In Episode 285 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Stephen Findeisen, a fraud investigator who goes by the pseudonym "Coffeezilla” and runs an eponymous YouTube channel dedicated to exposing scams, con artists, and fraudsters. His work has been widely covered in the media including on the BBC and VICE and Coffeezilla himself was recently profiled in a feature article for the New Yorker.

Stephen’s investigations into FTX, Tether, Digital Currency Group, and the continued fallout and contagion sparked by the collapse of Luna and other related crypto companies, hedge funds, and lending platforms are the subjects of today’s incredibly timely conversation.

Coffeezilla and Demetri recorded this episode on the afternoon of Friday, November 25th, and spent the first half bringing everyone up to speed on the latest developments. In the second hour, they do a deep dive into the crypto firm Genesis and its parent company DCG, including the important role played by the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust in serving as collateral for much of the firm’s counterparty exposure. They also devote a great deal of time discussing the stablecoin Tether, otherwise known by its acronym USDT and some of the recent revelations that have emerged from the FTX-Alameda bankruptcy. These revelations include suspicious and troubling connections between Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire, his political relationships, and the executives and proprietors of several corporate entities based both in and outside of the Bahamas, including a US Federally insured bank (Moonstone) in Washington state that has become the source of immense speculation.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 11/25/2022