The man who self-immolated outside the courthouse where former President Donald Trump's trial is currently underway has been identified as Max Azzarello.
Azzarello, who described himself as an independent researcher, released a manifesto shortly before carrying out his plan on Friday afternoon, writing his "extreme act of protest" was to draw attention to an "apocalyptic fascist world coup" via a cryptocurrency ponzi scheme.
"To my friends and family, witnesses and first responders, I deeply apologize for inflicting this pain upon you. But I assure you it is a drop in the bucket compared to what our government intends to inflict," Azzarello wrote of his plan to self-immolate.
"This is an act of revolution," he asserted.
Azzarello claimed billionaire political activist Peter Thiel intentionally started a bank run on Silicone Valley Bank in March 2023. Thiel's move came days after the collapse of Silvergate Bank, which Azzarello claimed has been deeply invested in cryptocurrencies. According to Azzarello's investigation into Thiel and the billionaire's ventture capital firm, Founders Fund, Azzarello claimed cryptocurrency had become the world's first "planetary multi-trillion-dollar Ponzi scheme."
"The banks were used to move out stolen Ponzi money," Azzarello wrote. "This signals that they’re no longer dumping cash in to keep the cryptocurrency Ponzi afloat, and that it will soon go insolvent, as all Ponzis must."
Azzarelo went on to warn half of the global stock market would be taken down after the alleged Ponzi scheme went insolvent.
"The perpetrators used their major companies to pipe into the blockchain so they could funnel money out from the crypto exchanges," he continued. "This includes Google, Tesla, Apple, PayPal, Facebook, Disney, Walmart, Target, InBev, Zoom, and countless others."
Global inflation in recent years has been directly caused by the cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, according to Azzarello.
"It is a Ponzi scheme so large that it created global inflation, which is why the price of Bitcoin has been a remarkable leading indicator for inflation rates," he wrote. "Victims who bought crypto don’t realize their money has already been stolen, so the money gets double-counted by the victims and the criminals who stole it."
"As it turns out, our elites are awash in Ponzi schemes," Azzarello's manifesto continued:Stanford’s StartX.com investment fund and Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Program for Evolutionary Dynamics’ he ran at Harvard are both fake-science Ponzi factories that these schools have invested billions in: They are filled with fraudulent companies that use smoke and mirrors to promise miraculous new technology, but always collapse while the perpetrators only get richer. Funneling trillions of dollars in stolen cash through the stock market created the largest stock-market anomaly in history. The stock chart signature of a Ponzi scheme is a massive increase (while they stack up cash) and then a massive fall (as they funnel out the stolen cash). This chart shape appeared in all the companies listed above. In order to explain the massive anomaly, our criminal government unleashed COVID on the world and told us these were the “stay at home stocks.”
Azzarello went on to claim the United States government was fully involved in the "totalitarian con," citing former President Bill Clinton and others connected to the Clinton Global Initiative were also involved in the Ponzi scheme.
"As it turns out, we have a secret kleptocracy: Both parties are run by financial criminals whose only goals are to divide, deceive, and bleed us dry," he continued. "They divide the public against itself and blame the other party while everything gets worse and more expensive and [a] handful of people take all the money. Since it is fully parasitic, a secret kleptocracy is an incredibly unstable form of government – left to its own devices, it can only lead to fascism or failed state."
Azzarello's manifesto also claimed long-running animated sitcom The Simpsons served as a "brainwash" entertainment outlet.
"News media tells us to be angry and tribalized. Daytime television warns us of moral decay. Local news tell us to fear our neighbors," Azzarello wrote. "The Simpsons tells us we’re too oafish and divided to save the American Dream. Seinfeld tells us to celebrate the assholes and be irritated by all the normal people around us. ‘Reality’ TV tells us that real life is filled with hedonism and strife."
Azzarello's manifesto and "act of revolution" do not appear to be in favor or protest of either major political party as he criticizes both liberals and conservatives in his manifesto.
"Liberals mock the hypocrisy of conservatives; conservatives mock the hypocrisy of liberals, and our collective circumstances erode," Azzarello wrote. "No matter the bubbles we ascribe to, we’re bombarded with existential crises with no solutions."
Azzarello claimed global elites have allegedly enacted their "totalitarian doomsday cult" because "capitalism is unsustainable and they knew it."
"Climate change and resource extraction would catch up eventually. So, they never intended to sustain it," he continued. "They knew all along that they would gobble up all the wealth they could, and then yank the rug out from under us so they could pivot to a hellish fascist dystopia."
Shortly before self-immolating on Friday afternoon, Azzarello reportedly handed out fliers which appear to reference his investigation and manifesto before tossing them into the air and setting himself on fire.
