Last night I watched and enjoyed The Rise And Rise of Bitcoin.
I recommend the film to everyone, to Bitcoin experts and enthusiasts as a useful historical recap and motivation booster, and to newcomers as a good first introduction (newcomers should also read the book “Bitcoin and the Future of Money“). I watched the film with my wife, who isn’t into Bitcoin and technology. She found it informative, entertaining and understandable, and gave it a 4 out of 5. I think she gets Bitcoin now.
The film is narrated from the point of view of the filmmaker and Bitcoin enthusiast Daniel Mross, and tells the history of Bitcoin from the first post of Satoshi Nakamoto to the Cryptography mailing list in 2008 to early 2014, until the arrest of Bitinstant’s Charlie Shrem for alleged money laundering, the Mt.Gox crash, and the rumors about Dorian Nakamoto. Watch also this video Q&A with the filmmakers Nicholas and Daniel Mross, by Reason TV. CCN: World's Largest & Leading Independent Bitcoin News Source The closing voice over an awesome sunset says: “Maybe we won’t ever know who created Bitcoin, but the truth is, it doesn’t really matter. Bitcoin belongs to everyone, and the future is ours to build.” The rolling list of featured participants is a who’s who of the Bitcoin world, with some omissions, but many of those who matter are there.
Of course, parts of the film are focused on the most visible aspects of cryptocurrencies, frequently reported by the media – the identity of the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto, the epic rises and falls of Bitcoin in huge price swings, basements full of Bitcoin mining hardware with blinking lights, Silk Road and the growing use of Bitcoin by the criminal underground. The Libertarian Roots of the Blockchain But other parts of the film, more interesting in my opinion, are focused on the real thing – the power of the Bitcoin blockchain as a distributed engine for a better payment and financial systems open to the unbanked of the world, a better Internet, and a better society. Bitcoin is a digital commodity backed by mathematics. It’s scarce by design, decentralized, democratic, and can’t be controlled by Big Government and Big Business.
Therefore, it’s a good foundation for the future economy. The Libertarian, anarcho-capitalist roots of the Bitcoin culture are evident in the scenes filmed at a festival in the woods organized by the Libertarian Free State Project, where most vendors accepted Bitcoin and most visitors were enthusiastic supporters of the cryptocurrency. At the festival, Ethereum main developer Vitalik Buterin said that the world is seriously changing in a very interesting, very radical decentralized way.
