Crypto is boring right now, but the BitBoy drama isn’t much more exciting

If the market wasn’t quite so boring, perhaps BitBoy’s flameout would have been a little less fiery

OPINION
article-image

Midjourney modified by Blockworks

share

Everybody loves a delicious story. 

The delicious story of the week for Crypto Twitter was Ben Armstrong (formerly BitBoy Crypto) and his firing, flameout and livestreamed arrest. 

Crypto media treated the story with as much interest and enthusiasm as if it was FTX 2.0. At least, it felt especially so, because Armstrong — long a controversial figure before his unceremonious exit from the successful BitBoy Crypto channel on YouTube — had taken such pleasure in saying he (allegedly) knew ex-FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried was a “scammer” since day one.

I’m not here to opine on what Ben Armstrong and his now-former business associates allegedly did or didn’t do, both recently and in the past  — there’s plenty of Crypto Twitter fodder to churn through if you’re interested. 

Instead, I want to dig into why this story captured the hearts and minds of crypto, and crypto alone, this week. 

The phrase “there’s no press like bad press” seems apt here. Could it be that we are all secretly hoping for Armstrong’s public meltdown to catapult crypto again into the wider media universe?

Crypto-only media outlets tend to focus on the real meat of the crypto space. New innovations, launches, partnerships, regulation (and also sometimes, inexplicably AI) — in other words, up-close coverage of straight news that’s really only important to the crypto circle. And we don’t expect anyone else to care.

The big exception, as I’m sure you are all waiting with baited breath for me to say, is the case of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried. This was a story that made it beyond crypto media to the mainstream, and also a story that went beyond covering a run-of-the-mill crypto scam to tabloid-esque coverage of polycules. 

The BitBoy story, salacious as it may be, has remained siloed within crypto media. Scrolling back through every single article covering the Armstrong/BitBoy this week, you can only find one non-crypto media outlet who took the bait, and their piece spells crypto as “crytpo.”

I’m not begrudging crypto media outlets a chance to pounce on a sensational story. The market has been exceptionally boring for the past few months — and there are only so many articles you can write about the supposed “end of the bear market.”

Read more from our opinion section: Crypto must advertise

But seeing the crypto world’s interest in the situation around Armstrong and BitBoy Crypto feels a bit like the masses grasping at straws of relevancy. It was definitely a terrible time for crypto when Bankman-Fried was the center of worldwide media attention, and the spotlight on FTX’s collapse did nothing to help crypto’s perception — but at least it was a hot topic that brought crypto an insane amount of mindshare. 

If the plan is to repeat this situation, it’s not working. It doesn’t seem like Ben Armstrong and his antics have left a strong enough mark — nobody involved allegedly misappropriated billions of dollars, for example — to inspire books and TV documentaries, like someone else we know.

The Armstrong drama — and the attention paid especially — instead seems symptomatic of what I see as crypto’s often misguided superiority complex. The sheer audacity of the FTX tale took the world by storm last year. But we’re still nowhere near capturing that mindshare high again, especially not with smaller dramas of crypto YouTubers and their Lamborghinis.


I don’t care much about tech, I don’t care a whole lot about finance, either. I care about writing stories and watching weird things unfold. And that’s why I’ve ended up in crypto.

But because I’m missing that passion for what crypto and blockchain are all about — finance, tech, privacy, yadda yadda — I’m going to write instead about what I am actually interested in. Everything about crypto that has very little to do with crypto.

That’s what this column will be about. All the tangential stories that come out of the blockchain and crypto space, what I think about them, and how I navigate it all as a skeptical former Russian literature major.

It’s precisely my perch as an outsider that lets me do what I do: Opine on all sides of any crypto issue, no strings attached, no skin in the game.

If you want to talk crypto with me, let’s go off topic.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

  • Blockworks Daily: The newsletter that helps thousands of investors understand crypto and the markets, by Byron Gilliam.
  • Empire: Start your morning with the top news and analysis to inform your day in crypto.
  • Forward Guidance: Reporting and analysis on the growing intersection of crypto and macroeconomics, policy and finance.
  • 0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox. Market highlights, data, degen trade ideas, governance updates, token performance and more.
  • Lightspeed: Built for Solana investors, developers and community members. The latest from one of crypto’s hottest networks.
  • The Drop: For crypto collectors and traders, covering apps, games, memes and more.
  • Supply Shock: Tracking Bitcoin’s rise from internet plaything worth less than a penny to global phenomenon disrupting money as we know it.
Tags

Upcoming Events

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Fluid's hybrid money market & DEX protocol has grown rapidly since launch in December of 2024.

article-image

Should higher-fidelity graphics be the goal for crypto games — which result in much higher costs and risk?

article-image

From Mel B to Neil deGrasse Tyson, BTC has seen its share of strange celebrity sightings

article-image

Circle’s roadshow will be the real test for the stablecoin issuer

article-image

PitchBook’s Robert Le said crypto projects focused on institutional use cases are the focus

article-image

The decentralized AI firm designed ODS to be owned by the community in an effort to promote more decentralized AI

article-image

The non-profit’s launch and big-name hires aim to grow Solana’s footprint in Washington