Alexandra Botez gets featured on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Chess streamer Alexandra Botez appeared on Last Week Tonight thanks to an interview she did with a cryptocurrency founder back in 2022.

Crossovers between Twitch streamers and the mainstream media are becoming more and more common, especially now that many streamers are beginning to occupy spaces in burgeoning tech sectors.

For instance, Twitch became a hotbed for cryptocurrency marketing with influencers like Trainwreckz and xQc gambling on certain crypto sites, though there was considerable backlash to streams promoting gambling and crypto.

This led to a lot of discussion among Twitch personalities on the emergence of crypto, which the mainstream media appears to have picked up on.

Alex Botez interview shown on Last Week Tonight

Comedian John Oliver, host of Last Week Tonight, has gone after the cryptocurrency sector several times in the past due to the market’s lack of transparency and security. Most recently, he revisited the topic on his April 23 show, where he discussed the implosion of the sector.

Oliver focused on three of the biggest crypto companies to fail recently: Terra, Celsius, and FTX. When it came time to discuss Terra, the host leaned into a clip from an interview between Alexandra Botez and Terra founder Do Kwon.

In the clip, Botez asks Kwon, “How many of these companies are entering this space just because it’s hot and there’s a lot of funding, versus the ones that will still be here, you know, two to five years later?”

Kwon somewhat brazenly answers that “95%” of the newcomers in the crypto space are going to die quickly, then adds, “There’s also entertainment in watching companies die, too.”

Of course, as is often the case for those featured on Last Week Tonight, Kwon’s words turned out to be ironically prophetic, as Terra’s value collapsed and Kwon was eventually arrested for fraud.

Even though Botez didn’t get a callout from Oliver herself, it’s quite surreal to see that she was the one to ask some of these initial questions to one of the biggest players in the crypto space.