It'll tell the tale of how Ilya "Dutch" Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan allegedly tried to clean the tainted crypto by using fake identities and buying physical gold.
It has taken Netflix just three days to commission a documentary about the $3.6 billion in Bitcoin that has been seized in the U.S. — and the husband-and-wife team who stand accused of attempting to launder the stolen crypto.
The streaming service has announced that it is ordering a series that will focus on "the biggest criminal financial crime case in history."
It'll tell the tale of how Ilya "Dutch" Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan allegedly tried to clean the tainted crypto by using fake identities and buying physical gold — "all while investigators raced to track the money's movement on the blockchain."
The as-yet-untitled program is going to be directed by Chris Smith, who worked on other hit Netflix documentaries including FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened and Tiger King.
He's also going to be joined by executive producer Nick Bilton, who previously authored a book on Ross Ulbricht called American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road.
Viewers may have a little bit of a wait on their hands before they get the opportunity to watch the documentary. Legal proceedings are now active in the U.S. — with Lichtenstein and Morgan facing up to 20 years in jail if they are convicted.
Their alleged involvement in the 2016 Bitfinex hack, where 120,000 BTC was stolen, has captured the media's imagination because of their colorful online presence — with Morgan going viral for all the wrong reasons by freestyle rapping.
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Will a Drama Follow?
A documentary will certainly be good news for news junkies who want to understand what happened in granular detail.
But given how Morgan had posted dozens of eyebrow-raising videos on TikTok — and even presented herself as an expert on social engineering — Crypto Twitter has pointed out there's timeless material that's perfect for dramatizing.
Netflix has gone down this path before and has just released a new show called Inventing Anna, which is based on the true story of a woman who pretended to be a wealthy heiress — and ended up stealing tens of millions of dollars from New York's elite.
It's fair to say that a number of TV shows and movies about crypto have been pretty hit and miss in the past. Some have resorted to cringeworthy cliches while others were riddled with inaccuracies. (Just last week, the BBC was forced to cancel the airing of a documentary about a self-made millionaire at the very last minute amid allegations he created a coin that turned out to be a scam.)
Fun fact: the first Bitcoin reference to be made on television was in CBS legal drama The Good Wife, which won plaudits for creating fictitious cases that reflected current trends. In that episode, lawyers defended a man who was refusing the identity of "Mr. Bitcoin." Back then, BTC was trading at about $3.
