Jordan Belfort, Still the Wolf, Likes Crypto Now

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — Jordan Belfort was lounging by the pool on a sunny April morning, sipping Purple Bull and sharing a cautionary story. Not the standard one about his imprisonment on 10 counts of securities fraud and cash laundering: This time, he’d been the sufferer. Final fall, he defined to a bunch of businessmen gathered at his palatial dwelling, a hacker had stolen $300,000 of digital tokens from his cryptocurrency pockets.

He had gotten the unhealthy information at dinner on a Friday, he mentioned, whereas he was telling a venture-capitalist good friend in regards to the time he sank his yacht throughout a drug-fueled romp within the mid-90s. After breaking into Mr. Belfort’s account, the hacker transferred giant portions of Ohm, a preferred cryptocurrency token, to a separate pockets — a publicly seen transaction Mr. Belfort may do nothing to reverse. “You may see the place the cash is,” he mentioned. “It’s probably the most irritating factor.”

Mr. Belfort, 59, is greatest identified for “The Wolf of Wall Road,” a tell-all memoir about his debauched Nineties profession in excessive finance, which the director Martin Scorsese tailored right into a 2013 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio because the hard-partying protagonist. Lately, the real-life Mr. Belfort is a guide and gross sales coach, charging tens of 1000’s of {dollars} for personal classes.

This month, at his home in Miami Seashore, he hosted 9 blockchain lovers and entrepreneurs for a weekend-long crypto workshop — an opportunity to hang around with the Wolf and luxuriate in an “intimate financial experience” together with his crypto-industry mates.

An extended line of celebrities has tried to revenue from the cryptocurrency growth, showing in widely mocked crypto commercials or flogging nonfungible tokens, the distinctive digital collectibles generally known as NFTs. Mr. Belfort mentioned he has refused to take part within the worst of the shilling. He has declined provides to launch a line of Wolf-themed NFTs, he mentioned, regardless that “I may simply make $10 million.”

He’s additionally a latest convert away from crypto skepticism. Not way back, he shot a YouTube video in regards to the risks of Bitcoin, which he known as “frickin’ madness” and “mass delusion.” Over time, he mentioned, he step by step modified his thoughts, as he realized extra about cryptocurrencies and costs skyrocketed.

Now, Mr. Belfort is an investor in a handful of start-ups, together with a new NFT platform and an animal-themed crypto undertaking that he mentioned is “attempting to take the dog-and-pet ecosystem and put it onto the blockchain.”

No matter his crypto bona fides, Mr. Belfort is definitely certified to debate the topic of monetary fraud, a serious downside within the digital-asset {industry}. Within the Nineties, the agency he based, Stratton Oakmont, operated a classy stock-manipulation scheme. On the peak of their wealth, he and his enterprise companions consumed huge portions of cocaine and quaaludes and repeatedly employed prostitutes. Mr. Belfort ultimately served 22 months in jail.

Provided that historical past, it may possibly really feel barely surreal to listen to an older, extra grizzled Mr. Belfort proclaim that he’s “massively wanting ahead to regulation” within the crypto {industry}. “I’m not concerned about separating folks from their cash,” he mentioned. “That’s the other of how I act proper now.”

Nonetheless, the crypto workshop at his home was not free: Visitors paid one Bitcoin for a seat, or the money equal, which is roughly $40,000.

The workshop started at 9 a.m. on Saturday. The company — chosen from a pool of greater than 600 candidates — milled round Mr. Belfort’s yard, consuming made-to-order omelets and buying and selling recommendations on Bitcoin mining and tokenomics. A crypto miner from Kazakhstan relaxed within the solar with an aspiring blockchain influencer who runs a roofing firm in Idaho. A Florida businessman defined his plan to make use of NFTs in a start-up that he’s pitching as Tinder for music. A few of the company mentioned they paid for the workshop as a result of they’re die-hard followers of the Wolf; others merely wished to community with fellow entrepreneurs.

By 9:15 a.m., the mimosas have been flowing, however Mr. Belfort was nowhere to be seen. “The U.S. greenback goes to crap,” mentioned the roofing government, Doug Bartlett. A couple of minutes handed. Nonetheless no Wolf. “The Wolf remains to be sleeping?” one visitor questioned aloud.

