1
00:00:03,160 --> 00:00:06,080
Speaker 1: I wake up, you know, after my suicide attack didn't work.

2
00:00:07,320 --> 00:00:12,360
Speaker 1: I'm in complete despair. I was just trying to figure

3
00:00:12,400 --> 00:00:14,720
Speaker 1: out what to do next and where to go from here.

4
00:00:18,200 --> 00:00:21,239
Speaker 2: He called me that morning and he just came out

5
00:00:21,239 --> 00:00:24,720
Speaker 2: with it like hysterical crime, you know, just like let

6
00:00:24,760 --> 00:00:26,760
Speaker 2: it all out, told me everything.

7
00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:29,320
Speaker 3: Right after he lost one hundred thousand dollars.

8
00:00:29,920 --> 00:00:33,240
Speaker 4: I remember he called me and I was like, oh, okay,

9
00:00:33,320 --> 00:00:35,480
Speaker 4: like you're very unwell right now.

10
00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:39,199
Speaker 2: I was just relieved to be hearing his voice that

11
00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:42,720
Speaker 2: he was alive, That it didn't happen like that broke

12
00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:45,400
Speaker 2: my heart, just thinking like what was he going through

13
00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:47,800
Speaker 2: that he was even contemplating something like that.

14
00:00:50,840 --> 00:00:55,280
Speaker 1: This was my mess. I had to face it. My

15
00:00:55,400 --> 00:00:57,959
Speaker 1: mind was racing that next day. All I could think

16
00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:00,360
Speaker 1: of was how to clean it up, to get the

17
00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:03,240
Speaker 1: fuck out of Vegas. Jump. On the next flight out,

18
00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:06,560
Speaker 1: I speak to Sam. We have to do something new,

19
00:01:06,640 --> 00:01:08,840
Speaker 1: something big, and we have to figure out how to

20
00:01:08,840 --> 00:01:09,720
Speaker 1: get rid of this debt.

21
00:01:41,920 --> 00:01:45,319
Speaker 5: I'm Johnny be good and this is creating a con

22
00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:56,480
Speaker 5: The story of bitcom episode three, Heads or Tails. If

23
00:01:56,480 --> 00:01:58,640
Speaker 5: there's one thing I know about my best friend Ray

24
00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:01,720
Speaker 5: when his back's again, the wall, He's going to come

25
00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:06,200
Speaker 5: out swinging. He needed money. He had just blown the

26
00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:09,720
Speaker 5: last of Miami Exotics money in Vegas. The debt was

27
00:02:09,760 --> 00:02:14,120
Speaker 5: insurmountable and the shame was piling up. He owed his family,

28
00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:19,320
Speaker 5: especially his grandfather, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Once he

29
00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:22,120
Speaker 5: got back to Miami, Ray had to decide his best

30
00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:25,560
Speaker 5: path to get that money back. And Ray, he picks

31
00:02:25,600 --> 00:02:28,400
Speaker 5: the path of least resistance, and you know it won't

32
00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:32,880
Speaker 5: be on the up and up. His first decision was

33
00:02:32,960 --> 00:02:36,959
Speaker 5: which partner to trust, who could get him solvent fastest.

34
00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:39,320
Speaker 5: Ray went with Sam Sharma.

35
00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:41,880
Speaker 4: I saw them becoming very close.

36
00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:45,840
Speaker 5: That's Bert Feldman, Miami Exotics third co founder.

37
00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:49,600
Speaker 4: I would be by myself and MP. We go on

38
00:02:49,680 --> 00:02:51,480
Speaker 4: the balcony and smoke together every night.

39
00:02:52,960 --> 00:02:55,679
Speaker 1: My intentions were always about the debt. I was in

40
00:02:55,880 --> 00:02:58,839
Speaker 1: such you know, desperate times that I would have done

41
00:02:58,880 --> 00:03:02,440
Speaker 1: anything to get to the point of being able to

42
00:03:02,440 --> 00:03:03,200
Speaker 1: pay that debt back.

43
00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:06,640
Speaker 4: I just remember telling myself, like, this is not going

44
00:03:06,720 --> 00:03:09,760
Speaker 4: to be good. I knew the way that Ray was,

45
00:03:09,919 --> 00:03:13,320
Speaker 4: and I knew the way that Sorby is, and Sorby's

46
00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:17,680
Speaker 4: very manipulative, and Ray can be manipulated, especially when it

47
00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:18,480
Speaker 4: comes to money.

48
00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:24,239
Speaker 5: Remember Sam Sharper goes by Sorby, same guy.

49
00:03:25,480 --> 00:03:28,440
Speaker 1: Sorby figures out a way to sell this Bentley and

50
00:03:28,480 --> 00:03:30,680
Speaker 1: get us one hundred and twenty thousand dollars liquid.

51
00:03:30,880 --> 00:03:33,880
Speaker 4: As they started getting closer, I remember even telling them like,

52
00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:35,600
Speaker 4: you guys are very close. Now. I thought you guys

53
00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:38,400
Speaker 4: hated each other. I have no clue, but I think

54
00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:40,120
Speaker 4: they were already planning what they wanted to do.

