In this week’s episode of The CoinRock Show, host Matthias Mazur sets the tone with a bullish market snapshot—Bitcoin hovering over $105,000, ETH at $2,600, and Solana staying active at $160. While the markets showed signs of green, Matthias reminded listeners not to confuse sentiment with signal.
“we’re still in that choppy range. We haven’t really seen any massive real leg up like the; you know; the next leg up that everyone’s waiting,” he said.
“I really firmly believe that retail will come back because they always do whenever there is this price action, bullish price action.”
He pointed to a recurring theme in crypto cycles: meme coins capturing attention where NFTs once reigned.
“This cycle’s memes are the previous cycle’s NFTs,” he declared, reflecting on the frothy celebrity coin era from just over a year ago. Still, he expressed confidence that retail will return—just as they always do during stretches of bullish price action.
Matthias also touched on regulatory headlines, including the SEC’s shifting stance on staking, Circle’s IPO ambitions, and Robinhood’s acquisition of Bitstamp, before pausing to reflect on what truly drives success in today’s world.
This rich prelude set the perfect tone for the day’s guest: Jonny Caplan, a multi-award-winning entrepreneur, filmmaker, and media innovator. With a background that bridges business and broadcast, Caplan joined the show to unpack how founders can shape public perception by telling their own stories—and why media ownership might be the most undervalued asset in crypto today.
Meet Jonny Caplan: The Entrepreneur Who Flipped the Script
Caplan’s bio reads like a cross between Silicon Valley and Hollywood. A Duke of Edinburgh Award recipient by 14, he launched his first business at 16 and built a $60M gaming platform by 21. He later founded Tech Talk Media and Impossible Media to give emerging technologies the exposure they deserve—without selling out to drama-driven media narratives.
He’s a Creative Entrepreneur of the Year winner at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, executive producer and director of major TV series like NFT Me, The Rise of AI, and Inside NASA’s Innovations, and a contributor to both Entrepreneur.com and Vogue. His media ventures now span 195 countries and have earned more than 25 international film awards.
But Caplan’s creative spark didn’t start in media. As he tells it, he was obsessed with innovation from a young age—hooked on shows like Tomorrow’s World and fascinated by the way film and fiction inspired real-life invention.
“I’ve been on the cusps of entrepreneurship and innovation for most of my life,” he said.
“We think that the movies are the truth, but they’re just influencing us.”
His first major company, MoneyGaming.com, launched in 2004, was the world’s first skill-based gaming site for real money. With the slogan “put your money where your mouth is,” the platform allowed players to bet based on skill rather than luck.
He followed that with PokerControls.com, which created hardware tools for online poker players—a venture that led to retail distribution worldwide. And it was during this period that he pitched on Dragons’ Den, the UK’s original Shark Tank. His appearance was strong, but the final edit focused on drama rather than substance.
“I realized there was just a massive gap… all of those shows aren’t really representative of entrepreneurship, business, innovation, things that are going on in the real world. They’re dramatized.”
That realization became the catalyst for Caplan’s media empire. With Tech Talk Media, he set out to flip the script on how entrepreneurship and innovation are portrayed. The result? A platform that empowers startups and visionaries, not just for entertainment—but for global impact.
Why NFT Me Changed the Web3 Onboarding Game
When Jonny Caplan pitched his first show idea to Amazon, he wasn’t met with curiosity about innovation. Instead, the streaming giant wanted drama. “Do they fight? Is there drama?” they asked. Caplan’s response was clear: “No, but there’s flying cars, robots taking care of the elderly, and 3D holographic surgery.” That didn’t land—so he took a different route.
Caplan and his team opted to self-finance. They built the company from the ground up, funded productions independently, and went on to release over 20 titles distributed across 80 countries. The first show alone generated nearly half a billion dollars in value for the 50 startups featured.
“We didn’t hold back, we didn’t negotiate, we just said yes, because we felt that the world needed to understand it,” Caplan explained.
