When’s the first bitcoin blockbuster going to hit our screens?

They say that money makes the world go round and it’s certainly been the driving force behind countless movie plots over the years. This is all too understandable: after all, it can symbolise so many aspects of humanity and the power balance between individuals in society. There are also the rapid reversals of fortune for characters that both the acquisition and loss of money can bring about.

The movies that are made on the subject also often reflect the times that we’re living in, and this is especially relevant in periods of great economic growth or upheaval. This fact has led some people to wonder when the first major movie about the bitcoin boom will be made.

The bitcoin price explosion of 2017, when a single coin’s value rose from under $1,000 in January to over $19,000 in February, surely has some incredible stories to be told about it. In fact, this could be the perfect moment to tell them as some believe we may be on the verge of the next big boom.

As to what kind of film it would be, there are a number of options if previous examples of the genre are anything to go by. For most people, the classic modern-day movie about money is Wall Street. Released in 1987 and directed by Oliver Stone, it’s gone down in history for introducing the phrase, “greed is good”. This was memorably delivered by the film’s anti-hero Gordon Gekko – although the moral of the story was that it can land you in jail eventually. The 2010 sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps was made in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, and presented Gekko in a more sympathetic light as he worked to make amends for his previous actions.

Wall Street also featured in the more recent exploration of stock trading, The Wolf of Wall Street, starring Leonardo Di Caprio. He played the larger than life – and real-life – Jordan Belfort in a compelling, arguably long (at three hours) tale of wild financial excess including gambling with credit cards. However, making a bitcoin film about any particular character could be problematic.

This is because the essentially anonymous nature of the cryptocurrency means that we never get to hear about the big characters who have been successful speculators. Also, many people dabbling in cryptocurrency use individual sites like the Bitcoin Trader UK. This is an almost fully automated system powered by AI, which may offer a certain level of success for traders, but perhaps wouldn’t make such great cinema.

Of course, it could also go down the line of a classic biopic like The Social Network. Instead of focusing on Mark Zuckerberg, however, this would be the story behind the creation of bitcoin by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto. There are so many stories circulating about who he is and what he is really like that it could be the crypto equivalent of Searching for Sugar Man.

However, whichever direction the first bitcoin movie goes, it’s sure to be an intriguing tale that could even become an all-time classic.

The editorial unit