55
00:03:40,920 --> 00:03:43,280
Speaker 1: Once we have this one hundred and twenty. We knew

56
00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:45,600
Speaker 1: we needed to get rid of Bird because he's just

57
00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:48,720
Speaker 1: not really helping us at always not bringing any money.

58
00:03:48,760 --> 00:03:50,840
Speaker 1: He's spending as much money as possible.

59
00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:56,720
Speaker 4: They said, we're kind of splitting from you, and we're

60
00:03:56,760 --> 00:03:57,560
Speaker 4: doing our own thing.

61
00:03:57,960 --> 00:04:02,120
Speaker 1: We just told him get out the cutover all his funds.

62
00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:04,760
Speaker 1: It was just like a big fight, like everybody's screaming, yelling.

63
00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:06,800
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, fuck you guys type of thing, and left.

64
00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:09,760
Speaker 4: I was like, this is so weird. Why is this happening.

65
00:04:10,040 --> 00:04:12,800
Speaker 4: I'm the one that brought them together. That's so strange.

66
00:04:13,920 --> 00:04:16,040
Speaker 4: I think race or an opportunity for him to make

67
00:04:16,440 --> 00:04:20,040
Speaker 4: more money with Sorby, so that's why he chose outside.

68
00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:22,680
Speaker 5: With Bird out of the picture. This new alliance between

69
00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:26,239
Speaker 5: Ray and Sorby focused on repaying the debt. But then

70
00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:28,920
Speaker 5: a shiny new object called Ray in Sorby's eyes and

71
00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:29,840
Speaker 5: it wasn't a lambo.

72
00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:37,440
Speaker 1: Shortly after this, we're down in the offices in Miamixotics

73
00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:40,599
Speaker 1: and Sorby comes in. He starts talking about Ethereum and like,

74
00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:43,240
Speaker 1: I had no idea what ethereum was. Sorbia had been

75
00:04:43,279 --> 00:04:45,520
Speaker 1: investing in Ethereum, and he was like, oh, I love it.

76
00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:47,080
Speaker 1: You know this is dope, Like.

77
00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:50,560
Speaker 5: You should check it out. Ethereum was a cryptocurrency that

78
00:04:50,640 --> 00:04:53,640
Speaker 5: was just gaining steam at the time. Back then, I

79
00:04:53,680 --> 00:04:56,960
Speaker 5: had no idea what crypto was, but Sam convinced Ray

80
00:04:56,960 --> 00:05:00,560
Speaker 5: that it was the way to solve their debt issue. Seventeen,

81
00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:04,680
Speaker 5: cryptocurrency was finally starting to become mainstream. Even the New

82
00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:06,040
Speaker 5: York Times is writing about it.

83
00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:11,240
Speaker 3: This was a new way of making money that provided

84
00:05:11,279 --> 00:05:15,359
Speaker 3: returns unlike any traditional investment. These are the kind of

85
00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:17,960
Speaker 3: returns you can't get in the stock market.

86
00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:21,000
Speaker 5: Nathaniel Popper was a reporter for The New York Times

87
00:05:21,279 --> 00:05:24,919
Speaker 5: who back in twenty seventeen, wrote about all things crypto.

88
00:05:25,279 --> 00:05:29,040
Speaker 3: On one side of this phrase, you had the entrepreneurial

89
00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:33,320
Speaker 3: people who saw an opportunity to make money by launching

90
00:05:33,400 --> 00:05:37,680
Speaker 3: initial coin offerings. You also had the investors, all these

91
00:05:37,839 --> 00:05:43,040
Speaker 3: ordinary people who saw cryptocurrencies shooting up in value. They

92
00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:47,520
Speaker 3: had just seen Bitcoin double triple in value in a

93
00:05:47,560 --> 00:05:50,719
Speaker 3: matter of months. They saw Ethereum go up even faster,

94
00:05:51,560 --> 00:05:54,160
Speaker 3: and so everybody was trying to figure out, how can

95
00:05:54,200 --> 00:05:57,640
Speaker 3: I buy the next coin that's going to go up

96
00:05:57,720 --> 00:05:59,279
Speaker 3: one hundred percent in a week.

97
00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:04,720
Speaker 5: Cryptocurrency was like a modern day wild wild West, a

98
00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:09,480
Speaker 5: gold rush. There were no rules. It was unregulated, highly volatile,

99
00:06:09,520 --> 00:06:13,880
Speaker 5: and played with scams, perfect for Ray and Sam. The

100
00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:17,159
Speaker 5: thing was they were always small time crooks. This was

101
00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:19,480
Speaker 5: bigger than anything they'd gotten into before.

102
00:06:22,880 --> 00:06:25,080
Speaker 1: Within a couple of days, Sore becomes me and he

103
00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:28,719
Speaker 1: says he basically lost all of his crypto, which was

104
00:06:28,720 --> 00:06:31,080
Speaker 1: like fifty thousand dollars worth, and he was coming to

105
00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:32,839
Speaker 1: me because he needed more money again.

106
00:06:34,520 --> 00:06:36,919
Speaker 5: Ray thought he found his next scheme, and in a

107
00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:41,000
Speaker 5: couple of days it all came crashing down. That didn't

108
00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:44,040
Speaker 5: stop Sam Sharma. He was convinced he could make that

109
00:06:44,080 --> 00:06:48,360
Speaker 5: fifty k back right away. Sam was a believer. And

110
00:06:48,400 --> 00:06:52,599
Speaker 5: where did Sam get his masterclass in crypto? On Reddit?

