I’m not going to explain cryptocurrency to you today because I don’t really understand it myself. But I do know that it doesn’t physically exist and that it’s not supported by governments or banks. The difference between crypto and Monopoly money is that Monopoly money physically exists. At the very least, it’s worth the paper it’s printed on. Crypto isn’t printed on anything. Despite the fact it doesn’t actually exist, people have been putting a lot of money into it.

Sam Bankman-Fried was the founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange company FTX. He was a billionaire with the nickname “King of Crypto.” He’s not a billionaire anymore and FTX no longer exists.

At one point, SBF had over $26 billion and then was down to $10 billion. On November 8, 2022, his wealth dropped 94 percent to $991.5 million. According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Asshole Index, that’s the largest one-day drop in history. Two days ago, SBF was arrested in the Bahamas because that nation has an extradition treaty with the United States and he has been indicted by the Southern District of New York on several charges, including wire fraud and conspiracy. The 30-year-old former billionaire is facing a prison sentence of over 100 years.

Just last September, SBF offered to invest in Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase by contributing $5 billion.

The thing is, if you invested in FTX, you may not ever get it back. Sequoia Capital is writing off its $210 million investment in FTX as a loss. FTX had over 1.2 million users who used the exchange to buy cryptocurrency tokens such as Bitcoin and thousands of others.

So is this a failure of cryptocurrency or Sam Bankman-Friend? You can definitely blame SBF but a lot of it is because people were investing real money into fake money. At least that’s the way I see it.

Even if you never actually see your money in your bank (and most of us don’t), it’s still there. Sure, it could collapse…but it is something to collapse. Crypto isn’t really anything but further proof that we can’t fully trust private corporations to manage an economy.

Creative note: I went to bed last night with two ideas for this cartoon and woke up at 8 A.M. thinking it would be an early day for me. But, one of my proofers didn’t get one of the cartoons and the other proofer didn’t get the other cartoon. So I bounced them off another cartoonist…and then another cartoonist, and then two more friends…and that just made it worse. I wrote two more ideas and had doubts about each of those…and then I wrote this one…which only one of my five peoples (yes, Andrea. I meant “peoples”) had doubts with (and that was the Pulitzer and Herblock winner, but I said, “Fuck it. I’m doing it”).

Facebook update: I am once again serving a 29-day suspension on Facebook. I just finished a suspension a little over a week ago. So, what’d I do this time? I hid Waldo in last Sunday’s CNN cartoon which was a crowd scene of Taliban prisoners. A reader commented that she found Waldo and I congratulated her and referenced “Taliban Waldo.” That’s it. I wrote “Taliban Waldo.” I also wrote for her to give herself four stars and a cookie. Maybe it’s not “Taliban Waldo” Facebook is upset about and it’s really the cookies. I will be posting this note over the next 29 days because most of my readers on FB never realized when I’m serving a suspension. Where’s my get-out-of-jail-free card?

Music note: I picked up where I left off yesterday and continued listening to Local H.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are 19 copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402.

Watch me draw: