The Story Behind Crypto’s Advance on Hollywood
Unless you have made a concerted effort to get to know the digital communities surrounding the various cryptocurrencies on offer these days, then you will likely be of the mind that, for the most part, they represent a limited (though, admittedly, popular and potentially lucrative) niche online. After all, for most of us, they have been seemingly floating around on the periphery for more than a decade, without ever really finding a foothold within ‘the mainstream’ of internet culture.
That’s not to say that they have not garnered a landslide of interest from new users – particularly in recent months. Merely that, for the most part, the conventional areas of the internet (and, by extension, life itself) have gone on pretty much unaffected by the changing tides of crypto.
Still, that’s all gradually changing. From a shift in the real-world reporting on digital assets to new, creative interpretations from the movie, music and gaming industries, crypto is preparing to gain far greater significance in popular culture.
Read more below.
A Growing Link to the Entertainment Industry
In a practical sense, one of the best ways for crypto-proponents to bring this technology to the fore is to deploy it within some of the most high-traffic and lucrative areas of the web. One of the most notable examples of this comes from PayPal – the online payment platform that needs no introduction. Its widespread use at online entertainment destinations as diverse as Dunder, Netflix, Twitch (to name just a few) has meant that it has offered the perfect ‘starting point’ for those looking to explore cryptocurrencies in a practical way, ever since it was announced that PayPal would support the buying, trading and storing of crypto.
This is, of course, just one example – but it is sufficient to demonstrate quite how rapidly non-users of crypto are becoming users.
How Does Hollywood Fit into the Equation?
The above example is one of utility. Millions of internet users are already using – and, more importantly, putting their trust into – PayPal, which means that the impracticalities of learning about an entirely new currency are mollified, to a certain extent.
Hollywood’s interest in bringing crypto to mainstream audiences is, however, a little different – and a little more grounded in creativity.
In 2019, the movie Crypto was released to middling reviews. While some praised it for exploring unchartered territory, others criticised it for getting just about everything wrong. This was, of course, about as much as Hollywood could have expected.
Now, however, the cogs have been turning, and a number of new projects have been unveiled – projects which, beyond offering a dramatization of crypto’s changing role, promise to utilise the unique features offered by crypto and, by extension, its supportive blockchain technology.
Just last week, it was announced that Dan Harmon has begun work on a blockchain animated series, for instance, while a growing number of movies are receiving funding via crypto.
Beyond a linear plot centred upon the topic of crypto, then, it is clear that Hollywood is preparing to evolve its entire approach to creating movies – and to ensure that this transformative technology suffuses the future of creation, rather than representing little more than a plot point.