#229 Jamie Bartlett: The Missing Cryptoqueen

Jamie Bartlett is the bestselling author of The Dark Net, Radicals Chasing Utopia and People vs Tech. He is the Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at the think-tank Demos. His Ted Talk on the Dark Net is fascinating and definitely worth a watch. He also writes on technology for the Spectator, the Telegraph and for several other publications on how the Internet is changing politics and society. In 2017, Jamie presented the two-part BBC Two documentary series The Secrets of Silicon Valley. And the reason we are speaking today is because I have recently become totally addicted to his new podcast The Missing CryptoQueen, a gripping BBC Sounds podcast that has been at the very top of the iTunes charts for weeks now. Warning: there are spoilers in this episode!

So what is the Missing Cryptoqueen about? It is a podcast uncovering the mysterious story of Dr Ruja Ignatova who persuaded millions to join her financial revolution, a new cryptocurrency called One Coin. Then she just totally disappeared off the face of the earth. Jamie Bartlett and Georgia Catt have made a podcast trying to track her down and present a story of greed, deceit and herd madness. The weekly episodes are addictive and get stranger and stranger. I emailed Jamie one weekend after binging the entire thing asking him to come onto this podcast to chat, and I really enjoyed it! if you did too, please do consider leaving a review, and definitely go and listen to The Missing Cryptoqueen if you haven't already.

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