will a star witness, actor ben mckenzie, a critic of cryptocurrency.an-fried remains behind bars in the bahamas this morning, denied bail by a magistrate judge who deemed him a flight risk. he'll remain in the bahamas until at least february 8th until a hearing. with prosecutors punctuating their case this way. >> this is one of the biggest financial frauds in history. >> ryan nobles is on capitol hill and david bellamy, a reporter focused on cryptocurrency. >> we know ben mckenzie has had a lot to say about crypto and the dangers and the people who promote it. what are we hearing so far? what does this signal about how congress is looking at crypto. >> there are two different issues here. the ftx scandal unto itself is a fraud by any measure with or without crypto involved. that's what federal prosecutors are looking at and something that congress is concerned about. but in general cryptocurrency is something that congress is increasingly concerned about. there are supporters of crypto in washington who would like to see it regulated in a way that peo

ben mckenzie testified yesterday before the senate banking committee.bed how crypto investors were duped. >> they have been lied to in ways both big and small. by a once-seemingly mighty crypto industry, whose entire existence depends on misinformation, hype and, yes, fraud. >> ben mckenzie joins me now in the studio. i find it interesting how you got into all this. you went down the rabbit hole. talk to us about that. >> sure. a friend of mine who had given me the worst financial advice of my life about ten years prior. he encouraged me to invest in what i think was a penny stock pump and dump. i put a little money into it. he put a little money into it and we promptly lost it. in 2021, he came back to me and told me to buy bitcoin. i hadn't played to crypto currency. i have a background in economics. i decided to visit econ 101. and currencies are account store of value. crypto currency can't do many of those things for many reasons. the fact that crypto currencies weren't currencies to me were very strange. i went down the rabbit hole, i took gary ge

. >> these days actor ben mckenzie is taken out a different role as a critic of cryptocurrency he saysve speculative bubble bound to pop. in my opinion, the cryptocurrency industry represents the largest ponzi scheme in history. in fact, by the time the dust settles, crypto may well represent a fraud at least ten times bigger than madoff. >> he testified before the senate banking committee yesterday in its investigation into the collapse of the ftx crypto exchange. senator john tester was asked by a reporter after if congress could have helped prevent the sudden collapse of ftx. >> i don't know, because i don't know that anybody fully understands what the hell crypto even is. >> joining us now to discuss is the actor and co-author of "easy money," ben mckenzie. ben, you have been warning about the dangers of this for some time now. you even took a 24-part online court with sec chair gary gensler on this. i wonder if you've been proven right. >> yes. i do feel like i've been proven right. i started warning people in october of last year. the market peaked in november, so just a month af

i do agree with ben mckenzie.being a talented actor, ben has an economics degree from the university of virginia, so he does know what he's talking about. he's put in a lot of research and a lot of work into crypto and it doesn't resemble in the ponzi scheme like one individual. we think of bernie madoff as the quintessential ponzi scheme, but the industry itself represents a ponzi scheme because it requires new money, new people coming in and buying these crypto tokens that are inherently worthless. they have no fundamental value. they don't do anything and you require new people to come in and buy it from previous investors and because of that, this whole thing -- this whole industry was a house of cards just waiting for an ftx-like implosion and so here we stand. the contagion is not contained by any means. now there's concerns about the viability of finance and the problem is that when you can't tell the weak from the strong you treat everyone as though they're weak, and so sam bankman-fried was the paragon of

the other side is ben mckenzie come if you watch the oc you would recognize him as ryan. he has more recently come out as an anti-crypto skeptic and crypto commentator. a lot of people were surprised to see his name on the list. ed: team oc. i think we should all get some rest this weekend. >> crypto ever sleeps. ed: thank goodness i sleep friday night through sunday night. thank you both. coming up, while way -- they expand on the patent monetizing game, we will discuss that with the top exec of next. this is bloomberg. ♪ caroline: i want to talk about another key story. particular from a geopolitical perspective. huawei technologies will license some of its smartphone technologies to an old rival. huawei is one of the biggest holder of 5g patents and historically has not been aggressive in monetizing those patents. the giant is looking for a need to get revenue in area after they were hit hard by trade sanctions that cut it off in terms of axis of advanced chips. i am --huawei chief security officer and chief licensing officers. thank you for being here. let's start off

