If you propose a new form of money whose main attraction is that it is free of governmental control, it almost stands to reason that the users and service providers are going to be biased towards those people who stand most to gain from this benefit; and the people who suffer most from governmental power are those who want to engage in activities that governmental deem criminal. Thus, it's no surprise that crime is well represented in the cryptocurrency space; criminals seek to launder their fortunes in crypto, but also, many fraudsters prey off crypto "investors". The fact that said investors are generally looking to make a quick buck themselves makes them perfect marks for a scam. The story of Quadriga QX is amazing - two proven fraudsters establish a cryptocurrency exchange, make off with all the money, then one dies in peculiar circumstances and, because of the "secure" way the technology works, no-one else can access whatever crypto they had left. This documentary puts together the story, albeit without much emphasis on the wider context: such stories are routine in crypto (indeed, the surviving founder has since been implicated in another scam) because, given the incentives in the industry, why wouldn't they? I enjoyed the film, but it misses a trick in not telling the wider story: how a nonsense theory of how crypto can save the world and make you rich at the same time has lured people into to a system that is in every respect worse than the financial orthodoxy it purports to replace.
