Today I was watching Steal, a new TV series on Prime Video, and for the umpteenth time Bitcoin appears, misinformation is being spread.
TV series and films that Bitcoin must stop making people believe that if a cold wallet is lost or stolen, your Bitcoin is gone.
This is not a harmless simplification.
It is misinformation.
Saying that Bitcoin is “inside” a cold wallet is like saying money is inside an ATM.
It’s a convenient lie for the plot, but toxic for the listener.
It oversimplifies, yes — but worse, it simplifies wrong.
Here on Nostr, we know this well:
a cold wallet does not contain Bitcoin.
It contains keys.
And those keys can be reborn elsewhere, as long as the seed phrase exists.
If you lose the device but still have the 12 or 24 words, you’ve lost nothing.
This is a fundamental difference.
Yet in films and TV series, the wallet becomes a relic:
it falls into the sea, explodes, gets stolen… and that’s the end of the story.
Bitcoin evaporated.
Easy drama. Immediate fear.
I understand why.
A seed phrase is not photogenic.
Twelve words on paper don’t create tension.
A physical object does.
But the price is paid by the viewer, not the screenwriter.
Because that scene sticks.
It sticks when someone thinks,
“Better not save in Bitcoin, if all it takes is losing a device…”
It sticks when fear wins over understanding.
It would take very little.
One line. A sentence thrown in, almost casually:
“Don’t worry — as long as we have the words, we can rebuild everything.”
Ten seconds.
No infodump. No lecture. Just the truth.
The point is not to defend Bitcoin like a religion.
The point is to stop educating people through fear and narrative lies.
Misrepresenting a new technology is not neutral.
It shapes decisions, discourages saving, and reinforces the idea that everything is fragile, esoteric, dangerous.
And here, yes — said clearly and without apology:
this misinformation is irresponsible!
TV series and films that Bitcoin must stop making people believe that if a cold wallet is lost or stolen, your Bitcoin is gone.
This is not a harmless simplification.
It is misinformation.
Saying that Bitcoin is “inside” a cold wallet is like saying money is inside an ATM.
It’s a convenient lie for the plot, but toxic for the listener.
It oversimplifies, yes — but worse, it simplifies wrong.
Here on Nostr, we know this well:
a cold wallet does not contain Bitcoin.
It contains keys.
And those keys can be reborn elsewhere, as long as the seed phrase exists.
If you lose the device but still have the 12 or 24 words, you’ve lost nothing.
This is a fundamental difference.
Yet in films and TV series, the wallet becomes a relic:
it falls into the sea, explodes, gets stolen… and that’s the end of the story.
Bitcoin evaporated.
Easy drama. Immediate fear.
I understand why.
A seed phrase is not photogenic.
Twelve words on paper don’t create tension.
A physical object does.
But the price is paid by the viewer, not the screenwriter.
Because that scene sticks.
It sticks when someone thinks,
“Better not save in Bitcoin, if all it takes is losing a device…”
It sticks when fear wins over understanding.
It would take very little.
One line. A sentence thrown in, almost casually:
“Don’t worry — as long as we have the words, we can rebuild everything.”
Ten seconds.
No infodump. No lecture. Just the truth.
The point is not to defend Bitcoin like a religion.
The point is to stop educating people through fear and narrative lies.
Misrepresenting a new technology is not neutral.
It shapes decisions, discourages saving, and reinforces the idea that everything is fragile, esoteric, dangerous.
And here, yes — said clearly and without apology:
this misinformation is irresponsible!
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