Bomani Jones told Seth Meyers he saw the crypto crash coming

Bomani Jones, Emmy-winning sportscaster and HBO host game theorystopped by to chat with Seth Meyers on Wednesday night, where they had a wide-ranging conversation that eventually landed on the curious – and, for many, unfortunate – relationship between cryptocurrency and sports.

It’s a topic Jones has talked about before, including in a March 2022 episode of The game theory — months before FTX collapsed — and it was a segment that stuck with Meyers. “Obviously, you were very early on here saying, ‘Hey, this just doesn’t smell good.’ The whole cryptocurrency world and how quickly sports want to have a partnership with it,” said the late night host.

Jones admitted his suspicions were first aroused nearly 10 years ago — by Silk Road, the infamous online marketplace where anyone with an internet connection and access to bitcoin could buy anything from a fake ID to large quantities of cocaine, heroin, opioids, or whatever other illegal drugs you may want. It caught Jones’ attention for several reasons, including the fact that “real dealers don’t sell drugs on the web. So you knew these weren’t real drug dealers.”

But the fact that Bitcoin was the only currency on the website was what really confused Jones, because: “Why should I exchange my money for money that is not money?”

Yet the brash crypto kings behind many of these volatile digital currencies have looked to professional athletes — and the fans who religiously watch them — as their target market. In 2021, Tom Brady and then-wife Gisele Bündchen became the king and queen of FTX as brand ambassadors (along with Larry David, of all people), all three of whom were later mentioned sued by FTX customers. But in Jones’s mind, all you had to do was observe the difference between what traditional investment firms look like and how cryptocurrency gurus do it:

You see a commercial for Merrill Lynch or Charles Schwab or one of those other idiots who come up there and do business, and they’re always saying, “Take care of your future.” It is always very serene and peaceful.

These crypto ads read “Fortune favors the brave!” Why do I have to be brave about my money? My whole life is about not being brave about my money. The whole reason you take your money to someone to invest is because you are NOT brave. It’s because you’re terrified of a zillion different factors. And the only people who were trying to be brave with their money are broke.

You can watch the entire conversation above, starting at 4:30am.