Keanu Reeves: Criticism of Crypto ‘Will Only Make It Better’

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‘The Matrix’ star Keanu Reeves has become something of a crypto fanatic, calling cryptocurrencies “incredible tools for trading and distributing resources.”

In a recent interview with Wired to promote his new movie “John Wick 4,” Reeves said, “I think the premise, the ideas behind an independent currency, are amazing,” adding that “For crypto pooh-pooh, or the volatility of the cryptocurrency, this will only improve it in terms of protection.

The 1999 film “The Matrix,” in which Reeves played the hero Neo, was a seminal cyberpunk text that predicted many of today’s emerging technological trends, from AI to the metaverse. It’s no surprise, then, that Web3 fans have long been curious about what Reeves thinks about crypto and related technologies like NFTs.

In particular, Reeves is interested in the implications of digital art technologies such as AI and NFTs, noting that “people are growing up with these tools: we already listen to AI-created music in the style of Nirvana, there is NFT digital art.”

While conceding that “it’s cool, like, look what pretty machines can do!” Reeves added that he was concerned about the “corporatocracy behind this that seeks to control these things”.

Reeves explained that he recently tried to explain to a teenager that in “The Matrix,” Neo “fights for what was real,” only to be asked, “Who cares if it’s real?”

“Culturally, socially, we are going to be confronted with the value of the real, or the non-value”, declared the actor. “And then what are they going to impose on us? What are we going to be presented with?

Metaverse Revolutions

The actor has become increasingly involved in the NFT space in recent years; after dismissing NFT art as “easily reproduced”, in an interview to promote “The Matrix Resurrections”, he has since become an advisor for digital art charity The Futureverse Foundation, which funds artists seeking entry in the NFT space.

The charity, supported by the NFT Non-Fungible Labs and Fluf World projects, aims to “make the metaverse accessible to more people, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds”, according to Alexandra Grant, Reeves’ partner and advisor to the Futurevese Foundation.

“I’m kind of following her,” Reeves told Wired. “I helped set up the launch. We try to take this technology that people are interested in and give opportunities to artists with different points of view.

Asked if companies like Meta have made the metaverse accessible enough, Reeves said, “It’s like they’ve created more land. There is more land for sale. It is a creation of wealth and it is an opportunity.

But he remains somewhat skeptical of the Metaverse. “It’s this sensorium. It’s spectacle,” he said. “And it’s a system of control and manipulation. We are on our knees looking at the walls of the caves and seeing the projections, and we don’t have the chance to look behind us. Or to the side.

In a previous interview, he joked, “Can we just not have Facebook invent the metaverse? The concept of metaverse is much older than that.

Reeves Crypto History

Reeves has stayed somewhat away from the crypto space – he once said he had “a little HODL”, after “a friend of mine bought me some a while ago” and he didn’t didn’t do anything because “I didn’t have to.”

But he sometimes crossed paths with cryptocurrency.

In 2015, Reeves narrated the documentary “Deep Web” – directed by his “Bill & Ted” co-star Alex Winter – which told the story of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of dark web market Silk Road.

When the Silk Road was closed, over 170,000 bitcoins were seized by authorities, worth over $3.7 billion at today’s prices.

In 2015, Ulbricht was sentenced to two life terms plus 40 years for conspiracy to launder money, computer hacking, drug trafficking and running a criminal enterprise.

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