I just found out that Netflix has released a pretty interesting documentary called Bitconned, which tells the story of one of the biggest scams in the crypto world. And honestly, it’s a brutal reminder of what happened during the Bitcoin boom in 2017.

The film focuses on Ray Trapani, a guy who from a young age was obsessed with making money through alternative means, regardless of whether it was legal or not. Along with his partners Sohrab Sharma and Robert Farkas, Trapani founded Centra Tech, a company that supposedly offered a revolutionary debit card linked to cryptocurrencies. Sounds good in theory, right? But of course, it was all part of a massive scam.

What Ray Trapani and his team did was launch an ICO that raised no less than $25 million. But here’s the important part: the statements they used to attract investors were completely false. They omitted critical information and basically deceived people into investing money. Authorities eventually uncovered all of this and charged Trapani with ten different crimes, including financial fraud, telemarketing fraud, obstruction of justice, illegal weapons possession, and even drug charges.

Ray Trapani pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison, plus he was ordered to pay back more than $2.6 million. His accomplices also received similar sentences. Sharma had to return nearly $38 million. It’s brutal.

The documentary is directed by Bryan Storkel, who also made The Legend of Cocaine Island, so you can imagine the tone. It offers a pretty raw view of the crypto world and how greed led Ray Trapani and others to create one of the industry’s biggest scams.

And what’s interesting is that this wasn’t an isolated case. Recently, it came to light that SafeMoon also collapsed under similar fraud allegations, and the U.S. Department of Justice even created a dedicated task force in June 2023 to pursue this kind of digital crime. So clearly, crypto scams remain a serious problem. If you thought all this was in the past, Bitconned is a good reminder that the industry still has a lot of cleaning up to do.