111
00:06:56,080 --> 00:06:58,760
Speaker 1: He kind of was just like on Reddit and found

112
00:06:58,760 --> 00:07:02,880
Speaker 1: out about icos public offerings in the crypto space. It

113
00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:06,480
Speaker 1: came to me as like, this market's so untapped and unregulated,

114
00:07:06,560 --> 00:07:08,760
Speaker 1: and we should try to have an ICO. Like everybody's

115
00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:11,600
Speaker 1: killing it. They're raising hundreds of millions of dollars. Like,

116
00:07:11,640 --> 00:07:13,920
Speaker 1: we can definitely put some sort of business idea together

117
00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:16,000
Speaker 1: and we should definitely jump on this.

118
00:07:16,440 --> 00:07:19,640
Speaker 5: And ICO or an initial coin offering, is just like

119
00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:23,160
Speaker 5: an IPO, an initial public offering. The main purpose is

120
00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:25,760
Speaker 5: to raise money for a business or fund a new project.

121
00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:32,080
Speaker 1: You create a coin behind your company, which is essentially

122
00:07:32,160 --> 00:07:34,560
Speaker 1: shares of your company, but in the crypto space, it's

123
00:07:34,560 --> 00:07:36,760
Speaker 1: weird because it's not really even shares. They're not getting

124
00:07:36,760 --> 00:07:39,960
Speaker 1: any piece of your company. They're just buying the evaluation

125
00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:41,240
Speaker 1: that your company creates.

126
00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:46,600
Speaker 5: Did you follow that because I didn't, and by the way,

127
00:07:46,680 --> 00:07:47,320
Speaker 5: neither did Ray.

128
00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:51,040
Speaker 1: I have no fucking idea what crypto is or anything

129
00:07:51,080 --> 00:07:53,120
Speaker 1: about it or what he's talking about, but I do

130
00:07:53,160 --> 00:07:54,320
Speaker 1: trust his business sense.

131
00:07:55,080 --> 00:07:58,480
Speaker 5: It was Sam Sharma who Ray trusted, and Sam was

132
00:07:58,520 --> 00:08:01,160
Speaker 5: salivating it the lack of regular in the crypto world,

133
00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:05,640
Speaker 5: and honestly, he was right. Just like he did with

134
00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:07,960
Speaker 5: Miami Exotics, Sam went to work.

135
00:08:09,360 --> 00:08:11,560
Speaker 1: He's on these ridit channels figuring out what to do.

136
00:08:11,880 --> 00:08:15,640
Speaker 1: He's like, Oh, I'm going to create this company. He

137
00:08:15,720 --> 00:08:18,400
Speaker 1: starts at first talking about other companies and how much

138
00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:22,720
Speaker 1: they raised ten x Monaco. These companies both created debit

139
00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:25,400
Speaker 1: cards where you can spend cryptocurrency, and that was the concept.

140
00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:27,559
Speaker 1: They hadn't ever got to a final step yet.

141
00:08:27,840 --> 00:08:31,080
Speaker 5: The final step that Ray is referring to is offering

142
00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:34,680
Speaker 5: a debit card of sorts for your crypto. In his

143
00:08:34,800 --> 00:08:38,200
Speaker 5: subredded Deep Dives, Sam realized the major gap in crypto

144
00:08:38,440 --> 00:08:40,760
Speaker 5: was your ability to spend your valuable coins in the

145
00:08:40,800 --> 00:08:43,640
Speaker 5: real world. He also learned that this was an idea

146
00:08:43,679 --> 00:08:46,040
Speaker 5: that companies were trying to solve, but none of them

147
00:08:46,040 --> 00:08:49,040
Speaker 5: had been successful and bringing an actual card to market.

148
00:08:49,160 --> 00:08:51,880
Speaker 1: You know, and Sorby's m was to just steal a

149
00:08:51,920 --> 00:08:54,920
Speaker 1: business idea and basically use it as a template to

150
00:08:54,960 --> 00:08:57,000
Speaker 1: create his own business idea. He would never come up

151
00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:00,600
Speaker 1: with something completely organically. It was always take this and

152
00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:01,760
Speaker 1: let's build off of it.

153
00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:06,320
Speaker 5: Sam saw an opportunity to fill that gap, create a

154
00:09:06,400 --> 00:09:09,320
Speaker 5: needed solution, and he believes he could do it himself,

155
00:09:10,120 --> 00:09:12,680
Speaker 5: but to hit it big, he would need a lot

156
00:09:12,720 --> 00:09:15,720
Speaker 5: more than what he was working with. Some Reddit posts,

157
00:09:15,720 --> 00:09:18,800
Speaker 5: a stolen business plan, and a partner like Ray wouldn't

158
00:09:18,840 --> 00:09:28,520
Speaker 5: cut it. In the summer of twenty seventeen, Sam Serbi

159
00:09:28,559 --> 00:09:33,400
Speaker 5: Sharma approached Ray about a new emerging opportunity, initial coin offerings.

