Easy Money

Welcome to my Easy Money book summary!

booboo real-time book rating: ★★☆☆☆ (percentage of books with this rating: 17%)

This book is wild! On one hand, the author nails it – he points to the collapses of Celsius, BlockFi, and FTX. But there’s a catch: the book came out after those disasters, even though it reads like he was predicting them. It’s essentially history written as prophecy. At the same time, the author couldn’t have been more off. He gets things wrong, over and over again!

“I bet [my friend David] dinner at the restaurant of his choosing that Bitcoin would be worth $10,000 a coin or less by the end of 2021. To my mind, it was easy money.” (p. 22)

Bitcoin Price when the author began their research (2021): $29,000

And, when the book was published (2023): $29,000

Today (2025)? $120,000+

By the way, that bet only came up because Dave had encouraged the author to buy Bitcoin. So why didn’t he? In the previous chapter, the author recalls investment advice from the same friend that he did follow years earlier: he bought stock in an obscure medical company claiming it could produce synthetic blood. “In less than a year, the stock tanked and I lost almost all of my money” (p.18).

That’s strike two. One more swing left. This last one hurt, but not nearly as much as passing on Bitcoin in 2021.

“My portfolio of short bets was..in shambles. I started with $250,000 that summer [of 2021], by November it was down to $38,931.” (p. 42) The author put in another $135,000 he got from a home sale. Likely losing all of that.

At the same time, the author trots out this line: “Doubt makes you crazy, certainty makes you stupid.” (p. 49)

Props to McKenzie for being so transparent with his atrocious investing history. Had he invested that $385k in BTC in 2021, he would have had $1.3 million today.

But this book is necessary.

The year was 2022. “I’m getting 18% interest in Celsius,” said a family member. I’m good with money. I know that’s not a thing, and my BS meter was on and correct. I did not invest with Celsius (bankrupted in 2022), though my record is not perfect, having got $29,000 in exchange for 1.5 BTC in the wake of the BlockFi bankruptcy as part of a Defi setup.

The book at hand is well-timed because Celsius, FTX, BlockFi, and more all implode on its pages. The premise is rightish. But here’s the thing: too many people, myself included, have still made a lot of money in crypto. Published in 2023, after the bankruptcies, one calls into question the rewrites done after the fact. Had it been written a few years earlier, it would have been a powerful cautionary tale.

One-Sentence-Summary: An anti-crypto, anti-capitalist screed by a Trump-hating actor-turned-author worth $13 million, dressed up as “investigative journalism” but really just hindsight predictions about events that had already unfolded.

I’ve finished reading Easy Money by Ben McKenzie.

Anti-Crypto Argument

I wanted the argument against crypto. There aren’t many. Not even through the intro, the author takes punches at Donald Trump. This went on throughout the book. “It becomes cynical even to think that something could be done about, say, former President Donald Trump’s obvious corruption.” (p. 254) I, like many readers, could go without this.

He must be one of those Democrats who think the entire world hates DJT. McKenzie likely has TDS. That’s not the only flaw.

The author’s story starts in 2020 when he first got involved in crypto. That’s important to know. Likely, the author got interested in late 2020 when BTC ballooned from $10,000 to $60,000. The author references his own FOMO, a hallmark of bad investors.

As an investor in BTC since 2013, I have received texts from friends on how they can invest in BTC only during these time periods. Likely, this author would have been one of those friends. Investing and selling at the wrong times.

The author lost money shorting cypto stocks in 2021, which is likely to color his view of the crypto negatively. Remember, crypto is for smart and rich people only. That feature is a negative for me, but it is what it is. Nevertheless, so far it’s well written, and I hope to find a good case against crypto, specifically Bitcoin.

The author describes Silk Road as “a dark web drug marketplace” (p. 13), which is not accurate.

One of the author’s main arguments seems to be it’s unregulated, which means it can be used by the bad guys! “Tether could just as easily be used by the bad guys.” (p. 38) Well, sir, USD is used by the bad guys and many, if not most, of those bad guys work for the US government. Invalid arumgnet.

This blog will contain both my summary and review of the book Easy Money.

My own arguments against it: the advertisements (shouldn’t be needed), 51% attack by 2-3 major miner pools (although these are made up of independent individuals)

My own arguments for it: been around since 2008 and frauds don’t typically last this long (the longest, if you don’t include social security, is 20 years), institutional investors (on the weaker side of my confidence)

As I read the book, you will find my in-progress Easy Money review and book summary notes below.

Was Bitcoin created for online poker?

“The original computer code that would become Bitcoin included a poker lobby, a framework from which a virtual poker game could be built. Whoever Satoshi Nakamoto was, in early 2007 they were clearly interested in methods of creating non-confiscatable digital money and how they might be used in online poker.” (p. 251-2)

Is McKenzie suggesting Bitcoin was created not in the wake of the financial crisis, but in response to the ban of online poker with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

Authors’ Argument against Trustlessness

McKenzie often cites the idea that crypto is trustless and decentralized as being a fantasy. He goes on to say trustless would be bad – that you need a trusted third party, like the US Government. The author is missing the point.

