Top 7 Crypto Movies and Documentaries to Watch in 2024
In recent years, many films based on crypto events have hit the screens. Among them are stories about major scams, crypto founders, market growth, and financial risks. If you’re interested in crypto and enjoy finance movies like Big Short and Wall Street, we’ve made a list for you.
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1. Bitconned (2024)
Ray Trapani in Bitconned. Source: Netflix.com
Bitconned is a Netflix documentary released on January 1, 2024. It is about the scandalous fraud case of Centra Tech, a company founded by Sohrab “Sam” Sharma, Robert Farkas, and Raymond Trapani. Centra Tech received over $32M from investors by selling CTR tokens. It claimed to facilitate crypto spending through a debit card, assuring investors that the card is legitimate and that they partnered with Visa, MasterCard, and The Bancorp payment companies. Centra Tech turned out to be a scam that wasn’t able to back up its claims. In 2018, official charges were made against the founders, and the case gained a new turn. In Bitconned, Trapani tells what happened, saying:
Ever since I was a kid I always wanted to be a criminal.
2. Scamming Billions, Then Disappearing: The Case of the “CryptoQueen” (2024)
Picture from the London Event in 2016. Source: DW Documentary
This film by DW Documentary tells the true story of Ruja Ignatova and OneCoin, a Ponzi scam she founded in Bulgaria. In 2016, OneCoin presented itself as a rival of Bitcoin and raised $4 billion from investors. In October 2017, Ignatova, also known as Crypto Queen, disappeared. Her brother, Konstantin was arrested in 2019 and admitted his role in defrauding investors. OneCoin co-founder Karl Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2023. As for Ignatova, she’s in the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives.
DW Documentary’s financial thriller delves into the mechanisms of the major scam. The scandalous case of Ignatova has been featured in various films, including the TV series “The Missing Cryptoqueen.” Additionally, a movie starring Kate Winslet, titled “Fake,” will be released. It is based on the story of OneCoin victim Jen McAdam.
3. Dare to Dream: A Story From El Salvador (2023)
Cover image of the Dare to Dream: A Story From El Salvador. Source: linkedin.com
This is a story of El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in September 2021, making it the first country in the world to do so. The historical law requires that merchants and businesses accept BTC payments. This event inspired documentary producer Graham Rittener to make a film. He partnered with director Joe Delahunty to bring the idea to life. The documentary tells the story of two young dreamers from El Salvador who had been trying to bring hope to their local communities and Salvadorian children around 10-15 years ago, long before Bitcoin existed. They received a generous donation from an anonymous Bitcoin donor, which set them on a path to create a local Bitcoin economy around a vision of financial inclusion.
4. Crypto Boy (2023)
Amir in Crypto Boy. Source: Netflix
“Crypto Boy” is a Netflix movie about a 20-year-old delivery man and his involvement in a shady crypto startup. The main character, Amir, played by the Dutch actor Shahine El-Hamus, is trying to make his family burrito restaurant a success. After a dispute with his father, Amir meets a startup founder Roy, and learns about attractive investment opportunities in crypto.
5. COIN: A Founder’s Story (2022)
Coinbase Founder Brian Armstrong. Source: youtube.com
In the COIN documentary film, Brian Armstrong tells how he discovered Bitcoin and founded Coinbase, a leading crypto exchange platform, in 2012. In 2021, Coinbase became the first publicly traded crypto company in the world. In the documentary, Armstrong says:
I imagined a world where anybody with a smartphone could have access to sound money and financial services, where every payment could be as fast, cheap and global as sending an email.
6. Money, Ego and Deception at FTX (2023)
Cover image of the Money, Ego and Deception at FTX. Source: bloombergmedia.com
The documentary by Bloomberg delves into the collapse of FTX and the role of its founder Sam Bankman Fried. The crypto exchange, founded in 2019, filed for bankruptcy in November 2022. FTX was one of the top exchanges, once valued at $32 billion. Following the bankruptcy news, FTX creditors filed for a class action lawsuit alleging fraud by the company. In the Bloomberg documentary, featuring the resources from the Bloomberg newsroom, the FTX narrative is told by Bloomberg journalists and experts in the digital assets industry.
7. Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King (2022)
Quadriga CEO Gerald Cotten. Source: Netflix.com
This Netflix documentary is about the fall of the crypto exchange QuadrigaCX and the mysterious death of its founder Gerald Cotten. QuadrigaCX was founded in 2013 and was once considered Canada’s largest crypto exchange. In December 2018 Cotten died from a disease in India. Around a month later, QuadrigaCX announced that trading on the platform would no longer be available. The exchange closed with $190M (CAD 250 million) of customer funds locked in it as no one knew how to access the reserves.
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