I remember watching my first documentary about Bitcoin back in March 2017. At that time, I was on the long-haul flight returning from my holiday in Indonesia to London. Being in a comfortable seat on the Emirates plane, I entertained myself by watching a few interesting movies and TV series. Then, I came across the documentary called ‘Banking on Bitcoin’. I found this documentary very interesting and it helped me to gain my first knowledge about this virtual money Bitcoin.
Since that day, Bitcoin caught my interest and I wanted to understand better how this life-changing technology works. Hence, I did my research about Bitcoin on Google and read its white paper. However, it didn’t make any sense to me until I watched the Bitcoin documentaries available at that time.
Then later, I wrote an article for my blog ‘Best Bitcoin documentary movies to watch’ where I put together a comprehensive list of Bitcoin documentaries that explain everything about Bitcoin. Perhaps, you should take an interest to watch these documentaries and learn how the financial world is changing from traditional paper money to decentralized digital money.
Today, Bitcoin’s popularity and mainstream adoption have grown rapidly. Furthermore, its underpinning technology — the blockchain — has evolved into the next level of cryptographic development. There are many blockchain-related projects matured over recent years that greatly have contributed to the growth of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
Therefore, I have decided to share this list of the most recent Bitcoin documentaries with you. These documentaries cover in detail not only the topic of Bitcoin but Blockchain technology too. They will certainly help you to learn the concept behind this important and innovative technology in human history.
Bitcoin beyond the bubble
’Bitcoin Beyond the Bubble’ is one of the recent documentaries that tell us the true purpose of Bitcoin. It was released in May 2018 in Australia by director Tim Delmastro, after Bitcoinhas reached its all-time high price level known in its history as a Bitcoin bubble. This documentary starts with the main question ‘What is Bitcoin?’. Many experts in the traditional markets and mainstream financial media are trying to figure out if it is a mean of exchange or a speculative asset class.
First, before explaining Bitcoin, this documentary takes us through the evolution of money from precious metals such as gold and silver to paper money dollar as the world reserve currency backed by gold. Then its transformation into fiat money — a modern digital financial payment system. After that, the prominent cryptography experts and leaders of the crypto industry including Tone Vays, Erik Voorhees, Trace Mayer, and others explain well what Bitcoin is, how Bitcoin network works and its decentralized nature of blockchain technology. They draw a parallel between Bitcoin’s fundamentals and the current monetary system. And tell us what makes Bitcoin a better alternative monetary system that can provide sovereignty outside the government control.
The documentary also looks at the most recent Bitcoin bubble of 2017–2018 describing the digital currency as a speculative asset class option for some investors. However, it’s not for over two billion unbanked and poor people in developing countries. They use Bitcoin as protection of their wealth against destroyed fiat currencies and hyperinflation. The great power of Bitcoin is in preserving a store of value and not something that could become only a great investment.
This great documentary also tells us about the evolution of Bitcoin and its most recent development of a new payment layer called the Lighting Network.
You can watch this documentary on YouTube — Bitcoin beyond the bubble.
The Trust Machine (Bitcoin documentary)
‘The Trust Machine’ is another recent documentary that was released in the same 2018 year. It provides a full overview of the key insights behind Bitcoin. The documentary highlights the creation and history of money, explains what Bitcoin is, and then covers technical details on how blockchain technology works.
In the beginning, the documentary takes us through the history of Bitcoin. From the day when its creator Satoshi Nakamoto shared his software program called Bitcoin protocol to experiment and send cash in electronic form over the Internet. Then it tells us a few good reasons and explains that Bitcoin was created to improve the outdated current financial system. This is followed by the history of the Bitcoin payment network and the adoption since its inception to the most recent Bitcoin bubble event of 2018.
Before getting behind the method of how bitcoin works, this documentary looks into what money and value are. Moreover, it explains how money where created in the form of unique treasures and then evolved into fiat currencies. It highlights that today we rarely use paper money and they exist electronically on the digital ledgers controlled by banks.
Furthermore, the documentary describes in detail how Bitcoin works as the first world decentralized digital currency. It shows how the traditional model of trust can be changed from the ‘controlled-by-bank’ digital money ledger to ‘shared-through-the-Internet’ secure Bitcoin ledger. After this, we get to understand how Bitcoin’s blockchain technology works to validate transactions and maintain the network’s security. This leads to the true key insights behind the Bitcoin mining process and rewards incentives. The Bitcoin system pays itself with the initial supply to grow and secure network.
The end of the documentary covers the evolution of the Internet and highlights that Bitcoin will provide a shared and trusted decentralized network.
You can watch this documentary on YouTube— The Trust Machine (Bitcoin documentary).
Trust Machine: The story of Blockchain
This is the last and another recent documentary with an almost identical name as previous that I would like to mention in my article. Written by Alex Winter, ‘Trust Machine: The story of Blockchain’ explores the origin and evolution of cryptocurrency Bitcoin. However, as the name suggests, this documentary has a focus on explaining the concept of blockchain technology and its potential. Hence, it provides an overview from different angles of how blockchain can impact the world.
The documentary starts with the introduction of Bitcoin that was created by Satoshi Nakamoto on the brink of 2008 economic collapse. Then it explains Bitcoin’s decentralized nature and how it works. The history of Bitcoin highlights the only use of cryptocurrency by the Silk Road for selling prohibited drugs online. Despite this, Bitcoin draws the attention of many developers and enthusiasts to the core fundamentals behind it.
In this documentary Winter tells us about the case of British activist Lauri Love who is accused by the U.S. of stealing secret data and fights his extradition. He used this story to show how governments can confront any threat to their centralized power.
After providing a comprehensive overview of blockchain technology and how it works, the documentary introduces Ethereum and its ‘smart contracts’. It explains that blockchain technology is so powerful that it can store into blocks not just an accounting ledger but a programmable software or ‘smart contracts’. The film covers a few examples of how blockchain technology can help to provide innovative solutions in real life. Blockchain can be used to efficiently control power microgrids, give refugees official identities, protect personal identity and privacy rights.
The documentary ends with the hope that despite it has attracted many speculators, blockchain technology will evolve into a powerful tool to change the world for the better.
If you have a subscription with Amazon Prime or Netflix, you can find and watch this documentary there.
What is next?
In October 2019, I was quite lucky to attend in Auckland, NZ a premiere of a new documentary about Bitcoin and Blockchain. This film hasn’t been officially released yet but has been shown to crypto audiences in a few countries including Australia and Germany. The documentary introduces us to the evolution of blockchain technology and the promise of Web 3.0. However, this is a story for another day.
Bottom line
In this article, I have provided a comprehensive overview of the latest Bitcoin and Blockchain documentaries. I hope that after watching them you will have a better understanding of the differences between the real money and the digital currency Bitcoin. Moreover, you will learn why Bitcoin is a better monetary policy that will replace the corrupted financial system in the future.
For sure, you will be able to see why Bitcoin and Blockchain are incredibly powerful technologies. Technologies that have great potential to create a decentralized and fair ecosystem of the entire world and change our lives.
An off course a photo of wonderful volcanic alpine landscape of Tongariro Crossing in New Zealand.
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