Actor Ben McKenzie says crypto is like a ‘Ponzi scheme’

• McKenzie says cryptocurrencies resemble an MLM scheme.
• He calls for the need to better regulate and license this market.
• Bitcoin is currently up a whopping 80% versus the start of 2023.

An 80% year-to-date rally in Bitcoin is not enough to substantiate the legitimacy of cryptocurrencies for actor Ben McKenzie.

McKenzie dubs crypto an MLM scheme

McKenzie does not see cryptocurrencies as financial assets per se.

He views them more as a “story” that can be pushed out of existence if people stopped believing in them. On CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, the actor who played James Gordon in “Gotham” said:

Crypto resembles a Ponzi scheme or multi-level marketing scheme. In MLMs, 99% of people lose and 1.0% benefit. In crypto, it’d be exchange owners, VC firms, people that issue the coins.

Still, the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission has recently received several applications including from BlackRock Inc for a Spot Bitcoin ETF that signal institutional interest in BTC.

McKenzie says regulation will help

Last month, the regulator sued both Binance and Coinbase Global Inc for violating U.S. securities laws.

According to Ben McKenzie, greater regulation and more sophisticated licensing could indeed help turn crypto into a proper financial market.

You’re talking about an unregulated, unlicensed market run through shell corps in Caribbean. Crypto has benefitted from gray area between how we classify securities and commodities.

The veteran actor is even more bearish on cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin as the latter is at least limited in terms of supply. Also on Tuesday, Professor Carol Alexander of Sussex University said BTC could hit $50,000 by the end of 2023.