BitBoy Crypto and the cost of influencer culture
Ben Armstrong, better known as BitBoy Crypto, was once one of the biggest crypto influencers on YouTube.
Research & analysis3 min
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MASTR · 2024–2026
Research & analysis · 4
Archived publication in the author’s original wording. Claims, figures and opinions belong to the date shown; inclusion does not establish them as independently verified facts.
229 · Selected publications · 4/10
SIMD-0538: explaining the Solana proposal discussed on X
In simple terms, compute units are the amount of work Solana allows inside a block. More compute units means the chain can process more activity per block.
Research & analysis2 min
James Wynn: public leverage, liquidations and attention
JamesWynnReal did not fall in private, but in full public view. That is what makes his story so strange, so brutal, and so perfectly crypto.
Research & analysis10 min
Grok and DRB: the trust problem in agentic finance
A "short" scientific breakdown of AI finance, agentic wallets and the problems nobody wants to think about yet, for those who occasionally still enjoy reading something longer: 👇
Research & analysis8 min
Grok and DRB: an early account of the agentic-finance incident
$DRB, short for DebtReliefBot, is a Base memecoin with one of the strangest origin stories in crypto.
Research & analysis2 min
Dormant Ethereum wallets: the April 2026 drain trail
A wallet labelled by Etherscan as Fake_Phishing2831105 has been receiving funds from many addresses and rapidly moving them through swaps and cross chain infrastructure.
Research & analysis3 min
Decentralisation across custody, access and decision-making
In practice, it means power is spread far enough that 1 actor cannot quietly change the rules, block access, freeze assets, manipulate information, or force everyone else to accept its version of reality.
Research & analysis5 min
Trump-linked business interests: a dated map of money and access
1. World Liberty Financial / WLFI • Link to Trump: Trump family crypto venture • Deal: More than $800 million in Trump family crypto income in the first half of 2025 • Amount: about $463 million from World Liberty token sales • Why it…
Research & analysis11 min
The Mar-a-Lago token dinner and the market for access
Trump’s Mar a Lago crypto dinner is one of the cleanest examples yet of what crypto becomes or has become when speculative markets, personal branding, political power and access capitalism collapse into 1 machine.
Research & analysis4 min
Luckio’s shutdown and the paid-promotion record
The problem is that they were paid to promote it, while retail saw it as a genuine recommendation from a major crypto figure.
Research & analysis2 min
Tether: ownership and influence behind a stablecoin
And while Forbes estimates CZ at over $100 B, which CZ himself has questioned, Devasini may very well be the richest man in crypto.
Research & analysis2 min
Foundation’s closure and the fragility of NFT marketplaces
One of the most iconic Ethereum art marketplaces, a platform that pushed roughly $230M in primary sales during the mania years, is shutting down for good after its Blackdove rescue deal collapsed.
Research & analysis2 min
Binance: reporting on Iran-linked flows and internal investigations
According to the Wall Street Journal, Binance investigators traced more than $1 billion in suspicious flows tied to Iran linked networks, with internal findings reportedly flagging as much as $1.7 billion.
Research & analysis2 min
RaveDAO: the people, token and promotional network
RaveDAO presents itself as a Web3 entertainment project mixing EDM culture, live events, NFT based attendance, crypto payments, DAO governance and philanthropy.
Research & analysis6 min
WLFI: MASTR’s chronology of deals and political connections
This is a summary and timeline of the entire $WLFI scam and the dirty entanglements surrounding it that I have been tweeting about since the very beginning.
Research & analysis8 min
WLFI and Justin Sun: token controls and disputed rights
The story around $WLFI and Justin Sun, and this is only 1 of many examples, shows us several things with brutal clarity.
Research & analysis7 min
Trump-linked crypto: the published extraction timeline
Built from the Gold Paper, White House orders, SEC actions, public disclosures, company statements, blockchain analysis, and major investigations including MASTR, WSJ, ABC, and Fortune.
Research & analysis6 min
ASML and the infrastructure beneath modern computing
At the center of every advanced semiconductor lies an almost absurdly complex process: printing microscopic circuits onto silicon wafers.
Research & analysis4 min
Hardware wallets: keys, custody and the limits of a device
Somehow it is both embarrassing and concerning that crypto czar @cz_binance leading #Binance needs to have wallet basics explained to him.
Research & analysis1 min
Memescope Monday: coordinated attention as a launch mechanism
Memescope is not a safety tool, not alpha. It is not due diligence. It is just a faster conveyor belt for fresh garbage.
Research & analysis2 min
The 2025–2026 crypto incident timeline, as recorded in March
2025 closed with about $3.35B in hacks, scams, and exploits by @CertiK count, while @chainalysis and @MastrXYZ estimated about $17B+ in scams and fraud.
Research & analysis7 min
Iran, Nobitex, mining and cross-border crypto flows
Estimates for 2025 put Iran linked crypto activity at roughly $8 billion to $10 billion, while analysts say up to 15 million Iranians have had some exposure to crypto. Iran’s biggest exchange, #Nobitex, has reportedly claimed around 11…
Research & analysis4 min
Claude Shannon and the ideas beneath digital money
Every crypto transaction, every encrypted message and every computer running today ultimately rests on ideas that were formalized by one man: Claude Shannon.
Research & analysis5 min
Jarett Dunn and the Pump.fun incident
Jarett Dunn, also known as Stacc or StaccOverflow, was one of the most controversial developers in the Solana ecosystem.
Research & analysis4 min