“I do not think that is there to stay,” said Dave Portnoy, referring to coins – the same corner of the crypto on which he has often overwhelmed his antics on social networks.
Speaking on stage at the 2025 consensus with Tom Farley, CEO of Crypto Exchange Bulsh, the founder of Barstool Sports has discouraged the diapers of his short chaotic stay in the world of the same. With its usual improper candor, Portnoy has described a trip of sudden manna, legal terrestrial mines and the type of public reaction which could even make the most hardened internet provocateur think twice.
“I love the rush, I am a player at heart,” he admitted. “But then is the intelligent part of me like, is it worth hatred?” The conversation was part of a broader discussion on the culture of speculation and the beaten of the crypto, where the coins – the tokens created more for jokes than public services – captured the imagination of young traders and swallowed at risk. Portnoy, who built Barstool in a media empire on viral content and sports game, found himself in the same digital fever.
It started with Safemoon, one of the first viral tokens of the cocvid cryptography boom. Portnoy has seen publications on social networks on merchants, making “9,000,000%” gains, bought, made a video mocking its lack of real value – and was still prosecuted.
“They essentially said that Safemoon paid me to promote them. Total lie. Cost me $ 20,000 to get out of the trial. ” He said.
Without being discouraged, he pushed further. Inspired by the idea of launching a bar coin and skipping the hassles of becoming public, Portnoy began to look for the way the pieces even. This led him to a developer who launched a token called Balance, allegedly supported by the president of Argentina.
Portnoy bought $ 4.5 million.
“I was in SNL with Lady Gaga. I was just pampering. I’m like, what’s going on here? ” He said. The developer had told him that Elon Musk would tweet on this subject. Instead, the president disowned any involvement. “I lost all my money.”
Portnoy says he was lucky – the developer later reimbursed him in his entirety, although he does not know why. “I am one of the lucky ones, but you know, I’m not going to resume this money.”
Despite the losses, Portnoy continued to sow. He launched parts called GREED and GREED 2leaning in satire. Another piece, Jaailstool, has emerged from the public’s indignation in the face of his money experiences. Someone else created the token, but Portnoy kissed the name and posted on this subject. At one point, he said, an investment of $ 1,000 increased to $ 7 million-in an hour.
“It took me 13 years to earn this kind of money in Barstool,” he said.
But what rises almost always blocks. Portnoy says that he has lost track of the number of times he has been accused of “carpet draws”, a term when the initiates throw a room and leave latecomers with uneasy tokens.
He described the pieces even as a rigged game, dominated by a central group of early buyers with robots and trading algorithms that know when going out. “It’s the same group of winners and it is the same group of losers.”
This awareness seems to have changed his appetite. While he was teeming with the possible launch of Greed 3, he admitted that the counterpoup was more difficult to spread in real life. A man confronted him in a Casino in Las Vegas, saying that he had lost $ 200,000. “It’s fun and games behind the computer, but it strengthens people lose and earn money, and they don’t always take responsibility for risk, even if I think they should.”
Despite the money and the memes, he said that the scene of the memes play is ultimately unbearable.
“I understand why people like it,” he said. “It’s a form of play, it’s a Ponzi scheme, I don’t mean that in a negative way.”
Portnoy does not claim to have the answers. But if there is an aneanism for the place where the forecast seems to be dark. “I can’t imagine that it is there to stay. I think this is there to stay for the next four years. What’s going on after that? I don’t know.”