160
00:09:34,360 --> 00:09:36,920
Speaker 5: Sam convinced Ray that this was the path to solve

161
00:09:36,960 --> 00:09:41,120
Speaker 5: their financial issues. Sam had done the research, identified a

162
00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:43,640
Speaker 5: gap in the market, and was putting pen to paper.

163
00:09:45,480 --> 00:09:47,679
Speaker 5: The next step was to decide what they were going

164
00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:48,640
Speaker 5: to call this company.

165
00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:51,880
Speaker 1: Come up with the name centri Tech. It just sounded good.

166
00:09:52,040 --> 00:09:56,320
Speaker 1: CenTra dot tech or centri tech. It kind of flows.

167
00:09:56,679 --> 00:09:59,640
Speaker 5: In his own words, here's Sam Sharman in twenty seventeen

168
00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:01,720
Speaker 5: explaining the origins of center Tech.

169
00:10:03,040 --> 00:10:05,160
Speaker 6: One day, I was just sitting home and I was like,

170
00:10:05,320 --> 00:10:08,240
Speaker 6: what if I could spend my bitcoins and the profits

171
00:10:08,280 --> 00:10:10,319
Speaker 6: I've made and just go buy stuff with it without

172
00:10:10,360 --> 00:10:13,640
Speaker 6: having to worry about withdrawing depositing. And that's where the

173
00:10:13,720 --> 00:10:16,360
Speaker 6: idea manifested for centri card.

174
00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:19,800
Speaker 1: This is thought up in a week. Everything all the

175
00:10:19,840 --> 00:10:22,199
Speaker 1: ideas are just within seconds of smoking blunts in a

176
00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:24,000
Speaker 1: bedroom in Sworby's house.

177
00:10:25,440 --> 00:10:27,480
Speaker 5: But the narrative that they were feeding the public.

178
00:10:27,600 --> 00:10:29,720
Speaker 6: We've been working on this for about a year and

179
00:10:29,840 --> 00:10:33,520
Speaker 6: five months now in total, and we've been working diligently

180
00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:35,200
Speaker 6: day and night to make sure we were able to

181
00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:37,280
Speaker 6: get this product to the hands of people this year.

182
00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:40,600
Speaker 1: Within I would say two weeks, we have a fully

183
00:10:40,600 --> 00:10:44,800
Speaker 1: functioning website and this whole idea mapped out.

184
00:10:45,040 --> 00:10:48,840
Speaker 6: You can go to our website www dot CenTra dot

185
00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:51,280
Speaker 6: tech and you can just get an inside of everything

186
00:10:51,320 --> 00:10:51,840
Speaker 6: from a to Z.

187
00:10:52,400 --> 00:10:55,080
Speaker 5: However, it was formed both Ray and Sam agreed to

188
00:10:55,120 --> 00:10:57,880
Speaker 5: turn in the keys to Miami Exotics and solely focused

189
00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:01,600
Speaker 5: on building out Center Tech, in their words, was the

190
00:11:01,760 --> 00:11:05,880
Speaker 5: key to the future of money. Sure, Ray would have

191
00:11:05,920 --> 00:11:08,560
Speaker 5: to work, but he was good with the hustle, and

192
00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:12,760
Speaker 5: unlike his past and construction, he could use his wits.

193
00:11:12,600 --> 00:11:14,280
Speaker 1: To own a tech company. You don't need to be

194
00:11:14,400 --> 00:11:17,520
Speaker 1: a technical guru. You can be a guy that's very

195
00:11:17,559 --> 00:11:19,640
Speaker 1: good at marketing, a guy that's very good at finance,

196
00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:22,720
Speaker 1: and you're just incorporating yourself into this space because you

197
00:11:22,760 --> 00:11:25,560
Speaker 1: see there's value there. So going in none of us

198
00:11:25,640 --> 00:11:29,400
Speaker 1: knew anything about cryptocurrency, but we knew we were smart

199
00:11:29,480 --> 00:11:32,120
Speaker 1: enough in an untapped market that you know, has all

200
00:11:32,160 --> 00:11:33,480
Speaker 1: this new money coming into it.

201
00:11:33,840 --> 00:11:36,640
Speaker 5: That's not exactly the vote of confidence i'd expect to

202
00:11:36,679 --> 00:11:37,920
Speaker 5: hear from one of the founders.

203
00:11:38,360 --> 00:11:41,679
Speaker 1: We were trying to just make everything convenient for crypto users.

204
00:11:42,320 --> 00:11:46,199
Speaker 1: Back in twenty sixteen, crypto was just so complicated.

205
00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:48,760
Speaker 5: Sounds like the blind leading the blind.

206
00:11:49,080 --> 00:11:50,720
Speaker 1: If you had a process where you can have a

207
00:11:50,760 --> 00:11:54,200
Speaker 1: debit card, a wallet, a market space, everything was in

208
00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:57,280
Speaker 1: just one central area, and you know it goes back

209
00:11:57,320 --> 00:11:58,800
Speaker 1: to our name CenTra.

210
00:12:01,720 --> 00:12:04,120
Speaker 5: They were selling the idea of everything in one place,

211
00:12:04,760 --> 00:12:08,360
Speaker 5: your crypto coins, the card to spend those coins. They

212
00:12:08,400 --> 00:12:11,760
Speaker 5: even wanted to create a digital marketplace exclusively for centri

213
00:12:11,880 --> 00:12:18,160
Speaker 5: card holders. They called it Cebay. To have any legitimacy,

214
00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:22,000
Speaker 5: they needed something tangible, a prototype, proof that this debit

215
00:12:22,040 --> 00:12:25,000
Speaker 5: card could work. Here's Sam.

216
00:12:25,200 --> 00:12:28,160
Speaker 6: When our lap actually goes out in October November, you

217
00:12:28,160 --> 00:12:30,720
Speaker 6: will have the ability to connect your bank account and

218
00:12:30,800 --> 00:12:33,520
Speaker 6: be able to withdraw and deposit, just like coinbase or

219
00:12:33,559 --> 00:12:35,439
Speaker 6: any of the other exchanges that are available.

220
00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:38,440
Speaker 5: Ray and Sam were a lot of things that they

221
00:12:38,480 --> 00:12:40,160
Speaker 5: weren't developers.

222
00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:42,480
Speaker 1: You just hire a bunch of guys from Romania that

223
00:12:42,520 --> 00:12:44,800
Speaker 1: work twenty four hours a day, and you know, they

224
00:12:44,840 --> 00:12:48,200
Speaker 1: make five dollars an hour, but they create everything else.

225
00:12:49,120 --> 00:12:53,160
Speaker 5: This team of freelancers got started designing the prototype, but

226
00:12:53,280 --> 00:12:55,240
Speaker 5: Ray and Sam also needed a white paper.

227
00:12:55,840 --> 00:12:59,760
Speaker 1: A white paper is a business plan. It's just presented

228
00:12:59,840 --> 00:13:03,280
Speaker 1: to the public to show everybody what the company's going

229
00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:05,960
Speaker 1: to do and their timeline of when they're going to

230
00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:08,960
Speaker 1: do those things. We're going to have the card finished

231
00:13:09,160 --> 00:13:11,240
Speaker 1: by this time, We're going to have the beta version

232
00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:13,240
Speaker 1: of the app released by this time.

233
00:13:13,880 --> 00:13:16,600
Speaker 5: But in Ray and Sam fashion, if they didn't do

234
00:13:16,640 --> 00:13:20,959
Speaker 5: their homework. Nope, they had their freelancers steal it from

235
00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:22,439
Speaker 5: another company called ten X.

236
00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:27,000
Speaker 1: In the white paper, they copied and pasted ten X

237
00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:29,439
Speaker 1: this whole thing, put our names in all the spots,

238
00:13:29,440 --> 00:13:32,319
Speaker 1: you know, pretty simple control F and delete ten X

239
00:13:32,360 --> 00:13:35,720
Speaker 1: and put CenTra in there, changed the logos up. But

240
00:13:35,800 --> 00:13:38,520
Speaker 1: then we, you know, we took that and fluffed everything

241
00:13:38,600 --> 00:13:39,720
Speaker 1: and made our own white paper.

242
00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:43,120
Speaker 5: From there, Ray and Sam published their white paper to

243
00:13:43,160 --> 00:13:47,160
Speaker 5: the public, and just like that, Centritech started getting traction overnight.

244
00:13:48,559 --> 00:13:51,920
Speaker 3: In twenty seventeen, Crypto was.

245
00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:56,960
Speaker 5: Exploding Nathaniel Popper, a journalist, had just completed a book

246
00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:00,600
Speaker 5: on bitcoin called Digital Gold, and after that came out,

247
00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:03,280
Speaker 5: he became the de facto crypto expert at the New

248
00:14:03,360 --> 00:14:03,960
Speaker 5: York Times.

249
00:14:04,040 --> 00:14:08,199
Speaker 3: There was this incredible fear of missing out that drove

250
00:14:08,360 --> 00:14:13,559
Speaker 3: people to buy things with very little attention to what

251
00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:16,120
Speaker 3: they were buying, what the underlying business was.

252
00:14:16,720 --> 00:14:19,640
Speaker 5: Ray and Sam wanted to tap into that quote unquote

253
00:14:19,760 --> 00:14:20,800
Speaker 5: fear of missing out.

254
00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:24,400
Speaker 7: I believe I come across center Tech around twenty seventeen.

255
00:14:25,040 --> 00:14:28,400
Speaker 5: That's Jacob Renzel, an early investor in centri Tech.

256
00:14:28,520 --> 00:14:31,000
Speaker 7: Essentially, they were creating a debit card that you could

257
00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:34,840
Speaker 7: load your cryptocurrency on and spend it like a regular

258
00:14:34,880 --> 00:14:37,480
Speaker 7: debit card, like how your Visa MasterCard works, and you

259
00:14:37,480 --> 00:14:39,240
Speaker 7: want to spend money from your checking account.

260
00:14:40,800 --> 00:14:42,960
Speaker 5: Jacob was on the hunt for an investment that would

261
00:14:43,040 --> 00:14:44,320
Speaker 5: change his financial future.

