Randall J. Newman

There's a new $70 million dollar film titled, "BITCOIN," that is in postproduction. Gal Gadot, Casey Affleck, Pete Davidson, Isla Fisher. Good news and Bad News: Good news first: This will put Bitcoin front-and-center with major stars in a an actual, "big" movie (not just a documentary). Doug Liman directs. He did The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Edge of Tomorrow, and even Swingers (when I met him). He's incredible. I expect the direction (so meaning the acting) will be exceptional. Top-notch. This might be one of the first AI films but where all of the acting and performances are 100% actors. Meaning, they saved money on sets and lighting by filming in an empty warehouse, theater style. A.I. creates the environments. This would have been a $200 million+ movie otherwise. Okay now BAD NEWS: This film is the Craig Wright story! Gal Gadot plays a journalist who is hired by Pete Davidson (playing crypto investor Calvin Ayre) to investigate Casey Affleck (playing Craig Wright). If you're newer to Bitcoin and have been hiding under a rock, you may have missed that Craig Wright claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto 🤣🤡 This went to court where the evidence was overwhelming that he defrauded and lied to the court with an abundance of forged documents. He was suing both Peter McCormack and Magnus Granath (Hodlonaut) for years, simply for claiming he was not Satoshi. In short, the court declared Craig was not Satoshi, did not write the Bitcoin white paper, and did not code any of its software. Based on the film's premise, the movie is going to skew toward Craig Wright being Satoshi. How could he not be Satoshi if a coalition of tech billionaires, governments, and crypto organizations spent hundreds of millions just to discredit him? That will be the narrative. A.I. versions of Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Jack Dorsey appear in the film. So if Bitcoiners were expecting a balanced or honest portrayal of Bitcoin's beginnings... this isn't it. And I get why as a story-teller. If you set Bitcoin aside, it's a compelling narrative to focus on the misunderstood "genius" who gave the world perfect money but no one will believe him. Yet, Bitcoiners know this is flat out false. Oh... on top of all of this, the film is partially financed by... (drumroll)... Calvin Ayre! Calvin has been Craig Wright's main benefactor over the years and the most prominent supporter/promoter of Craig as Satoshi. So although a huge budget with A-list stars... it's really an indie movie made by Calvin Ayre about Craig Wright. As of this post there's no major domestic distributor outside of some international sales. I expect it to be a good film from a filmmaking aspect. But I'm bummed that the first big Bitcoin film, and with the title, "BITCOIN," might confuse newcomers on its history. There's always hope it gets other aspects of Bitcoin right (not Wright).