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Joe Rogan: How Crypto Converted the King of Podcasts

DailyCoinDailyCoin2024/08/25 13:58
By:DailyCoin

When Joe Rogan, the host of the biggest podcast show on the planet, expresses his opinion, he does so with the knowledge that millions of people around the world will be listening. 

Rogan’s podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience, launched in December 2009 and has seen a meteoric rise in popularity since then, turning the UFC commentator into a household name. 

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The world’s most renowned podcast host and his many guests have discussed various topics, including crypto , which has popped up several times. But how exactly did Rogan eventually become a supporter of crypto? And what pushed him to acknowledge its importance within our modern world?

Table of Contents

  • Joe Rogan’s Podcast Popularity
    • Early Bitcoin (BTC) Interest
    • Andreas Antonopoulos Interview
    • Crypto as “Native Currency”
    • Doubts Start Creeping In
    • FTX Scandal
    • Acknowledging Bitcoin’s Importance
  • Why Did Joe Rogan Become a Crypto Supporter?
  • Joe Rogan vs. NFTs
  • Are There Other Popular Podcasters Who Support Crypto?
    • On the Flipside
    • Why This Matters
    • FAQs

Joe Rogan’s Podcast Popularity

Source: Podcastcharts.byspotify.com

The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast amassed a huge fanbase in the years following its introduction, and it only grew in popularity when Rogan partnered with Spotify in 2020. Rogan’s podcast has an estimated 14.5 million followers as of 2024, miles ahead of his competitors. 

Therefore, as the ‘grandfather’ of modern podcasting, any time Joe makes a personal comment on controversial ideas or events, many people, even those outside of his usual audience, take notice.  

One example was in September 2024, when Rogan interviewed Robert F. Kennedy, a 2024 US Presidential Candidate. Despite staying largely neutral, many press releases, blogs, and social media posts have accused Rogan of advocating RFK, with Rogan’s name trending soon after the episode aired. 

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Clearly, the free-thinking podcaster is very popular. He has released thousands of episodes on his podcast, covering many ideas. This can make it a little difficult to uncover Joe’s true feelings on a single topic, but his keen interest in crypto has exposed itself on a few occasions, and if viewers listen closely, they will be able to string together the story of how Joe became a crypto enthusiast, to begin with.

Early Bitcoin (BTC) Interest 

The first time Joe ever mentioned crypto in any form was back in September 2013 during a conversation with Canadian philosopher, Stefan Molyneux. 

At one point, the discussion turns to the Roman Empire, with Molyneux claiming that inflation was a major reason for its downfall. 

Randomly, Rogan replies sarcastically, “Can we Bitcoin our way out of this?”. Remember that at the beginning of 2013, the Bitcoin (BTC) price was roughly $13, so Rogan had been aware of this very early on. 

A year later, Rogan linked his Bitcoin address on Twitter. It now shows that he has made over 400 transactions since that tweet, all of which have involved him buying and storing Bitcoin. Maybe he’s keeping it for a rainy day, or maybe he lost his private key, but what is clear is that he started embracing Bitcoin just as it began gaining mainstream attention, and the reasons why he converted to becoming a supporter in the first place gradually became revealed throughout his podcasts.

Andreas Antonopoulos Interview 

Source: YouTube.com

Though Joe had carefully tiptoed his way around the crypto topic for a while, he would reveal more of his underlying thoughts during a 2016 interview with Andreas Antonopoulos. 

Antonopoulos lives and breathes crypto, claiming in the interview that he gets paid in crypto, pays his rent with crypto, and hopes to rely entirely on it. 

Rogan, fascinated by Antonopoulos’ way of life, remarks that his biggest fear is storing big sums of money with banks. This is because he believes governments can and will use people’s money to make more money.

Rogan has a deep mistrust of the government and banks, and this theme appears almost every time he mentions crypto on the podcast. 

Crypto as “Native Currency”

This hopeful belief in crypto only grew once Rogan was able to sit down with Jack Dorsey in 2019 , who was the CEO Of Twitter at the time.

Source: YouTube.com

Dorsey goes to great lengths to promote cryptocurrency, arguing that the internet will someday have its own “Native currency.” He even states that this will inevitably end up being Bitcoin, since people are already using it as a form of “Digital gold”.

Rogan, in agreement with Dorsey, calls crypto a “Disruptive technology” that is causing banks to panic and agrees that the potential for Bitcoin to become the standard seems more probable than not.

Doubts Start Creeping In

By 2022, Rogan had encountered a plethora of guests who were in full support of crypto. That same year, though, with so many altcoins entering the mainstream and memecoins running rampant, skepticism started to creep in. 

During an interview with comedian Yannis Pappas, Rogan admitted that “There’s too many of them now” when the topic of crypto came up. He then ridiculed memecoins, specifically Dogecoin, calling them “Joke coins”.

However, he still seemed somewhat confident in his faithful Bitcoin, which he called the “King of Cryptos.” It seemed as though the king of podcasts still had some belief in Bitcoin becoming a legitimate and accepted universal viable currency. Still, this faith would again be challenged with the FTX scandal.

