Keanu Reeves: Criticism of Crypto ‘is only going to make it better’

“The Matrix” star Keanu Reeves has become something of a crypto fan, calling cryptocurrencies “fantastic tools for exchange and distribution of resources.”

In a recent interview with The cable to promote his new film “John Wick 4,” Reeves said, “I think the principle, the ideas behind an independent currency, is fantastic,” adding that “oh pooh-pooh crypto, or the volatility of cryptocurrency, it just goes to make it better in terms of how it is handled.”

The 1999 film “The Matrix,” in which Reeves played the hero Neo, was a seminal cyberpunk text that predicted many of today’s emerging technology trends, from AI to metaverse. So it’s no surprise that Web3 fans have long been curious to know 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 NFT, noting that “People are growing up with these tools: We’re already listening to music made by AI in the style of Nirvana, it’s NFT digital Art.”

While I admit that “that’s cool, look what those sweet machines can make!” Reeves added that he is concerned about “the corporatocracy behind it that wants to control these things.”

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

“Culturally, socially, we will be confronted with the value of real, or the non-value,” the actor said. “And what is going to be thrust upon us? What is going to be presented to us?”

The Metaverse Revolutions

The actor has become increasingly involved in the NFT space in recent years; after rejects NFT art As “simply reproduced”, in an interview to promote “The Matrix Resurrections”, he has since become an adviser to the digital arts charity The Futureverse Foundation, which funds artists who want to enter the NFT space.

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

“I’m riding her coattails a little bit,” Reeves shared The cable. “I helped set up the launch. We’re trying 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 sufficiently accessible, Reeves said: “It’s like they’ve created more land. There is more land for sale. There is value creation and there is opportunity.”

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

In an earlier interview, he joked, “Can’t we just have metaverse invented by Facebook? The concept of metaverse is much older than that.”

Reeves’ crypto history

Reeves has stayed somewhat distant from the crypto space – he once said he has “a bit of HODL”, after “a friend of mine bought me something a while back” and that he hasn’t done anything with it because “I have “didn’t have to.”

But he has occasionally 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 the Silk Road Dark Web Marketplace.

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

In 2015, Ulbricht was sentenced to two life sentences plus 40 years on charges of conspiracy to launder money, computer hacking, drug trafficking and operating a criminal enterprise.