262
00:14:46,280 --> 00:14:48,560
Speaker 7: I was trying to figure out ways of investing and

263
00:14:48,640 --> 00:14:52,760
Speaker 7: making money to better enhance by financial security, and so

264
00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:55,000
Speaker 7: I was doing stock trading and things like that. And

265
00:14:55,200 --> 00:14:58,080
Speaker 7: at that time, my friends were making a ton of

266
00:14:58,120 --> 00:15:01,000
Speaker 7: money and other coins, and so I definitely feeling like

267
00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:02,840
Speaker 7: I was missing out. Like I had a friend who

268
00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:06,360
Speaker 7: invested three hundred dollars and made two hundred K, so

269
00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:10,720
Speaker 7: I was definitely feeling the pressure to do as well

270
00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:12,440
Speaker 7: and perform in my friend group.

271
00:15:12,840 --> 00:15:15,240
Speaker 5: Here's Alex another investor of centri Tech.

272
00:15:16,080 --> 00:15:18,400
Speaker 8: The thing that got me really invested into center Tech

273
00:15:18,640 --> 00:15:21,160
Speaker 8: was the idea of an actual use case for cryptocurrency.

274
00:15:22,280 --> 00:15:24,160
Speaker 8: So at the time, you couldn't really use bitcoin. If

275
00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:26,080
Speaker 8: you wanted to go and grab a coffee at McDonald's,

276
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:29,520
Speaker 8: you couldn't use any cryptocurrency, So the idea of a

277
00:15:29,560 --> 00:15:33,440
Speaker 8: crypto card really popped off in my mind. What drew

278
00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:36,080
Speaker 8: me to Centre was the active community on the forum.

279
00:15:36,440 --> 00:15:38,720
Speaker 8: They had an army kind of amassing around them.

280
00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:41,840
Speaker 7: I was in the slack just talking to other community members,

281
00:15:41,920 --> 00:15:45,200
Speaker 7: just getting hyped up about what was going on and

282
00:15:45,560 --> 00:15:47,640
Speaker 7: what the possibilities of this company could be.

283
00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:50,960
Speaker 5: A lot of crypto companies use Slack or other online

284
00:15:50,960 --> 00:15:54,280
Speaker 5: forums to speak with their community of investors in future customers.

285
00:15:54,640 --> 00:15:58,800
Speaker 7: It was the best place to get firsthand knowledge directly

286
00:15:58,840 --> 00:16:02,720
Speaker 7: from the team. That's where Sam Sharma talked directly to people.

287
00:16:02,760 --> 00:16:05,640
Speaker 7: That's where Raymond Trapani would go to and we would

288
00:16:05,680 --> 00:16:08,920
Speaker 7: have conversations. They directly talked to the community there.

289
00:16:08,880 --> 00:16:11,760
Speaker 5: And since Rain and Sam we're running center tech Slack channel,

290
00:16:12,440 --> 00:16:14,200
Speaker 5: they were the ones controlling the narrative.

291
00:16:14,800 --> 00:16:18,120
Speaker 1: We would create news articles, paid press releases, and we

292
00:16:18,280 --> 00:16:20,400
Speaker 1: just pump it out onto the Internet and people would

293
00:16:20,440 --> 00:16:21,320
Speaker 1: just take it as fact.

294
00:16:21,520 --> 00:16:23,920
Speaker 8: Center Tech did look the most promising in terms of

295
00:16:24,280 --> 00:16:27,880
Speaker 8: their active development and being involved in the community, so

296
00:16:27,920 --> 00:16:29,760
Speaker 8: I ended up increasing that a little bit more.

297
00:16:29,800 --> 00:16:32,480
Speaker 5: As time went on, Sam Sharman knew the only way

298
00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:34,960
Speaker 5: to grow his company was to be out front and center.

299
00:16:35,840 --> 00:16:39,000
Speaker 5: Sam was joining bloggers and YouTube series, touting his company

300
00:16:39,040 --> 00:16:42,200
Speaker 5: to anyone who would listen. He needed to tell potential

301
00:16:42,240 --> 00:16:44,680
Speaker 5: investors what center Tech had that no one else did,

302
00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:53,960
Speaker 5: and what he shared would be a game changer. After

303
00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:57,600
Speaker 5: Sam Sharma's discovery of initial coin offerings on Reddit and

304
00:16:57,640 --> 00:17:01,600
Speaker 5: successfully publishing a white paper, Sam ascended any pulpit he

305
00:17:01,640 --> 00:17:03,960
Speaker 5: could find to tout the emergence and progress of his

306
00:17:04,080 --> 00:17:06,080
Speaker 5: newly formed company, center Tech.

307
00:17:07,200 --> 00:17:09,959
Speaker 6: Right now, we're currently in our phase two of testing.

308
00:17:10,280 --> 00:17:13,960
Speaker 6: We're just going through daily transactions, testing volume, etc. And

309
00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:16,000
Speaker 6: we've gotten really good results so far on it.

310
00:17:16,800 --> 00:17:19,120
Speaker 5: And one topic that kept coming up on the forums,

311
00:17:19,320 --> 00:17:24,120
Speaker 5: the aceub Centric sleeve their partnerships. They announced the one

312
00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:29,040
Speaker 5: thing that none of their competitors had contracts with Visa, MasterCard,

313
00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:30,000
Speaker 5: and Bank or.

314
00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:32,480
Speaker 1: We've said that we had contracts with banks in the

315
00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:35,680
Speaker 1: United States already in place, which no one else had

316
00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:36,240
Speaker 1: that yet.