Eventually, Mr. Belfort emerged from the home, carrying pale denims and darkish sun shades. Mr. Belfort has quick darkish hair; he’s extra wrinkled than he was within the ’90s, however his face remains to be set in a perpetually boyish grin. He stopped on the staircase down from the porch to survey the scene: 9 males wearing numerous shades of enterprise informal — polo shirts, flip-flops, untucked button-down shirts. “I assume we nonetheless have to work on female adoption of cryptocurrency,” he mentioned. “We received to get some women right here subsequent 12 months.” He paused. “Ladies.”

Somebody handed Mr. Belfort a can of Purple Bull. (It was about 9:30 a.m.) “I’m gonna want the sugar,” he mentioned. After a couple of minutes of chitchat, he ushered the group into the eating room, the place every place on the desk was set with a pocket book and a duplicate of “Method of the Wolf,” a gross sales guide Mr. Belfort printed in 2017.

Mr. Belfort has spent the previous twenty years attempting to rebuild his fame, however indicators of the outdated Wolf have been in all places. Behind his spot on the head of the desk, a completely stocked liquor shelf took up many of the wall. (He hasn’t gotten excessive in 25 years, he mentioned, however he typically drinks.) Subsequent to the shelf hung a poster designed to resemble an entry on the periodic desk — Qu for quaalude — itemizing numerous “drug information,” together with “greatest intercourse ever.”

After a spherical of introductions, Mr. Belfort started a lecture on the trivia of cryptocurrencies, from the variations between Bitcoin and Ethereum to the rise of decentralized autonomous organizations. He shared his knowledge on crypto-based “smart contract” systems (“a few of them are actually sensible; a few of them are silly”) and recounted outdated tales about his collaboration with Leo and Marty.

“Leo had never done drugs,” he mentioned. “I needed to educate him on that.”

For a gathering of crypto evangelists, it was putting how a lot time everybody spent reliving their greatest losses. Practically half the group mentioned they’d been hacked. One visitor mentioned he’d misplaced cash when the cryptocurrency trade Mt. Gox collapsed in 2014. Two others mentioned they’d burned giant portions of tokens in dangerous trades.

The vitality within the room lifted with the arrival of Chase Hero, one in every of a sequence of visitor audio system Mr. Belfort had recruited for the weekend. A crypto investor and gaming fanatic, Mr. Hero declared that stablecoins — cryptocurrencies whose worth is pegged to the U.S. greenback — are “the most important innovation since sliced bread.”

“It appears vivacious and insane and virtually borderline a Ponzi scheme,” Mr. Hero mentioned of his favourite stablecoin undertaking. “Which makes it the right asset for cryptocurrency as a result of that’s what these children love.”

Considered one of Mr. Belfort’s company, Svein-Erik Nilsen, a Norwegian entrepreneur, began describing his personal enterprise ambitions. Did Mr. Hero have any ideas? The important thing to beginning a brand new enterprise, he replied, is aggressive advertising. “Think about going to a Brazilian seaside and looking for one single scorching chick. There’s eight million,” Mr. Hero mentioned. “The concept is similar factor right here. It’s important to do silly, dumb advertising to get it on the market.”

A couple of hours later, the group adjourned for dinner at Carbone, a high-end Italian restaurant in Miami Seashore the place Mr. Belfort eats as typically as twice per week. As they dined on caviar and rigatoni, a few of the company shared tales of their very own debauchery; Mr. Belfort, it turned out, was not the one wolf within the room. Two company mentioned the mechanics of pursuing youthful girls with out risking entanglement in a “sugar child” scenario. Somebody speculated about how an enterprising strip membership proprietor may incorporate NFTs into the enterprise.

Quickly dialog turned to a membership in Japan the place girls are mentioned to cavort with octopuses. Mr. Belfort wished to know extra: Had been the ladies in Japan lovely? Later, he confirmed the group an iPhone video he took at an S-and-M-themed bar, the place the waitresses flog the purchasers.

Artem Bespaloff, the chief government of the crypto mining firm Asic Jungle, leaned throughout the desk to explain his private conversion to the way in which of the Wolf. He was planning to go to medical college, he mentioned, when he discovered a duplicate of “The Wolf of Wall Road” on the library.

“I mentioned, ‘That is what I wish to do,’” Mr. Bespaloff recalled. “I ended up stealing the ebook from the library.”

“So I used to be a superb affect,” Mr. Belfort mentioned with amusing. Nonetheless, he mentioned, he regrets his habits in these days — it was unsuitable, and he may have gotten even richer if he hadn’t damaged the regulation. “I missed the web growth,” he mentioned. “I’d’ve made 100x more cash.”

“Effectively,” Mr. Bespaloff replied, “you’re in crypto now.”

“You reside and study,” Mr. Belfort mentioned.