A Podcast That Refused to Take Itself Seriously: Why Bad Crypto Lasted 8 Years
In 2017, Bitcoin was $1,500. Most crypto podcasts were hyper-technical, speaking over the heads of regular people trying to understand what blockchain even meant. Travis Wright and I decided to do something different.
We started the Bad Crypto Podcast not as experts, but as curious people willing to learn out loud. The name itself was a signal: this wasn’t going to be serious or pretentious. We were just going to be ourselves—joking around, making fart jokes, genuinely uncertain about what we were exploring.
That philosophy, it turns out, was the whole strategy.
The Accidental Timing
We launched on July 18, 2017, just as the crypto market was heating up for its first major bull run. Bitcoin hit nearly $20,000 by December that year. The price action was insane, but our actual advantage wasn’t predicting markets—it was permission.
By refusing to position ourselves as experts, we gave our audience permission to be beginners too. That removed the gatekeeping energy that dominated crypto media. You didn’t have to understand Merkle trees to listen to us. You just had to be curious.
What Eight Years Taught Us
We’ve covered two bull markets, two brutal bear markets, and everything in between. The NFT boom of 2020 caught us off guard. We saw projects we believed in fail spectacularly. We watched Bitcoin mature from “is this even real?” to “this is definitely happening.”
Bitcoin has hit $126,000 as of this writing. Not $20,000. Not $100,000. $126,000. We’re lower as of this writing.
But here’s what’s wild: the core message hasn’t changed. It was always about decentralization and personal liberty. The price? That was just the market’s way of voting on whether the idea actually matters.
Why This Format Survives
A lot has changed in podcast land. Feeds are more crowded. Production quality expectations are higher. Sponsorships come and go.
What doesn’t change: people want to learn from people who are genuinely learning alongside them. Travis and I never positioned ourselves as the smartest people in the room. We positioned ourselves as the most curious, and honestly, the most willing to laugh at ourselves.
That authenticity is harder to fake than technical knowledge.
Celebrating the Community
Eight years is a long time to stick with anything in the online world. Most of my projects last four or five years before I get restless and pivot. The Bad Crypto Podcast proved to be different.
The real accomplishment isn’t that Travis and I have been consistent. It’s that the community showed up and stayed. Whether you’ve been listening since episode one or joined us somewhere along the way, you’re part of what made this happen.
As we head into our ninth year, the vision remains the same: keep spreading the word about decentralization, keep questioning authority, and keep staying bad.
Ready to dive deeper into podcasting, entrepreneurship, or how to build something that lasts? Check out my upcoming book, AI Made Simple, where I explore how technology changes business—and why authenticity is the one thing that never goes out of style.
