The Rise and Fall of Bitconnect

And What It Tells Us About Cryptocurrency

Like everything cool, new technology is never real until it’s been ruined by capitalists.

Ridesharing. Electric scooters. Make-up. Literal kitchen knifes. You name it- if it’s remotely tied to dreams or power it has absolutely been exploited for profit by opportunistic scam artists who realize a product’s power over the human psyche is a way to make a quick buck. Cryptocurrency is no different.

Let’s go back. On January 17, 2018, millions of Americans watched sixty-year-old man Carlos Matos take to a Thailand stage and yell at them, really really loud. Carlos Matos, a charismatic modern-day oracle who now sells intermittent water fasting weight loss products for Herbalife, was very excited and borderline religious about the impact of cryptocurrency.

“Things will never again be the way they have been before. Oh no, no,” he proclaimed to a crowd of professionals in a voice somewhere between an evangelical preacher and a mid-forties man at a Patriots game. “We are changing the world as we know it. We are coming, and we are coming in waves.”

His speech began to escalate as Carlos then seemed to have the equivalent of an entrepreneurial orgasm. He couldn’t take it anymore. So overpowering was his joy that he abandoned…