Is crypto a scam? Actor Ben McKenzie confronts industry execs and meets investors who have lost big

Ben McKenzie, the actor known for playing iconic bad boy Ryan Atwood on teen drama The O.C., will talk your ear off about bitcoin if you let him, but it’s not because he’s a “crypto bro.”

In fact, he’s quite the opposite. Unlike other celebrities who’ve endorsed cryptocurrency or made money on it, the actor, author and economics graduate is so maddened by crypto that he spent years researching and making a documentary film about its questionable claims and ethics.

In Everyone Is Lying to You for Money, McKenzie — now a husband and father of three — asks whether those in the industry are acting in the best interests of the everyday people they’ve courted as investors.

Bitcoin, in particular, has “the feeling of a generational hallucination,” he says in the documentary.

McKenzie’s multi-year, jet-setting deep dive into the murky world of cryptocurrency details the unglamorous side of its story, one where those at the bottom are losing — big.

“I am not here to offer financial advice,” he says in archival footage featured in the film. “Many of my celebrity colleagues have effectively offered financial advice. They said, ‘Buy.’ I am the celebrity who said, ‘Be careful.’”

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