317
00:17:36,640 --> 00:17:40,000
Speaker 5: Partnerships with Visa and MasterCard. That's kind of like the

318
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:43,359
Speaker 5: holy Grail, something that signals to the marketplace that Center

319
00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:44,480
Speaker 5: Tech was the real deal.

320
00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:47,399
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to be a part of this new idea.

321
00:17:47,600 --> 00:17:49,919
Speaker 7: One of the reasons why I invested is because they

322
00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:52,560
Speaker 7: had partnerships with Visa, MasterCard, and Bank Corporate.

323
00:17:52,840 --> 00:17:54,480
Speaker 1: Obviously we had bank contracts.

324
00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:55,760
Speaker 5: You're pretty legitimate.

325
00:17:56,040 --> 00:17:58,760
Speaker 1: We were just ballsy enough to say we're going to

326
00:17:58,800 --> 00:18:00,280
Speaker 1: be able to build all this our out.

327
00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:07,560
Speaker 5: Without capital, it's hard to get anything done. Crypto startups

328
00:18:07,560 --> 00:18:10,440
Speaker 5: are too risky for banks, so new projects often turned

329
00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:14,600
Speaker 5: to crowdfunding vehicles. In center Tech's case, it was an

330
00:18:14,600 --> 00:18:19,040
Speaker 5: initial coin offering and that consumed rain and SAM Because

331
00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:21,679
Speaker 5: the better the ICO launch, the more appealing you are

332
00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:25,600
Speaker 5: to the big investors, which meant money. Without it, this

333
00:18:25,720 --> 00:18:30,639
Speaker 5: business wouldn't go anywhere. They put their entire focus on

334
00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:31,240
Speaker 5: the ICO.

335
00:18:32,920 --> 00:18:35,720
Speaker 1: We're just basically going through the things that people check

336
00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:38,080
Speaker 1: when they look at an ico. Oh, what's like a

337
00:18:38,080 --> 00:18:41,520
Speaker 1: big thing on credibility behind the team. Bet, let's develop

338
00:18:41,560 --> 00:18:43,800
Speaker 1: a team. Who the fuck is our team? Me and Sorby?

339
00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:45,600
Speaker 1: All right, so we got to have a bigger team.

340
00:18:46,119 --> 00:18:49,720
Speaker 5: Rain and Sam already carved out their positions COO and

341
00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:54,240
Speaker 5: CTO respectively. They updated their LinkedIn pages, listing their new

342
00:18:54,320 --> 00:18:56,080
Speaker 5: roles just above their education.

343
00:18:56,840 --> 00:18:59,320
Speaker 1: On his LinkedIn, he put everything under the sun and

344
00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:00,320
Speaker 1: we all did that.

345
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:04,360
Speaker 5: Right Harvard University. Of course, not bad for a kid

346
00:19:04,359 --> 00:19:06,520
Speaker 5: who was checking for tokens under a slab machine. A

347
00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:08,400
Speaker 5: few months prior, we.

348
00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:11,800
Speaker 1: Hired a couple guys. That's when Farcas comes into play.

349
00:19:12,440 --> 00:19:15,280
Speaker 5: Robert M. Farcas, Chief marketing officer.

350
00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:18,960
Speaker 1: He was Sorbie's girlfriend's brother, so he was in the house,

351
00:19:18,960 --> 00:19:20,960
Speaker 1: in and out him. He had been helping us once

352
00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:22,879
Speaker 1: in a blue kind of sitting there with us, but

353
00:19:22,960 --> 00:19:24,920
Speaker 1: like he was still working as a waiter or something

354
00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:28,119
Speaker 1: like that, some bullshit job, and we're like, yo, just

355
00:19:28,200 --> 00:19:30,199
Speaker 1: quit your job. Fuck it, Like we got you, you know,

356
00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:32,280
Speaker 1: we gave him some bread. We're like, you know, you

357
00:19:32,320 --> 00:19:34,440
Speaker 1: can quit, come work with us.

358
00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:38,359
Speaker 5: But Farcas wasn't the only new hire on Centra's employee page.

359
00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:41,000
Speaker 1: Here's Michael Edwards. We make him the CEO.

360
00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:46,359
Speaker 5: Michael Edwards CEO. According to Centra's website, Michael got his

361
00:19:46,480 --> 00:19:50,040
Speaker 5: master's degree in business administration from Harvard. He also brought

362
00:19:50,119 --> 00:19:52,680
Speaker 5: twenty years of banking experience with role as a Chase,

363
00:19:52,800 --> 00:19:56,760
Speaker 5: Wells Fargo and Bank of America. The ideal faced for

364
00:19:56,800 --> 00:20:01,080
Speaker 5: the company, bringing experience and credibility, something Ray and same

365
00:20:01,119 --> 00:20:05,119
Speaker 5: we're lacking. Along with the CEO title, Michael is listed

366
00:20:05,119 --> 00:20:07,159
Speaker 5: as co founder of Centritech.

367
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:10,040
Speaker 1: And then obviously CFO is a big position and he

368
00:20:10,080 --> 00:20:13,280
Speaker 1: couldn't put me or put Farcas at these positions. We

369
00:20:13,359 --> 00:20:16,399
Speaker 1: have Jessica Robinson. We needed some females on the team,

370
00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:19,320
Speaker 1: and Johnson's Communication was a big company at the time.

