The cryptocurrency world is a lot like the wild, wild west. Pioneers and trailblazers are breaking new ground to serve humanity. All the while, scalliwags and ne’er-do-wells are seizing the opportunity to exploit those courageous enough to venture down the path.  There are incredible tales both of untold wealth and unfathomable loss as the crypto story is still being written. One of these tales was thoroughly documented by author, Jamie Bartlett. His book, THE MISSING CRYPTOQUEEN: The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away with It, is a wild, true crime tale that you must hear about.  Tales such as this prompt us to seek solutions, and as a victim of crypto theft himself, Jamie has thoughts on how regulation might curb at least some of the criminal behavior. He joins us today to discuss all this and more on episode #632 of The Bad Crypto Podcast.  FULL SHOW NOTES: badco.in/632  TIME STAMPS: 00:00 - Intro 05:17 - We feel like the best podcasts tell the best stories. As the author of multiple books, your newest one is called The Missing Cryptoqueen: The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away with It. Tell us more.  05:56 - In 2014, Dr Ruja Ignatova says she has launched the next revolutionary cryptocurrency, better than Bitcoin, using multi-level marketing. As a highly credentialed financial and legal professional, Dr. Ruja scammed millions in the crypto community of about $4bln in OneCoin.  09:23 - It was the second biggest crypto in 2016, right? Bigger than Ethereum? Not exactly… 12:00 - Did she know it was a scam?  13:18 - The unraveling of the scheme and Dr. Ruja’s disappearance.  14:50 - Is there a screenplay of this story? A biopic? A Netflix series in the works?  15:50 - OneCoin was never listed on exchanges; the only place people could buy or sell was through the official website via multi-level marketing.  16:44 - How the OneCoin cryptocurrency multi-level marketing approach scammed millions of crypto novice people in a nascent industry.   18:32 - How did OneCoin work?  26:38 - Are we any closer to finding Dr. Ruja? What do you think has happened? Has she gone off and gotten plastic surgery, dropped weight, dyed her hair?  29:00 - Why is that your theory of her whereabouts?  30:46 - You wrote a book called The People vs Tech, which won the Orwell Prize and others. What can you say about the state of Big Tech right now versus the People, ‘cause it is not looking very good for team us?  32:23 - Do you regularly seek out other scams to help warn people, or did this just catch your attention to pursue and write about this?  38:28 - Is one-coin.org still the same OneCoin, or is there another? This is funny…  39:50 - If you see Dr. Ruja out, please report.  40:30 - What are you working on now? 41:15 - Outro SUBSCRIBE, RATE, & REVIEW: Apple Podcast: http://badco.in/itunesGoogle Podcasts: http://badco.in/googleSpotify: http://badco.in/spotify FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: @badcryptopod - @joelcomm - @teedubyaFacebook: /BadCrypto - /JoelComm - /teedubyawFacebook Mastermind Group: /BadCryptoLinkedIn: /in/joelcomm - /in/teedubyaInstagram: @BadCryptoPodcastEmail: badcryptopodcast[at]gmail[dot]comPhone: SEVEN-OH-8-88FIVE- 90THIRTY DISCLAIMER:Do your own due diligence and research. Joel Comm and Travis Wright are NOT FINANCIAL ADVISORS. We are sharing our journey with you as we learn more about this crazy little thing called cryptocurrency. We make NO RECOMMENDATIONS. Don't take anything we say as gospel. Do not come to our homes with pitchforks because you lost money by listening to us. We only share with you what we are learning and what we are investing it. We will never "pump or dump" any cryptocurrencies. Take what we say with a grain of salt. You must research this stuff on your own! Just know that we will always strive for RADICAL TRANSPARENCY with any show associations. Support the show: https://badcryptopodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ethereum is the second biggest thing in crypto, and it may one day flip Bitcoin in market cap. But the big news around Vitalik’s creation is the upcoming switch from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. We have questions and concerns about this major change in how the Ethereum chain will operate.  