Bitconned Movie Review
By Sonny Singh January 11, 2024
Backstory
All my friends kept calling me to ask if I've seen the new crypto documentary on Netflix "Bitconned". I had just watched the Bloomberg SBF documentary "RUIN" which I did not enjoy, so I was not looking forward to another bad crypto documentary. Boy was I wrong. Unlike the Bloomberg documentary which seemed to be made in a couple weeks using AI this was obviously very professionally done by Netflix. On purpose, I didn't even watch the trailer or learn the story, and just dove right in.
Storyline
The documentary is a true story that covers an ICO in 2017 launched by three friends/scammers who knew nothing about crypto. After a failed attempt at running an exotic car rental business in Miami, they were left broke and in debt. It was then that these scammers stumbled upon crypto and ended up raising over $30M in an ICO for a crypto debit card. They along with their investors thought this crypto debit card was the most amazing idea ever. Guess no one seemed to notice that crypto debit cards like BitPay, and Coinbase had been available for a couple years (disclosure: I used to work at BitPay) . Without giving away too much, lets just say the movie involves all the good things including:
- Miami
- Drugs
- Millions of Dollars
- Lamborghinis
- Celebrity Influencers
- Fake LinkedIn Profiles
Review
The movie was very entertaining right from the beginning and kept me enthralled throughout. The lead character is very captivating and you love to hate him. He will have a great future in reality TV if he wants. I kept wondering out loud how these investors could not realize this was a scam. Even my wife started watching halfway through and couldn't stop and now she wants to watch the beginning today. All my friends kept calling me asking is this really how crazy crypto is and unfortunately the answer is Yes. The industry is not as bad today as it was during the craziness of 2017, but it shows how much work is needed to still be done.
As Bitcoin Maxi's will point out, the name "Bitconned" is misleading as this story was about ICO's and did not involve Bitcoin.
Rating
We don't have an official rating system yet as this is our first Movie Review, so we will give it 5 Satoshi's out of 5. Or 5 Beluga's out of 5, or its a 95 out of 100 on the anchovy meter. It's a good movie that is very entertaining. Go watch it.