Among those titles, NFT Me stood out. At a time when Web3 platforms were burning VC capital trying to onboard the masses with clunky apps and wallet integrations, Caplan took a different approach: storytelling. He created a globally televised documentary that humanized the crypto community and opened up the space to the average viewer. NFT Me appeared on the front page of over 50 newspapers and made it to Amazon Prime.
“We took the crypto industry on broadcast television to the rest of the world,” he said.
“So that they could appreciate what was going on here and get involved”
What Founders Get Wrong About Exposure
For Jonny Caplan, the journey to credibility wasn’t paved with hype—it was a long slog of persistence. Reflecting on the early days of building his media brand without a production background, Caplan explained the grind behind gaining trust in an industry known for smoke and mirrors.
“It was sheer hard work,” he admitted.
“And we’re still breaking through in certain areas.”
Too often, founders mistake visibility for value, chasing clout over character. Caplan cautions that there’s a hollow ring to fast success when it’s not backed by real effort.
“If you’ve got all the money and all the contacts to start off with… there is no sense of achievement.”
Instead, he champions the “journey mindset”—where wins earned through struggle carry more weight and meaning. For him, exposure shouldn’t be the starting point; it should be the byproduct of staying resilient, solving real problems, and building something that lasts.
AI, Robots, and the Real Future of Tech
Jonny Caplan doesn’t mince words when it comes to artificial intelligence: it’s impressive, it’s flawed, and it’s miles away from the doomsday sci-fi narrative.
“I use AI a lot, and it’s always letting me down,” he said bluntly.
Despite the hype, Caplan believes we’re still in the “cycle of understanding,” with both users and developers trying to figure out how to harness the tech responsibly.
His caution isn’t baseless. Caplan revealed that AI once leaked confidential information he had fed into it during stealth mode.
“AI is not your friend,” he warned.
“Use it to your advantage—not to its advantage.”
Caplan also recounted a conversation with Professor Eli Kohlberg, head of robotics at Tel Aviv University, who estimated that a fully functioning robot soccer team won’t be viable until 2050.
“The robots can’t compute fast enough like a human does,” Caplan noted.
“We still don’t understand the full capacity of our own brains—how can we build something that overtakes us?”
And yet, he’s bullish on the near-term possibilities. From faster drug development to robots in the home, Caplan sees AI accelerating progress across multiple industries—crypto included. The key, he says, is innovation at the edges. “It always comes from fringe entrepreneurs… not from the big companies playing catch-up.”
The Dark Side of Social Media & Gen Z Entitlement
What worries Jonny Caplan most isn’t the tech—it’s the people using it.
Social media, in his view, has rewired an entire generation with short-term thinking and surface-level ambition.
“They’ve been mollycoddled,” Caplan said.
“They had social media to give them shortcuts to everything and also a shortcut to fame and money.”
Unlike older generations who built businesses without likes, follows, or viral posts, today’s Gen Z entrepreneurs often expect instant wins without putting in the groundwork.
“Very few people are actually willing to do that boring six to 24 months of work,” he warned.
His solution? Fight back with better media. Caplan’s mission is to create content that inspires action, not outrage—stories that elevate rather than erode.
“We’re hell-bent on making stuff that’s positive, inspirational, educational, and exciting,” he said.
“You change your life when you see someone else do it. That’s what we want our content to spark.”
And as the episode wrapped, Caplan offered one final note to creators, builders, and dreamers alike:
“The only limit is really what you place in front of you. You don’t need a diploma. You just need passion, determination, and resilience.”
Where to Find Jonny Caplan
Want to follow Jonny’s work or explore his media projects? You can find him across multiple platforms:
- All links in one place: linktr.ee/jonnycaplan
- LinkedIn: Jonny Caplan
- Instagram: @jonnycaplan
- Twitter: @jonnycaplan
- Watch his films on Amazon Prime: Jonny Caplan on Amazon
- Read his columns on Entrepreneur: Jonny Caplan – Entrepreneur.com