The point being that citizens should not have blind trust in their government to manage their money. Reference from only the past decade:

• Turkey (2021)
• Argentina (2018)
• Cyrprus (2013)
• Canada (2022)
• Venezuela (2014)

Currencies devalue over time, sometimes enoumsouly overnight losing your lifetime of work and net worth accumulation due to government mismanagement. Bitcoin has gained in value 20%+ since its inception since 2008. The US government is $37,000,000,000,000 (Not even sure if I added enough zeros) in debt.

Is El Salvador a Bitcoin Kingdom?

No. In the summer of 2022, as Bukele became president and was openly threatening the US dollar, I decided he wouldn’t last long, and it was time for me to visit this country before it was too late, like Venezuela. I went to El Salvador for a month, I visited Bitcoin Beach, I talked to Salvadorians about crypto, and I used Bitcoin ATMs.

When I entered the smallest country in Central America in May of 2022, the same month McKenzie visited, there were zero people in line at immigration.

My main premise about crypto is that it’s for both rich and smart people. That’s not a lot of people on this planet.

El Salvdaor facts:

• 70% of Salvadorians do not have bank accounts
• 12% completed advanced educational degrees (40%+ in USA)
• Bottom 75% earn $6,000 per year

Bitcoin is hard to understand. It is an investment. It is not for spending. But you need to be rich to invest, or at least you can’t be living paycheck to paycheck as someone in a third-world country would be.

Poor, uneducated people, as most Salvadorians are (I wish it were not true for most Latin American countries), are ripe for scams, buying at highs and selling at lows. My conversation in the summer of 2022 with a business owner at Bitcoin Beach was negative, bordering on aggressive. Keep in mind, I visited as the price fell from $60k to less than $20k.

For rich and educated folks, this was a buying opportunity. For Salvadorians, this was a life and death loss of net worth that seemed unrecoverable.

You are reading my book review and summary by Ben McKenzie. Be sure to check out my digital bookshelf for 100+ book summaries.

Is Crypto a Ponzi Scheme?

Let’s relax that question a bit. The shit coins that went up and down quicker than a wave suitable for a beginning surfer, I’m comfortable classifying them as such, although technically I think they would not be considered a ponzi scheme. As for Bitcoin, hardly. Bitcoin, contrary to the author’s take, does do something. On the most basic level, it allows the transfer of Bitcoin for payment. Its price is heavily dependent on demand, given the fixed and known supply.

Did you know I’m an author? I wrote four books on real estate investing, travel, and language learning.

Is crypto bad for the environment?

No. I’m pro-environment. More greenery, please. Cleaner air and water, too. The environmentalists have been so consistently wrong that I can’t side with any of their arguments on good faith. Many of their arguments are based on no innovation.

Today’s problems are tomorrow’s solutions. We are not stagnant in our current issue, that crypto mining takes a lot of energy. After all, the environmentalists are the ones who phased out the greenest energy of all – nuclear – decades ago.

Bitcoin as a Commodity versus a security?

Essentially, if BTC is considered a commodity, the rules are less strict (fewer disclosures, more people can trade it), and it’s taxed as property, or upon the sale. BTC not only should be considered, as it is, a commodity, but it is, in fact, a commodity, and even the SEC confirmed such by saying directly that “Bitcoin is not a security. It is a commodity.”

Most, if not all, other cryptocurrencies look more like securities.

Chapter 13: Preacher’s Father

Before I close out my review and summary of Easy Money, I am compelled to respond to Chapter 13: Preacher’s Father and the story of Hal Henson, the cryptocurrency Stallion Wings, and his alleged suicide. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Henson or his family.

While the story is sympathetic to Hal’s situation, no doubt similar to others who’ve lost money in crypto, its logic is fallacious due to anecdotal reasoning. It’s the same thing politicians do to restrict our lives ever more. Hal was bad with money. He got caught up in many MLM schemes throughout his life.

As one age’s they are increasingly likely to fall for a scam, especially if they’re bad with finances, as Hal was. His family let him run wild, even getting a second mortgage. Me, as someone who has made money in both online poker and crypto, don’t want to be punished for Hal’s behavior. May he rest in peace.

I do not condone all the shit coins out there, nor the behavior of Stallion Wings.

New Words!

Puerile (adj.) – childishly, trivial, silly (your behavior is puerile)

Sleuth (n.) – detective (the digital sleuth never revealed his identity but found the thief.)

Equanimity (n.) – mental calmness, especially in difficult situations (his equanimity is unparalleled and admirable in light of what has happened to his business)

Quixotic (adj.) – unrealistic (his quixotic aspirations to defund the police were only a talking point in 2020, and nowadays he’s flip-flopped)

Thanks for visiting and thanks to Ben Mckenzie for writing Easy Money!

Date Started: Thursday, August 7, 2025

Date Finished: Wednesday, August 13, 2025 (7 days)