Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Future of the Internet

Taking a neutral position on both crypto and blockchain tech, this doco deep dives the history of the underlying tech and then explores the present and future potential. One comment I got from everyone we interviewed last night was the love of honestly and transparency in the doco - it's true that crypto and blockchain have evolved from mysterious roots and basements and gone through a hype and collapse phase in 2017-19. It's also true that major corporate and political players have at the same time cast shade on the grass roots coins and startups whilst also invested millions and branched internal "skunkworks" ops in their organizations in exploring this tech for their own "private" blockchain purposes. What is clear in this doco is that the underlying idea of blockchain and what it seeks to achieve - transaction speed, low cost and high efficiency; and transparency and irrevocable truth from a distributed ledger - these core concepts are in themselves the promise of blockchain theology and the kinds of modern use cases that an incredibly tech connected world, growing off the back of leaps in computing/mobile and internet accessibility, can leverage for all kinds of purposes.

A very well balanced and easy to follow documentary that not only hears from the proponents of the space, but also its critics and controversial figures. The documentary opens the kimono to reveal many things newbies and even veterans in the space may have not known. A recommended watch for those curious about Bitcoin and its hardcore fan base.

Bitcoin is currency, not money. Money has to be a commodity first, and a medium of exchange second e.g. Silver. Silver is used in batteries, cars, mirrors, water filters etc etc. But it can also be used as a medium of exchange. Money has to be a stable store of value over hundreds of years. E.g. The dollar has lost 98% of its purchasing power within a few decades I.e. The dollar is currency, not money. Similarly, Bitcoin is simply a medium of exchange, in the form of a digital token I.e. Currency. It is not money. The film comes across like a pump-and-dump scheme. "We know it's going to a million dollars a coin". Do we know that? I sure as hell don't. There are 15,000+ cryptos out there. Crypto is the latest get rich quick scheme, but the ship has already sailed. There's no questioning the blockchain technology will have applications in the future, but it isn't isolated to Bitcoin. It has other applications. It also doesn't give Bitcoin 'value' in the same way the dollar is sometimes said to be 'backed by the US government'. Nonesense to those who understand what money actually is.

There's a lot of babble but very little substance. It doesn't make things simple enough for the laypeople and for anyone knowing anything it's entirely nonsensical at times. Random things said but not explained or questioned.

For example, one company describes their product as "an operating system on top of Etherium." That's it. He didn't ask what that means, just put it out there. Was the point to make it seem entirely ridiculous?

He went to see a vault that has servers and data. No explanation what and why. "The key is split into five locations." Ok, what key? What is it used for? How do they use it when they need to? Nothing is explained.

There's at least some points where they show how much was promised and how nothing was delivered by the crypto fanatics, but in the end it doesn't really say anything. Much better ways to waste time.

I'm just tired of that style of documentary where the host/interviewer/journalist is just being filmed meandering through city crosswalks and shaking hands of 47 people who each say 5 seconds worth of interesting material related to the actual topic.

Nice to know that you traveled to Switzerland, Japan, UK, Germany, Argentina, etc. But what did it add to the content? Not much besides the fact that i know that some nuclear bunker doors in Switzerland are painted yellow. Thanks.