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Everybody loves a delicious story.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The delicious story of the week for Crypto Twitter was Ben Armstrong (formerly BitBoy Crypto) and his firing, flameout and livestreamed arrest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Crypto media treated the story with as much interest and enthusiasm as if it was FTX 2.0. At least, it felt especially so, because Armstrong \u2014 long a controversial figure before his unceremonious exit from the successful BitBoy Crypto channel on YouTube \u2014 had taken such pleasure in saying he (allegedly) knew<\/a> ex-FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried was a \u201cscammer\u201d since day one.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not here to opine on what Ben Armstrong and his now-former business associates allegedly did or didn\u2019t do, both recently and in the past \u00a0\u2014 there\u2019s plenty of Crypto Twitter fodder to churn through if you\u2019re interested.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead, I want to dig into why this story captured the hearts and minds of crypto, and crypto alone, this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n The phrase \u201cthere\u2019s no press like bad press\u201d seems apt here. Could it be that we are all secretly hoping for Armstrong\u2019s public meltdown to catapult crypto again into the wider media universe?<\/p>\n Crypto-only media outlets tend to focus on the real meat of the crypto space. New innovations, launches, partnerships, regulation (and also sometimes, inexplicably AI<\/a>) \u2014 in other worse, up-close coverage of straight news that\u2019s really only important to the crypto circle. And we don\u2019t expect anyone else to care.<\/p>\n The big exception, as I\u2019m sure you are all waiting with baited breath for me to say, is the case of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried. This was a story that made it beyond crypto media to the mainstream, and also a story that went beyond covering a run-of-the-mill crypto scam to tabloid-esque coverage of polycules.\u00a0<\/p>\n The BitBoy story, salacious as it may be, has remained siloed within crypto media. Scrolling back through every single article covering the Armstrong\/BitBoy this week, you can only find one non-crypto media outlet who took the bait, and their piece spells crypto as \u201ccrytpo.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m not begrudging crypto media outlets a chance to pounce on a sensational story. The market has been exceptionally boring for the past few months \u2014 and there are only so many articles you can write about the supposed \u201cend of the bear market.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more from our opinion section: <\/strong>Crypto must advertise<\/a><\/p>\n But seeing the crypto world\u2019s interest in the situation around Armstrong and BitBoy Crypto feels a bit like the masses grasping at straws of relevancy. It was definitely a terrible time for crypto when Bankman-Fried was the center of worldwide media attention, and the spotlight on FTX\u2019s collapse did nothing to help crypto\u2019s perception \u2014 but at least it was a hot topic that brought crypto an insane amount of mindshare.\u00a0<\/p>\n If the plan is to repeat this situation, it\u2019s not working. It doesn\u2019t seem like Ben Armstrong and his antics have left a strong enough mark \u2014\u00a0nobody involved allegedly misappropriated billions of dollars, for example \u2014 to inspire books and TV documentaries, like someone else we know.<\/p>\n The Armstrong drama \u2014 and the attention paid especially \u2014 instead seems symptomatic of what I see as crypto\u2019s often misguided superiority complex. The sheer audacity of the FTX tale took the world by storm last year. But we\u2019re still nowhere near capturing that mindshare high again, especially not with smaller dramas<\/a> of crypto YouTubers and their Lamborghinis.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t care much about tech, I don\u2019t care a whole lot about finance, either. I care about writing stories and watching weird things unfold. And that\u2019s why I\u2019ve ended up in crypto. <\/em><\/p>\n But because I\u2019m missing that passion for what crypto and blockchain are all about \u2014 finance, tech, privacy, yadda yadda \u2014 I\u2019m going to write instead about what I am actually interested in. Everything about crypto that has very little to do with crypto.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what this column will be about. All the tangential stories that come out of the blockchain and crypto space, what I think about them, and how I navigate it all as a skeptical former Russian literature major.<\/p>\n It\u2019s precisely my perch as an outsider that lets me do what I do: Opine on all sides of any crypto issue, no strings attached, no skin in the game.<\/p>\n If you want to talk crypto with me, let\u2019s go off topic.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t miss the next big story \u2013 join our\u00a0free daily newsletter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n
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