The Missing Cryptoqueen: Whole series
September 9, 2020 12:06 PM - Subscribe
A scam cryptocurrency, a brainy & glamorous figurehead, concerning marketing tactics, and an international investigation.
I listened to this maybe six months ago and found it pretty terrific. Could have been a little shorter (the overuse of some of the audio clips over time got a little tiresome) but WOW they did a lot of work and I very much enjoyed their trip to Romania.
posted by jessamyn at 12:39 PM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn at 12:39 PM on September 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
I learned about this here. Thanks, latkes! (I'm coming to suspect that letting other mefites know about cool podcasts is the thing for which this forum is best suited.)
On the whole, I'm impressed and I really enjoyed it. I'd never heard of any of this story before, as far as I can recall. It's both astonishing and heartbreaking.
If invited to pick nits, I wish they spent less time re-hashing previously aired audio. I don't know if they were actually aiming for a weekly radio spot with an inconsistent audience, or just don't understand how podcasts work, but spending 20% of each episode on things one has already heard is a bit frustrating. I also find the pattern of English-language journalists flying into a foreign city and hiring the world expert on a thing to serve mostly as translator a bit frustrating. To be fair, they did a better job of recognizing their foreign collaborators than most BBC/NPR/etc journalists do.
Also, I learned that a law PhD is a real degree, which I did not expect. I figured it was the equivalent of an "I'm a Nigeria public official" test for likely marks. But, I know nothing about either law or Bulgarian academia.
posted by eotvos at 8:47 AM on September 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
On the whole, I'm impressed and I really enjoyed it. I'd never heard of any of this story before, as far as I can recall. It's both astonishing and heartbreaking.
If invited to pick nits, I wish they spent less time re-hashing previously aired audio. I don't know if they were actually aiming for a weekly radio spot with an inconsistent audience, or just don't understand how podcasts work, but spending 20% of each episode on things one has already heard is a bit frustrating. I also find the pattern of English-language journalists flying into a foreign city and hiring the world expert on a thing to serve mostly as translator a bit frustrating. To be fair, they did a better job of recognizing their foreign collaborators than most BBC/NPR/etc journalists do.
Also, I learned that a law PhD is a real degree, which I did not expect. I figured it was the equivalent of an "I'm a Nigeria public official" test for likely marks. But, I know nothing about either law or Bulgarian academia.
posted by eotvos at 8:47 AM on September 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
Also, I'm struck by the degree to which expecting something to be a useful currency and expecting it to be a worthwhile investment are at odds with each other. I made the mistake of assuming bitcoin was a currency instead of an investment many years ago. If I hadn't bought $60 worth of VPN access and just kept the coin, I'd be $40k richer today. It's easy to be mistaken. But, it's weird to claim that both things are true.
posted by eotvos at 9:01 AM on September 14, 2020
posted by eotvos at 9:01 AM on September 14, 2020
I also find the pattern of English-language journalists flying into a foreign city and hiring the world expert on a thing to serve mostly as translator a bit frustrating.
Yes, this is definitely a thing.
posted by latkes at 9:27 AM on September 14, 2020
Yes, this is definitely a thing.
posted by latkes at 9:27 AM on September 14, 2020
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I finished it with my priors reinforced about MLMs as capitalism's natural conclusion, and the ability of the super rich to escape consequences. But did learn a lot of details. The international angle was especially educational (and depressing).
posted by latkes at 12:10 PM on September 9, 2020