tom brady, steph curry, ben mckenzie slammed crypto in a senate hearing this week. let's watch. >> the demise of ftx and alameda represent the most spectacular corporate downfall since the ponzi scheme of bernie madoff. the cryptocurrency represents the largest ponzi scheme in history. in fact,, by the time the dust settles, crypto may well represent a fraud at least 10 times bigger than madoff. >> what do you think? is crypto heading to the crypt? >> it had a tremendously negative effect. bitcoin is still selling for thousands of dollars. they projected this was the future of finance. it would replace fiat. as this trump nft collection shows, when prices start to go up, there will always be people willing to gamble they are on the right side of the bubble. >> no truer words have been spoken. that might be understatement of the year in certain regards there when it comes to talking about trump and crypto for that matter. john, thanks very much. we appreciate it. >>> airline travel demand is soaring. perhaps you've noticed that. the skies seem to be getting less frie

actor ben mckenzie testified before the senate banking committee wednesday, describing crypto as a bill have been lied to in ways both big and small. by a once seemingly mighty crypto industry whose entire existence depends on misinformation, height, and yes, fraud. >> christie reporting, that wraps up this hour of cnn newsroom. we will be back after a short break. ps reduce. nucala is a once-monthly add-on injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. nucala is not for sudden breathing problelems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask your asthma specialist about a nunormal with nucala. i tried everything to remove fabric odors, but my clothes still smelled. until i finally found new downy rinse and refresh! it doesn't just cover odors, it helps remove them up to 3 times better than detergent alone!

actor ben mckenzie testified yesterday on capitol hill. >> they have been lied on by a once seeminglyy crypto industry whose entire existence depends on misinformation, hype, and yes, fraud. >> so none of the celebrities named in the lawsuits responded to cnn's request for comment. another crypto lawsuit against ethereum max was dismissed recently after the judge said it wasn't cleared the investors who sued saw the promotions. kim kardashian was named in that one. she paid more than a million dollars to the ftc for failing to report that she was paid to promote a token on instagram. she settled quickly with the s.e.c. over that. >>> the federal reserve raised rates again following months of higher increases to the fed's fight on inflation. but higher interest rates from the fed means higher interest rates for you, phones, credit cards, jerome powell, the fed chair warned there's a long way to go until we see normal inflation. >> it's good to see progress but we have a long ways to go to get back to price stability. >> the treasury secretary janet yellen is cheering the state of the e

it was accounting for more than half of the exchange process, and we also heard from the actor ben mckenzie who is a vocal critic of the industry, and that is what someone had to win and someone had to lose, but it duds not mean that the distribution is even. this is gambling, and this is speculation. at best zero sum, and this is not including the environmental cost of bitcoin. >> as for more congressional scrutiny going forward, there is a push to lock in the rules of the industry, and today, senators warren and marshall introduced a bill to lockdown on the crypto-backed money. >> thank you very much. >>> condolences are pouring in for stephen twitch boss. he was the longtime deejay/co-host for the "ellen degeneres show" and ellen put out a tweet calling him pure love and light. chris, for folks who may not be familiar, talk about who twitch was and how he became so beloved. >> aaron, this story is very shocking. twitch back in 2008, he won over the hearts america on a show called "so you think that you can dance." and funny enough, ellen was watching that show, and she invited him to com

. >> we're seeing and hearing right now, and you might recognize that case, that is the actor ben mckenziemous from the oc, and outspoken on cryptocurrency when other celebrities were cashing in, in super bowl ads, taking god knows who knows how much money to hawk this stuff and he is saying it is a big scam and don't get involved. we also saw one of the guys from shark tank testify. what did kevin owe lerry say? >> mckenzie has been sounding the alarm for cryptocurrency for some time and the debate is what we saw here with ftx, a problem unto itself, or if it is a symptom of a much larger problem, with cryptocurrencies. and that's the argument mckenzie is making, that this was bound to happen, because the industry is so unregulated, and you know, it's difficult to track and a lot of people could lose a lot of money. now kevin o'leary is one of these celebrities that really benefitted, at least at one point from ftx. he received $15 million from ftx, which was largely then invested in the company and now he claims he has lost it all. o'leary would argue that crypto still has a future and t