, like, point blank, like, what do you do with it? And he's like, oh, sometimes I just look at it on my phone. So, I mean,
Marc Beckham: 69 million Dollar investment, loses 80 of its value,
Marc Beckham: and all he's doing is looking at it on his phone.
Casey Craig: and he goes, well, it's like a private, you know, sense of accomplishment or something. I was like, this sums up the entire problem with NFTs. And by the way, I want to, I want to be clear that I think [00:53:00] digital art is fantastic. I mean, I don't know if you've been in one Vanderbilt lately, um, or a lot of these other skyscrapers in New York.
Casey Craig: A lot of the lobbies are adorned with digital art. And yeah, you can see it in MoMA too, but like. It's not, they're, they're immersive, they're beautiful, I think they complement the architecture of New York really well, and then there's a ton in MoMA, but they are, they're, they're, they are masterpieces in and of itself.
Casey Craig: So I don't have an issue with digital art versus physical art, but I do think NFTs for some reason have really like skewed away, so far away from that. A lot of the NFTs, I mean like Bordet Bien Club. No offense to people, this kind of collage, they're not, I don't think they're as aesthetically cool or as pleasing as a lot of the other digital art I've seen, so I don't know why, I mean, this is crypto being crypto.
Casey Craig: NFTs, like, went so far in the other direction in the art world that, you know, they, I think they've, like, kind of isolated themselves, and I think that's why so many of them have lost [00:54:00] value.
Marc Beckham: Well, Casey, it's kind of interesting when you talk about digital artists, even moving away from NFTs, like Rafik Anadol has done some super impressive stuff. I think his work is in MoMA currently, and I saw him recently do some beautiful work on Uh, the exterior of architecture in Barcelona, um, but yet he still even comes, his work is scrutinized by the traditional art community, by art critics.
Marc Beckham: So, I do think that the, um, mechanisms and the tools that are in place with regards to, um, the creation of modern artwork, are, are going to propel a new form of immersive experiences. Think about how beautiful the world could be if we enter, uh, a virtual reality space inside Picasso's Guernica, or what kind of a conversation you and I could be having right now, if we were in a fully immersive, Um, Joan Moreau experience.
Marc Beckham: I mean, it really could be [00:55:00] compelling or to your point, like, if we were in, you know, some level of new, um, immersive VR experience in Egypt, it could be super compelling.
Casey Craig: Oh, it's so compelling, and then I know that, I don't know where it was, you know, they just had That immersive experience of Starry Night or like Van Gogh's Starry Night was like projected like around you so it was like a 360 degree experience where you felt like you were in the painting so I agree with you and that is you know that is the future we are we live in a digital age everything is you and kind of like the further and further we go into it.
Casey Craig: I think people, technology, it kind of includes so many of our senses, but not all of them at once. And so that's something that I always thought was an interesting conversation with people about the metaverse and that was big is the only problem with the metaverse is that you can never, um, You can never replicate all of the real world sensory experiences.
Casey Craig: Like the metaverse can't provide smell.
Marc Beckham: Right.
Casey Craig: Yeah.
Marc Beckham: the, the Van Gogh Starry Night [00:56:00] experience, it actually originated in this beautiful part of France. The CEO of Christian Lacroix turned me onto it. Years and years ago, it's called Les Baux de Provence and there were caves there and I think you would personally really appreciate there's like primitive artwork and just incredible, incredible part of the world.
Marc Beckham: You're really isolated and they built these immersive art experiences into these caves in Les Baux. It's very, very far
Marc Beckham: away from anything. Um, it's really amazing. So.
Casey Craig: That is so cool. Can you
Casey Craig: text
Marc Beckham: I will. I will definitely share, um, information about this area in the world. It's super cool. But, um, let's talk about a little bit about your experience on reality TV show.
Marc Beckham: Like, before we wrap this thing up, I gotta bring it up. So, how did you end up on this reality TV show, Winter House?
Casey Craig: it was, I think I made a joke yesterday to like our events team, you know, everyone does weird shit in like a crypto winter bear [00:57:00] market. Cause you know, there's just not as much to do like, uh, and I. Yeah, I went on a reality TV show called Winter House. It's on Bravo. Um, I did not actively pursue this. I'm not like even that good at social media, but the booker or like the, yeah, the booker for the show saw a picture of me at an event and then they found like my Instagram and then they reached out.
Casey Craig: I thought it was a, you know, I thought it was a scam and then it ended up being legit. And I remember like, just not, you know, I'm, I'm like talking to producers and creators of the show and I'm just like not really into it, but I thought, you know, I should keep the conversation going because it is interesting.
Casey Craig: I've never, I've never, I've never been, uh, in conversation with, I work at a small media network, like a small media company. I've never worked, had conversations with someone inside of a network like Bravo, which is owned by NBC. [00:58:00] I kind of, I was curious. I was like, how does this, how does this work? Like, how does, how does this machine operate?
