Happy Monday! Emma speaks with Andrew Chow, technology correspondent at Time Magazine, to discuss his recent book Cryptomania: Hype, Hope, and the Fall of FTX’s Billion-Dollar Fintech Empire. First, Emma runs through updates on Israel stirring up conflict with Hezbollah, stalling ceasefire discussions, the ongoing slaughter of defenseless Gazans, polio in Gaza, Ukraine’s offensive, the Trump campaign, the RFK campaign, Biden’s few path-to-citizenship policies, killer cop corruption, and Uber’s business malpractice, before watching RFK announce the TENTATIVE suspending of his campaign and his endorsement of Donald Trump, and listening to his sister dissect what the “real” Robert Kennedy would think about it. Andrew Chow then joins, diving right into a background on the roots of Bitcoin and the crypto movement as an honest attempt to provide a decentralized alternative financial rail that removed the industry of exploitative and extractionist middlemen that pushed the global economy into crisis in 2008, exploring both the democratizing and shadier ends of Bitcoin’s early uses, playing a central role in both providing revolutionary movements alternative funding mechanisms and facilitating criminal exchange, all on a global scale. After expanding on some of the misleading claims about Bitcoin’s criminal uses, Chow begins to wade into the great build and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire, walking through how his Wall Street roots and effective altruist ideology led him to see the realm of crypto as a volatile market in a power vacuum, ripe to be taken advantage of, resulting in FTX taking off as an unregulated crypto exchange that all went through the bank account of one, financially reckless individual, with zero checks or balances whatsoever. Chow then dives into the particular role political donations played in SBF’s reckless spending, before slowly walking through the crypto collapse that SBF made so inevitable, and the complete erosion of the faith that its once-idealist community had in it, exploring its rebirth over the ongoing election as hedge fund-backed bipartisan lobby pleading for legitimacy at the feet of US political and financial institutions. Emma wraps up the free half with some coverage of Elizabeth Warren’s direct call-out of the Harris campaign’s (and Biden Administration’s) refusal to abide by domestic (or international) rule of law when it comes to arming Israel.

And in the Fun Half: Emma parses through AOC’s discussion with Chi Ossé about Democrats’ stance on Palestine and Gaza, Dorian from Crown Heights tackles the genuine red flags in Bill Maher’s recent behavior, and Donald Trump’s newest ad goes all-in on Israel. Tim Walz stirs Tucker Carlson’s emotions, deep down in his gut, a caller unpacks the rat-fucking role of RFK, and JD Vance can’t catch a damn break over this whole “hating single women” thing. The MR Team also tackles some updates to the RealPage lawsuit and the Trump campaign’s obsessive refusal to downplay Harris’ momentum, plus, your calls and IMs!

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