So today we welcome Matt Cutler of Blocknative to the show to answer all our questions about the Ethereum merge. Someone call 911 because it’s an Ethmergency on episode #630 of The Bad Crypto Podcast. Full Show Notes at:  00:00 - Intro - Twitter and jokes; don’t miss 08:02 - Matt Cutler, CEO of Blocknative 08:43 - A pre-chan internet? Is that possible? Matt gives his history in the technology space 09:40 - What is Blocknative?  11:03 - When did you get on board with blockchain and crypto?  12:25 - Early introduction to the Internet, and a comparison to the current early cryptocurrency market and adoption.  14:18 - What’s broken with Ethereum that we even need to move from POW to POS?  15:12 - We need more scalability for transactions beyond the current 13-14 transactions per second. Matt explains.  16:50 - In order to get to a future state without sacrificing decentralization, Ethereum determined it would be best to move from POW to POS.  17:25 - In a POW system, you need to operate computers to solve problems on the network, which also require large amounts of energy to operate. Externalities include the conversion of cryptocurrency to fiat to afford operating the system. These are problems proof-of-stake can solve. 18:45 - Reduced energy impact of operating the network is a benefit. 19:45 - What is the easiest, dumbed down way to explain the Ethereum Merge?  22:28 - What are we going to see? Are we going to see lower gas fees?  24:48 - Is there going to be a time where the Ethereum miners are going to be upset and earning less money? Will that cause people to flock to Ethereum Classic? 28:51 - Miles Sudor makes the case this merge is extremely dangerous for some of the reasons you mentioned, including UDC basically decides which chain wins and which chain loses. All of this introduces due to the OFAC regulation that base layer protocol censorship would be introduced on Ethereum, meaning very centralized crypto, which is not what Ethereum was intended to be. What are your thoughts on that?  36:41 - According to my research, there are over 4,000 ERC-20 tokens. What about those tokens? Will the Merge be noticeable to them? Will they have to upgrade their tokens?  42:32 - Let’s play a game here, and I want you to think about a nightmare scenario. What is the worst thing that could happen if everything goes belly-up here?  43:30 - The nightmare scenario for any chain - Bitcoin, Ethereum - is that the network stops producing blocks. 45:18 - This is a big event in technology.  45:55 - What’s the best case scenario? People are saying this is like a triple-halvening.  49:25 - What is Vitalik saying about the Merge?  49:50 - What should people be thinking about doing now, because if it is proof of stake, where and how should we be staking our Ethereum to earn other Ethereum? What are the parameters around that and how does that work?  51:00 - How do people stake?  01:00:00 - Outro with Joel’s golf story  SUBSCRIBE, RATE, & REVIEW: Apple Podcast: http://badco.in/itunesGoogle Podcasts: http://badco.in/googleSpotify: http://badco.in/spotify FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: @badcryptopod - @joelcomm - @teedubyaFacebook: /BadCrypto - /JoelComm - /teedubyawFacebook Mastermind Group: /BadCryptoLinkedIn: /in/joelcomm - /in/teedubyaInstagram: @BadCryptoPodcastEmail: badcryptopodcast[at]gmail[dot]comPhone: SEVEN-OH-8-88FIVE- 90THIRTY   DISCLAIMER:Do your own due diligence and research. Joel Comm and Travis Wright are NOT FINANCIAL ADVISORS. We are sharing our journey with you as we learn more about this crazy little thing called cryptocurrency. We make NO RECOMMENDATIONS. Don't take anything we say as gospel. Do not come to our homes with pitchforks because you lost money by listening to us. We only share with you what we are learning and what we are investing it. We will never "pump or dump" any cryptocurrencies. Take what we say with a grain of salt. You must research this stuff on your own! Just know that we will always strive for RADICAL TRANSPARENCY with any show associations. Support the show: https://badcryptopodcast.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.