Is crypto the future of money or a scam? Find out from Ryan Atwood himself.
Ben McKenzie, the star of “The O.C.” and “Gotham,” decides to talk about the cryptocurrency in his documentary “Everyone is Lying to You for Money.” As his friend’s crappy advice taught him: “You should never invest in something you don’t understand,” which is why he decides to figure out what crypto is. Think about Bitcoin. Don’t even ask me what it is. But they suggest it will fix our broken financial system. But Ben wants to know if crypto is a scam. This is where the documentary takes us.
If you aren’t a licensed financial advisor, you can’t give people financial advice, because it’s illegal. you know like those commercials where Matt Damon says: “Fortune favors the brave.” And as an actor, Ben knows when actors are lying to people. That’s when he brings in the financial crew to help bring out the message. Even though thew money game is over my head in general, I still am able to acknowledge the dangers money gets placed in, and “Everyone is lying to You for Money” tells it like it is.
At one point early in the doc, he attends a Bitcoin event and tries to buy a drink with Bitcoin, but he’s told their machine doesn’t work and are only taking credit cards. Next, he travels to El Salvador, and has a montage of him testing small businesses to see whether or not they do that kind of currency. And at the time, they didn’t. Which is why President Nayib Bukele arranged it as the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021. He even plans to make a utopia called “Bitcoin City,” which would be a tax haven and use geothermal energy to power Bitcoin mining. At this point, Ben wants to know if the country would benefit or if just Nayib would benefit from this.
Then, we find him and his family in London, where his wife Morena Baccarin was shooting “Greenland: Migration.” It was a perfect time for him to take his mind off Bitcoin, until Gerard Butler shared his fascination of it with him and the crypto community kicked back in. That’s when he soon came across Celsius, which had a small print on the bottom of its website: “Celsius is not a bank.” Meaning if something happens to it, and you put money in it, you’re broke. An online Ponzi scheme if you will. And we also get the story of Sam Bankman-Fried, who was the CEO of FTX, and is now convicted of fraud.
“Everyone is Lying to You for Money” starts to lag towards the third act and some may say the film is dangerous for talking about it, but it does wake us up and remind us about what Bitcoin regards and what prizes and traps people are placed in with their money. I’m not a financial advisor, so I can’t give you any money advice. But I can tell you I don’t do Bitcoin, but if this is your cup of tea, then buy a ticket at whatever arthouse theater the documentary is playing at. Whether or not you’re an “O.C.” fan.
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