Casey Craig: Because whether Bravo is silly or not, I mean, it is silly. It's a, it's like a multi million dollar money making machine. It's interesting. And I think it's a really, I think reality TV and Bravo are really interesting reflection of what Most Americans are interested in. I mean, there's millions of people that watch Bravo.
Marc Beckham: What does that say about Americans though? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Casey Craig: I think, I think, okay. I think it's a bad thing culturally. Here's why. It's not for the reason that you think I'm gonna give. I think it's a bad thing culturally because the biggest problem I see with social media in my generation and the younger generation is, it creates that FOMO aspect. For marketing, it's great to sell shit.
Casey Craig: People will buy what they want, what they think that they should have or want to have because someone else had it. Creating a FOMO aspect that kind of bleeds into people's personal lives and identity. [00:59:00] is very detrimental and I think very risky. Um, so I think reality TV is, it has this FOMO aspect. Like, it looks like we're having more fun than them, we're cooler than them.
Casey Craig: But what's ironic about Bravo, it's like they don't always shine you in the best light. So it's not, you know, real housewives, I think there is that element of glamour. The show I was on, it wasn't necessarily glamorous, but it was It was really fun. I mean, I would describe it as like National Lampoon goes on ski trip, like, or like Animal House.
Marc Beckham: When you mention Real Housewives, who's your favorite housewife?
Casey Craig: Um, I don't, I don't, I'm not like an avid watcher of the show, so I don't have a good answer. But, you know, I really do love Jenna Lyons, personally. Like, I've, I've always, I love when she was president of J. Crew. So when she was the Real Housewives of New York, I was like, whoa, what a, I mean, you know, she's got a Bitcoin ETF approved.
Casey Craig: She, she goes on reality TV. It kind of like gives, you know, Bravo that stand with approval. So I don't [01:00:00] know if that's a good answer, but I like Jenna Lyons
Marc Beckham: So when you talk about Winterhouse being like animal house, um, you're implying like sex, drugs, rock and roll, right? Like was it really that hardcore behind the scenes?
Casey Craig: No, no, because no drugs. Um, but like we were partying, I think more of it's, it's like spring, it was spring break. And I think that's what's funny is that I felt like I was on spring break, which is really fun. You know, you have no responsibility. Like there's You know, you wake up in the morning and someone, a producer's coming in your room and waking you up.
Casey Craig: They tell you when, what you're doing all day, and you know, you don't have to make any decisions, like any of those decisions. But um, yeah, I would describe it, I meant more of Animal House as in like, it was a free for all. It was really, it was really fun.
Marc Beckham: So you really became like the biggest, most popular personality on the show.
Casey Craig: No, no, no, no, no, no, not at all. It was the opposite. No, no, no, it was the opposite. I was the only non Bravo person asked to be on the show. [01:01:00] Everybody else in the show had been in Bravo from anywhere between like two to ten years. So I had no fucking idea what I was doing there, like why I was asked to go on, what I was doing there.
Casey Craig: It was insane, Mark. I just, I didn't know. I had no idea what was going on.
Marc Beckham: Yeah. Yeah. So do you regret being on it?
Casey Craig: No, not at all. I think, you know, I'm in PR. I think Coming out of it, you know, I didn't make any mistakes that were really, you know, detrimental to my career, like public image. I'm one of those people, you know, and my dad always gives me this advice, you never know how it's going to turn out until you do it, or until you try something.
Casey Craig: Clearly, I'm not someone who's afraid of risks
Marc Beckham: Right.
Casey Craig: or challenges, but yeah, I thought, you know, I guess if given the chance, like, doesn't everyone kind of want to see what it's like to be on the other side of the camera?
Marc Beckham: So are you going to use that to launch some new products or Casey Craig, you know, I know like Bethany Frankel created a whole industry [01:02:00] coming off of that, that vertical of how Real
Marc Beckham: Housewives. Are you, is that your goal?
Casey Craig: No. I mean, like I said, I didn't pursue the show. I went on it, you know, and the main thing is Coindesk let me do it because I was gone for only two weeks. So we filmed, we filmed nine episodes in two weeks.
Marc Beckham: Amazing.
Casey Craig: So I wasn't really gone that long. It wasn't that time consuming. It's so different. But the biggest lesson I learned personally from doing this show is I'm so much more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.
Casey Craig: I just kind of, you know, I don't, I don't mind like having fun, but I do, I do kind of, I am so much more comfortable like on the other side of it than being in the spotlight.
Marc Beckham: Interesting. So Casey, you've given us so much of your time today. We have a tradition with our guests, um, before everyone leaves, what we do is we like to use the name of the show, Some Future Day, and allow for them to finish a sentence. So I realize this is very spur of the moment, but if you could finish the [01:03:00] sentence, in some future day, cryptocurrency will,
Marc Beckham: would you say?
Casey Craig: Um, I would say some future day crypto will come back up to its all time highs. Some future day meaning end of this year, ideally.
Marc Beckham: Alright so in the next 12 months, we're going to see,
Marc Beckham: you know, amazing numbers again.
Casey Craig: let's hope.
Marc Beckham: I love it. I love it. Do you have [01:04:00]