Ben McKenzie has traded his scripted lines for a much different role. For years, his face was synonymous with Ryan Atwood, the brooding outsider from the hit show The OC. Today, he’s using a different skill set, one honed in lecture halls long before Hollywood soundstages: his economics degree. His new target? The entire cryptocurrency industry, which he labels in his latest documentary as not just flawed, but fundamentally “stupid.”
The journey from teen drama star to financial whistleblower might seem unlikely, but for McKenzie, it was a path paved by pandemic boredom and a healthy dose of skepticism. “Showbiz was shut down. There wasn’t much to do,” he explained to ABC News. When a well-meaning friend suggested he buy crypto, his academic instincts kicked in instead. “My buddy, I think we all have this friend who we love dearly, but we wouldn’t take financial advice from,” he joked. That casual tip sent him down a research rabbit hole from which he emerged a convinced critic.
His investigation led him to a stark conclusion, one he delivered bluntly to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee in 2022. “In my opinion, the cryptocurrency industry represents the largest Ponzi scheme in history,” he testified. This wasn’t just performance; it was a conviction he put his own money behind. McKenzie decided to “short” the market—betting that prices would fall. When the 2022 crash vaporized billions in value, including the spectacular collapse of the FTX exchange, his bet paid off handsomely. He says the profits from that short trade alone covered half the budget of his documentary, Everyone Is Lying To You For Money.
The film is his comprehensive broadside. It aims to entertain as much as it aims to expose, with McKenzie calling it “a 90-minute comedy about how stupid this is.” He secured a notable interview with Sam Bankman-Fried, the now-imprisoned founder of FTX, capturing the exchange in the months before its multi-billion dollar implosion. “I was sipping from my fraud mug as Sam was spouting his crypto baloney,” McKenzie recalls, highlighting the surreal nature of the encounter. He speaks with investors who lost everything, painting a picture of an ecosystem he believes is “really only good for gambling… and crime.”
McKenzie’s core argument challenges a foundational promise of crypto: decentralization as a cure for corporate and governmental overreach. He understands the allure. “I think that’s true, largely; maybe not exactly in the way that crypto advocates think,” he says of the desire to challenge powerful institutions. But his economic training leads him to a different verdict. “Transferring the trust that is money from the public sphere to the private sphere seems like a really bad idea,” he argues, seeing it not as liberation, but as a relinquishment of crucial safeguards.
- Ryan Atwood’s transformation from actor to critic
- Pandemic effects on the entertainment industry
- His views on cryptocurrency
- Interview with Sam Bankman-Fried
- Documentary financed by shorting the market
- Challenge to crypto’s foundational promise
His crusade arrives at a paradoxical moment. Even as his documentary rolls out globally, Bitcoin is experiencing another surge, bolstered by political maneuvers like the proposed Clarity Act and endorsements from figures like former President Donald Trump, who has shifted from critic to supporter. This entrenched momentum doesn’t surprise McKenzie. “I’m never going to be able to convince people who believe in cryptocurrency that what they believe is not true,” he concedes. “But I didn’t make the movie for those people.”
He made it for the curious, the skeptical, and perhaps for those who still see a glimpse of Ryan Atwood in him. Ever the performer, he even entertains a final, playful query about his old fictional universe. Who in The OC would have bought crypto? “That would have been Luke,” he quips, referencing Marissa Cooper’s jock boyfriend. And who would have issued a token? “Issued would have been Jimmy Cooper, Marissa’s dad,” he says, a wry nod to the character investigated for embezzlement in season one. In Ben McKenzie’s view, the line between television drama and crypto’s reality may be thinner than we think.
| Character | Action |
|---|---|
| Ryan Atwood | Transform from actor to critic |
| Luke | Would have bought crypto |
| Jimmy Cooper | Issued a token |
| Sam Bankman-Fried | Engaged in crypto |
| Marissa Cooper | Connected to financial advice |
| Ben McKenzie | Produced documentary |
