Star Trek actor William Shatner who “Captain Kirk” played in the original 1960s U.S. TV series (as well as several Star Trek movies) who called basic blockchain and cryptocurrency concepts “really strange” just a few months ago seems to have so well-versed in crypto that he was defending Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin against some crypto trolls on Twitter yesterday.

On 13 June 2018, a Canadian company, Solar Alliance Energy Inc, announced that it was going to develop a 165,000 square foot solar-powered crypto mining facility in Murphysboro, Illinois, and that the 87-year-old actor (and renewable energy advocate) would be the company’s spokesperson.

However, later that day, when Chicago Tribune asked Shatner in a phone interview to explain Bitcoin, he admitted to having some difficulty understanding the basic ideas of crypto:

“The concept is so, I guess the word is bizarre. You have to blank your mind and say, ‘What is blockchain, again? How does mining operate, again?’ The concepts are really strange, and yet when you begin to grasp it, it makes sense.”

Later in the view, he said that he might go to visit the crypto mining facility once it becomes operational:

“I’m in Chicago a lot, and I live in Kentucky part of the time. I might very well do that. It’s an interesting idea to see it at work because … it’s so esoteric that it’s difficult to understand.”

But yesterday, on Twitter, Shatner seemed a lot more comfortable talking about crypto. He started by sending out a tweet in which he gave a “thumbs up” to Vladik Buterin:

Twitter user “premine apologist” (@decentrali) replied to Shatner with a tweet in which he called Vitalik a scammer (referring to a subreddit caled “ethereumfraud”):

Shatner then quickly tried to defend Vitalik:

Shatner then explained to one very impressed crypto trader (@CryptoShark) how he had come to learn so much about crypto in the past few months:

 

Featured Image Credit: Photo by “Crosa” via Flickr; licensed under “CC BY 2.0”