371
00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:22,239
Speaker 1: She was there for five years, so we were just

372
00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:27,160
Speaker 1: impressed with her resume, so we brought her in. Yeah,

373
00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:29,360
Speaker 1: we all went to Harvard. That's how we know each other.

374
00:20:30,359 --> 00:20:33,119
Speaker 1: Skull and bones. We're all in the same fraternity.

375
00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:37,439
Speaker 5: One incredible guy. While attending Harvard, he was admitted to

376
00:20:37,440 --> 00:20:43,119
Speaker 5: his secret society that only exists at Yale. With the

377
00:20:43,160 --> 00:20:45,719
Speaker 5: team in place, Ray and Sam had worked through their

378
00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:49,080
Speaker 5: punch list of how a lunch in icl just one

379
00:20:49,119 --> 00:20:51,000
Speaker 5: small detail left for it all to begin.

380
00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:54,919
Speaker 1: We created one hundred million coins. We assigned a value

381
00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:58,639
Speaker 1: to him. He basically, in my mind, printing money. You

382
00:20:58,760 --> 00:21:02,159
Speaker 1: just print as much money as you want and you

383
00:21:02,320 --> 00:21:03,760
Speaker 1: just go off to the races.

384
00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:11,560
Speaker 5: Speculative, new, unregulated. You couldn't draw it up any better

385
00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:15,200
Speaker 5: for a couple of con artists. These two founders catapulted

386
00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:18,320
Speaker 5: themselves out from under the hoods of Miami Exotics cars

387
00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:23,280
Speaker 5: to launching their own cryptocurrency. Ray and Sam have a team,

388
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:25,919
Speaker 5: they have a coin, and they built the makings of

389
00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:30,480
Speaker 5: a company. The world was taking notice when we catch up.

390
00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:33,120
Speaker 5: I'd always question myself when getting off the phone with him.

391
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:36,520
Speaker 5: Did Ray make it? Could he run an actual company,

392
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:40,359
Speaker 5: let alone a complex one like CenTra? Was any of

393
00:21:40,359 --> 00:21:43,200
Speaker 5: this even real? Or is this just the latest prescription

394
00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:46,480
Speaker 5: pad he can get his hands on. From the outside

395
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:49,359
Speaker 5: looking in, it seemed like my friend Ray finally found

396
00:21:49,359 --> 00:21:56,480
Speaker 5: his footing onto the biggest opportunity of his life. Next

397
00:21:56,520 --> 00:22:00,120
Speaker 5: time on creating a con Who's the fellow that is

398
00:22:00,119 --> 00:22:03,000
Speaker 5: going to protect your ass? It is in charge of security?

399
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:05,159
Speaker 6: Well, we're going to hire action independent company to do

400
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 6: that with the funds that we raised.

401
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:06,960
Speaker 5: You're fucked.

402
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:10,800
Speaker 1: People are like, oh shit, this guy doesn't know what

403
00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:11,400
Speaker 1: he's doing.

404
00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:20,800
Speaker 5: Creating a Con is a production of Glass Podcasts, a

405
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:24,720
Speaker 5: division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.

406
00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:27,320
Speaker 5: If you would like to reach out to the Creating

407
00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:30,240
Speaker 5: a Con team, email us at Creating a Con at

408
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:35,040
Speaker 5: gmail dot com. That's Creating a CeON at gmail dot com.

409
00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:38,960
Speaker 5: We appreciate your support. One way to support our show

410
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:42,480
Speaker 5: is by subscribing to our podcasts on Apple Podcasts and

411
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:45,720
Speaker 5: don't forget to rate and review Creating a Con. Five

412
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:48,639
Speaker 5: star reviews go a long way. A big thank you

413
00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:51,400
Speaker 5: to those who are listening. Also be sure to check

414
00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:54,320
Speaker 5: us out and follow us on Instagram at Glass Podcasts.

415
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:58,720
Speaker 5: The show is hosted and produced by me Johnny be Good,

416
00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:03,919
Speaker 5: with executive ducers Nancy Glass, Ben Fetterman, and Andrea Gunning.

417
00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 5: Written and produced by Ben Fetterman and Todd Gans, additional

418
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:14,160
Speaker 5: writing by Matt Delvecchio, Operations and production support by Christin Melchiori.

419
00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:19,399
Speaker 5: Additional production support Trey Morgan. Our iHeart team is Ali

420
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:24,440
Speaker 5: Perry and Jessica Crincheck, Sound editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio,

421
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:30,040
Speaker 5: consulting producer Nathaniel Popper. Creating a CON's Theme composed by

422
00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:35,159
Speaker 5: Oliver Bains. Music library provided by MiB Music. Thank you

423
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:38,879
Speaker 5: for subscribing to iHeart True Crime Plus exclusively on Apple.

424
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 5: We hope you enjoyed this ad free presentation of Creating

425
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 5: a Con the story of bitcom. Continue binging the rest

426
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:48,400
Speaker 5: of the series one hundred percent ad free, and stay

427
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 5: tuned for early access to bonus episodes and additional content

428
00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 5: exclusively for subscribers. And for more podcasts from iHeart and

429
00:23:56,320 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 5: Glass Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

430
00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:08,679
Speaker 5: you get your podcasts.