Oliver Krause, Film Producer of Cryptopia and Torsten Hoffman, Director of Cryptopia with Matt Bird at World Economic Forum (Davos, Switzerland)

HIGHLIGHTS

Cryptopia has 75+ partners including BMW, HBO, Lufthansa and Bitcoin.com

Cryptopia has won ‘West Tech Fest 2020 Feature Film’ and ‘Spark Festival Official Movie’

The number of registered blockchain wallets in the first quarter of 2020 was 47.14 million

FULL COVERAGE

• Watch complete coverage of the World Economic Forum

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS: Oliver Krause, Film Producer of Cryptopia and Torsten Hoffman, Director of Cryptopia with Matt Bird

Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show:  00:00

Welcome back to the Traders Network Show broadcasting worldwide from Davos, Switzerland. We’re here for the 2020 World Economic Forum. I’m your host, Matt bird and my next guests need little introduction on the crypto scene as they’re rolling out a new movie called Cryptopia and our guests are Torsten Hoffman, the director and producer and Oliver Krause, co-producer. Gentlemen welcome to the show. So, guys there’s a little claim going on with Davos here about the movie coming out. We shared offline the inspiration behind it. Tell me a little bit about what drove you to create it and what to expect from this?

Torsten Hoffman – Film Director, Cryptopia: 00:40

Yeah, so I did a small Bitcoin movie five years ago and since then, as you know, the space has exploded, right? It’s a hundred times bigger. There’s big scams and big billionaires in this space. So there’s a lot of action and now I think it has permeated into the mainstream and people talk about blockchain here, it’s all over Davos, so it’s only natural to make a film. 

Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 01:01

I love that. And you know, Oliver, I want to thank you. In the wee hours of the morning while you’re flying back into Europe Oliver called me and said, you have to sit down, and we have to do this. And I’m so glad we had a chance to bump into you here, you know, of all the places of all the people with all the thousand people here, we ended up finally colliding and I’m glad. Oliver, tell me what this movie was like for you. 

Oliver Krause – Film Producer, Cryptopia: 01:18

Wow. For me it’s super exciting to have been able to be part of this project and when Torsten came up with the idea like one and a half years ago, I was really passionate about it and I basically opened up my Rolodex and connected him to many people and focused the event of the ERC 20 token pros ponds, many of the big, bright guys here in this space. And I think we got some pretty exciting stuff out of it with his team.

Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 01:47

It’s amazing. So tell us a little bit what was like producing and directing this, because you mentioned something about all the kind of the hurdles, the ups and downs, some of the scandals and he couldn’t be more true. It’s what everybody thinks of when they think of crypto. Where’s it going? Take a minute, tell us a little bit about the experience you went through. I think is making a film is one thing we all know, but you’re making a film. What’s happening in real time right now and it’s in an investment community. This is going to mean something. So I’m going to pass this to you. 

Torsten Hoffman – Film Director, Cryptopia: 02:30

So I think the challenge of being a filmmaker is how do you stay relevant? This space is moving so fast. If I talk about a project that’s dead in two month’s time, why do I want it in the film? So the challenge is to write it in such a way that it’s still accurate in two, three, four year’s time. And I think I went through that exercise five years ago in my first Bitcoin film. It’s still 90% accurate. So I kind of have a good feel on it and regarding the personalities, you know, for me it’s kind of fun to talk and challenge those people. Right? They believe their own bill bullshit so much, they rarely have journalist asking the tough questions and I’m trying to do that actually. They enjoy it. They enjoy me asking the tough question. I don’t know how it is for you or you have a similar role I think. 

Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 03:08

I don’t really ask tough questions. I throw them up like this and let you guys go tear them up, knock them out. Tell us some of the questions you ask. What are some of the takeaways and highlights that you could look back and go, I cannot believe that it happened.

Torsten Hoffman – Film Director, Cryptopia: 03:21

Yeah. Well, I mean five years ago all these guys were on the same team.  They were fighting against the establishment now the fighting against each other. My coin is the real Bitcoin. This guy is the wrong Bitcoin. No stuff like that is happening. Then they all talk about all we building this decentralized currency, this decentralized system. But there’s one guy in charge of it, one guy with all the billions of dollars behind it. So you have to really question some of these big claims. And that’s why the film is called Cryptopia. There’s a lot of utopian or crypto utopian ideas behind it. 

Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 04:05

So Oliver, now you’re on the entertainment side of this. You’re on the institutional side. And you’re a thought leader in the industry. What was this like for you contributing to the film? 

Oliver Krause – Film Producer, Cryptopia: 04:04

Well, first of all, it was really exciting also to connect basically to the people or reconnect to the people who really built the infrastructure on one side and also connect the dots to the application side which is the industries, financial services industries where we will see a revolution in the payments first but then also in other fields. And for me yeah, film is new, the whole business to me. So it was also very new to experience that.

Torsten Hoffman – Film Director, Cryptopia: 04:38

If I can add to that, the original crypto crowd are the anarchists and the libertarians, right? And then the professionals come in and I think Oliver represents that kind of new mindset. The professionals, the big industries, the enterprise project that you’ve been consulting. So I think this is part of the story here. Used to be a small little project. Now it’s a big huge industry, right?

Oliver Krause – Film Producer, Cryptopia: 05:01

Maybe also, I mean what we are doing with Untitled now is basically we build on that and launch own ventures. Like for example, Liquiditeam. I’m looking into utilizing these inventions and innovations to security token offerings for the professional sports teams. Which means combined innovative funding and fan engagement. Which was not possible with conventional financial services instruments.

Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 05:35

You know tokens are not a new thing for the entertainment industry. We forget at a very young age, we all played skee-ball, you know, and Chuck-e-cheese or whatever. You roll the ball, and their little tickets come out and you exchange those tickets for a piece of candy. And fundamentally, we’re talking about the same thing. Except they’re virtual instead of a physical ticket is you’re exchanging, you know, bartering for commerce. You know, I think the entertainment industry is a great way to top off and use that kind of example.

Oliver Krause – Film Producer, Cryptopia: 05:58

Exactly. And it has a lot of emotion there. And this is why this could be a space where we will see maybe mass adoption relatively early versus in other industries. For instance, in the financial services and more broadly in the corporate world, we will see more let’s say blockchain inside solution. So things that you will see products that are using the technology products and services, but not so much talking about blockchain or DLT. Because we don’t, we use our phones without let’s say talking about a TCP IP protocol or something like that. But still it’s essential that it works. 

Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 06:58

So, okay. So I tell you what, before we get into rolling out stuff, cause I know you’re also very busy and we got a crazy crowd upstairs at the Caspian week here. MIT is throwing some sort of like, you know, panel session up there and you probably hear the noise pouring in here. Can you give us a little spoiler?

Torsten Hoffman – Film Director, Cryptopia: 07:18

Yes, I can. So we were the only film crew to ever be allowed in the secret Bitcoin bunker. This is a cool story. You’re going to love that. It is a thing, 10% of all private keys are held in that bunker. It’s a secret location in Switzerland, a decommission military bunker, nuclear grade doors various security measures. It took us weeks to get in there and we couldn’t even film half of it because it was so secret. You go inside the bunker then down into like an elevator. It was crazy. So it’s a fun little four minute sequence in the film. And the inside has, cause they have not seen it. And the outsiders who have no idea about crypto, they start to understand, wow, this is a real industry that’s real infrastructure being built. These guys mean money.

Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 08:04

And you probably have a lot of hackers out there paying real close attention. That’s real money. And in a real military institution let’s talk about the rollout as we’re rolling out worldwide. Where did it start? When can we expect it to end up in New York? 

Torsten Hoffman – Film Director, Cryptopia: 08:21

So look, I’m super, super happy that Melbourne was the premier last week. Melbourne is my hometown in Australia. We’re now here in Europe. So we’re doing a few Swiss events. We’re doing a few Germany events with all of us, Luxembourg, London, Oxford university. And then we’re going to go to America, kind of build the buzz. And then America’s obviously the biggest market start on the East coast. Then I’ll go to LA and then Asia. So that’s the cinema tour. And after the cinema we hopefully launch on, I don’t know maybe your network or Netflix or who else wants to buy?

Matt Bird – Show Host, Traders Network Show: 08:54

I’ll tell you, you let give us a red-carpet pass and we’ll be there. Ladies and gentlemen, Cryptopia. We’ve got Torsten Hoffman and Oliver Krause. Gentlemen, thank you for coming on. I really appreciate it. You’re always a delight to have on.