FTX Scandal

Source: Politico.com

FTX was a cryptocurrency exchange that went bankrupt in 2022 after its owner, Sam Bankman-Fried, misused customer funds. 

This development dealt a big blow to crypto’s reputation, and it was a story that Rogan certainly took notice of. In an interview with Peter Zeihan , who adamantly argued that every crypto’s value would go down to 0 in time, Rogan begrudgingly agreed, pointing to the FTX scandal as proof that this could happen. 

A few months later, Rogan interviewed Coffeezilla , a YouTuber suing Logan Paul for an NFT scam. Coffeezilla, another staunch opponent of crypto, claimed that money laundering was made easy with Bitcoin because banks can’t target people’s wallets. 

This seemed like Rogan’s make-or-break point. Was he going to stick by crypto through such a murky period, or was he jumping off the hype train for good? 

Acknowledging Bitcoin’s Importance

Rogan spoke with Sam Altman , the co-founder of OpenAI, in late 2023. It was here that Joe truly revealed what he feels about crypto, and more specifically, Bitcoin, and why he decided to embrace it.

In response to Altman’s claims that having a digital International currency is “logical,” Rogan replied, “The real fascinating crypto is Bitcoin.” Rogan believes that Bitcoin “has the best likely possibility of becoming a universal currency” and proceeds to explain why he thinks it’s necessary. 

Rogan fears that banks may introduce a form of regulated central bank digital currency ( CBDC ) tied to a social credit score in the future. Therefore, the government could use this as a form of social control to determine who the ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ members of society are and alter their digital currency accordingly.

This is a logical worry, but it seems to have pushed Rogan ever closer to crypto, specifically Bitcoin, as a way to fight back against this dystopian vision of the future. 

Why Did Joe Rogan Become a Crypto Supporter?

Joe has made clear through his podcast discussions that he has very little faith in the government and banks keeping people’s funds secure. 

In addition, he recognises that if authorities were to gain regulatory control of a national digital currency, they could use it to exercise power over the public. 

Of course, doubts inevitably did arise at one point, as with most investors along their crypto journey. However, the one thing that kept his faith strong was Bitcoin and the power it held as a decentralized asset. Joe doesn’t seem interested in crypto being used for fun or as a casual pastime; he sees it as a form of protection against government misdeeds and miscalculations, and that’s how and why he became a supporter. This harkens back to the origins of cryptocurrency and is part of why it has become so popular since its inception. 

Joe Rogan vs. NFTs

Joe has only talked about NFTs a handful of times on his show, the first was during a conversation with Patrick Bet-David in 2021 . 

He was largely dismissive of them, stating that he doesn’t see the point in spending money to have an image show up on a blockchain, simply seeing them as nothing more than an “Image on the phone.” 

Since then, he has continued to downplay them, such as during his 2023 conversation with Elon Musk , who similarly ridiculed the logistics of NFTs. However, Rogan may come to understand and accept NFTs the deeper he travels into the crypto ecosystem.

Are There Other Popular Podcasters Who Support Crypto?

Lex Fridman, host of the immensely popular Lex Fridman Podcast, has shown much support for cryptocurrency. He has even interviewed crypto developers, including Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Cardano (ADA) founder Charles Hoskinson , who share their concepts, ideas, and hopes for crypto with Fridman’s audience on both Spotify and YouTube .  

Source: X.com

Steven Bartlett of Diary of a CEO has also been a big advocate, claiming in 2021 that he believed “The cryptocurrency blockchain revolution is inevitable, and it’s a very good thing.”

Source: Bahighlife.com

There’s also Jordan Belfort, a former stockbroker portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street movie. Belfort, on his podcast, The Wolf’s Den, has been an adamant supporter of crypto and has even had discussions with Jonny “Hustle,” a well-known podcaster of the Crypto Banter show . 

These are three of the most popular examples of podcasters who have been up-front about their advocacy of crypto and blockchain technology despite the backlash they may receive from doubters. 

On the Flipside

  • Since his interview with Andreas Antonopoulos, Joe has seemingly refused to have any developers or founders involved in crypto appear on his show as guests.
  • This could potentially be due to restrictions from Spotify or that Rogan isn’t well-versed enough in crypto to know about these ‘crypto celebrities’.

Why This Matters

For cryptocurrency to survive and prosper, it must be acknowledged and recognised by the masses as something legitimate. 

As the host of the biggest podcast on the planet, Joe Rogan’s support or defiance can play a big part in how people view crypto, but thankfully, he seems to be a feverous advocate. 

FAQs

What Topics do Crypto Podcasts Cover?

This depends on the specific podcast and its purpose, but most will provide crypto news updates and market predictions. Crypto-centered podcasts also tend to discuss some off-chain topics too, such as the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto , which has always been a fun topic to talk about. 

Where is the Joe Rogan Experience Available?

The Joe Rogan Experience can be listened to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. 

Who is Michael Saylor?

Michael Saylor, a former managing director at MicroStrategy, has also become a big advocate for Bitcoin. He’s regularly appeared on popular podcasts, including What Bitcoin Did, Lex Fridman, and RiskReversal Media.

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Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.

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