World’s biggest podcaster Joe Rogan has a ‘lot of hope’ for crypto

Controversial comedian and commentator Joe Rogan said that he “has a lot of hope” for cryptocurrencies in a recent podcast interview.

In the 1760th Jan. 8 episode of his podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Rogan discussed the future of crypto with fellow podcaster, Adam Curry. Rogan’s podcast has an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, despite Spotify’s attempts to censor some of the more offensive episodes.

Rogan, whose podcast took the top spot as most popular on Spotify during 2021, stated:

“It’s either going to fall apart completely, or we’re going to use this as an opportunity to right the ship and come up with a better way to live our lives,”

Curry is the host of right-wing podcast “No Agenda” which has been criticized by the mainstream media and medical community for promoting conspiracy theories.

Curry explained that “there is a whole slew of young people who are just opting out, and they are moving to build parallel systems and parallel networks,” before adding, “I’m on the Bitcoin train because I believe my money is safer there.”

“The money system is broken. It causes inflation, it causes misery, it causes wars because it is linked to oil.”

Rogan’s vision for the Metaverse

Rogan and Curry also discussed the possibilities of a “Silicon-Valley-controlled” digital Metaverse, and the potential role of NFTs in this space.

Rogan theorized a future where companies come up with their own digital tokens which customers would need to use to purchase their products.

“Apple could easily do that,” Rogan said, “you would buy coins, and through those coins you would buy products… It’s almost like another version of stocks or something.”

However, Curry wasn’t convinced, saying “that’s not the plan,” and he expects powerful institutions and governments will instead set their sights on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

“You will have crypto. You will have a digital wallet. It will be directly from the Federal Reserve to you. And there will be little retail banking - that just won't happen anymore.”

Related: Cash App for Comment: Joe Rogan Tells 200M Listeners to Buy Bitcoin

Despite the podcasters’ positive appraisal of crypto, many members of the community remained skeptical. In a Reddit post to the r/Cryptocurrency subreddit, one user “thenudelman” commented, “An endorsement from Captain Pseudoscience. Coulda done without it.” Another user, “Dubsy 101” added, “He's an idiot and the last person we want associated with Crypto.”

Both Rogan and Curry have proved to be highly controversial figures in the crypto space and beyond. Rogan is known for his vocal rejection of “political correctness” and has received criticism in the past for making racist, sexist, and transphobic jokes.

In July 2021, CashApp paid Rogan to tell his listeners to buy Bitcoin (BTC), and he accepted a BTC payment of $100,000 in November.