{"id":1860,"date":"2022-02-13T00:40:05","date_gmt":"2022-02-13T00:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/?p=1860"},"modified":"2022-02-13T00:40:05","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T00:40:05","slug":"bbcs-controversial-documentary-about-crypto-millionaire-shows-the-dangers-of-mainstream-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/?p=1860","title":{"rendered":"BBC&#8217;s controversial documentary about crypto millionaire shows the dangers of mainstream media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\namzn_assoc_placement = \"adunit0\";\r\namzn_assoc_tracking_id = \"totafreearti-20\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_mode = \"search\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_type = \"smart\";\r\namzn_assoc_marketplace = \"amazon\";\r\namzn_assoc_region = \"US\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = \"crypto\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_category = \"All\";\r\namzn_assoc_search_bar = \"false\";\r\namzn_assoc_title = \"\";\r\namzn_assoc_rows =\"1\";\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"\/\/z-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/onejs?MarketPlace=US\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Earlier this week, the BBC pulled a documentary about a crypto trader after the Guardian raised questions about the legitimacy of its claims.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The U.K. broadcaster quickly removed the documentary from its program but offered no explanation on whether or not it performed any background checks. The Guardian called the incident an \u201cembarrassment\u201d for the corporation, saying it lacked proper editorial oversight which caused a degraded performance of its news output.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">However, this incident is a symptom of a much bigger and deeper problem that can have a profoundly negative effect on the crypto industry.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\">The dark side of easy crypto money reports<\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">The BBC\u2019s controversial documentary, titled The Crypto Millionaire, told the story of Hanad Hassan, a 20-year-old crypto trader and entrepreneur from Birmingham. In the documentary, Hassan claimed he turned a $50 investment into $8 million in 2021, making a return of almost 16 million percent in just nine short months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">An article entitled \u201cBirmingham\u2019s self-made crypto-millionaire giving back\u201d accompanied the trailers for the documentary and was featured heavily on the BBC News homepage. The article told the story of how Hassan turned a tenfold profit just days after his first crypto investment and left university to focus full-time on crypto trading.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">According to the article, Hassan used his \u201csoaring wealth\u201d to donate to charity and set up a charitable cryptocurrency that donated over $270,000 to various causes. The token, called Orfan, shut down last year in what its investors claimed was a premeditated scam. Hassan, however, said that he shut the project down after it became too costly for him to fund and maintains that he had nothing to do with investors dumping their tokens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">And while incredible profits like one Hassan claims to have made aren\u2019t all that rare in the crypto market, promoting them on mainstream media outlets as big as the BBC gives the entire industry a bad name. Last year, BBC reported reaching an audience of 465 million people every week across its five network TV stations. The BBC News website has an average of 14 million monthly readers, making it one of the largest online news outlets in the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">This means that any coverage of crypto-related stories on BBC bears quite a lot of weight, as it\u2019s often taken at face value by millions of people. Putting stories like Hassan\u2019s into the spotlight familiarizes the broader market only with the riskest and most unsustainable parts of the crypto industry, delegitimizing the hundreds of projects that are working to prop the industry up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Stories about profits of 16,000,000% are guaranteed to bring quite a bit of traffic but are also likely to attract the attention of market regulators. The Financial Conduct Authority, the U.K.\u2019s top market watchdog, has been cracking down on cryptocurrency trading and advertisements and is reportedly looking into limiting crypto trading only to accredited investors. The FCA has also instated strict AML regulations that only six cryptocurrency companies managed to fulfill. A total of 96 companies currently remain in regulatory limbo, while more than half of the 153 companies that applied for FCA\u2019s permit have either been rejected or have withdrawn from consideration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">All of this creates a very unstable regulatory environment that could easily turn for the worse for the industry thanks to stories like the BBC almost ran.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\">A history of BBC\u2019s editorial negligence<\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Guardian\u2019s criticism of the BBC focuses more on the lack of its editorial oversight than on the outlandishness of the documentary it almost broadcast. The publication said that this wasn\u2019t the first time the BBC published controversial coverage of cryptocurrencies and the crypto industry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cThe BBC has a patchy track record of covering cryptocurrencies and publishing stories about young entrepreneurs making large amounts of money from online trading,\u201d the Guardian said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Last year, the corporation promoted the play-to-earn cryptocurrency Squid Game, which saw its value drop to almost zero after its developers made off with $3.38 million in an apparent rug pull. In 2020, the corporation removed a BBC Three show about a 20-year-old trader from Wales who claimed to be making more than $10,000 a day from trading cryptocurrency. At the time, the BBC said it removed the show as it wasn\u2019t \u201cexplicit enough about the potential risks involved\u201d in forex and crypto trading.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The BBC\u2019s editorial negligence can be traced back to 2020 when the corporation began cutting its budget to increase profitability. As part of the budget cuts, the corporation canceled the long-running \u201cInside Out\u201d regional current affairs show, which has 11 regional editions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">These abrupt budget cuts resulted in many of its investigative journalists and editors based outside of London losing their jobs. In the months following the cutbacks, the quality of BBC\u2019s regional broadcasts drastically decreased despite efforts to keep these shows afloat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cThe Crypto Millionaire\u201d documentary was supposed to be aired as part of the \u201cWe Are England\u201d show, which was recently launched to replace the \u201cInside Out\u201d series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cContinuing cuts to BBC budgets and deep job cuts, caused by successive license fee freezes, have been blamed for recent errors in the corporation\u2019s news output, especially in regional English newsrooms,\u201d the Guardian wrote.<\/p>\n<p><h2>CryptoSlate Newsletter<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Featuring a summary of the most important daily stories in the world of crypto, DeFi, NFTs and more.<\/p>\n<h2>Get an edge on the cryptoasset market<\/h2>\n<p>Access more crypto insights and context in every article as a paid member of CryptoSlate Edge.<\/p>\n<p>  <strong>On-chain analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>  <strong>Price snapshots<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>  <strong>More context<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> Join now for $19\/month Explore all benefits<br \/>\n<br \/><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\namzn_assoc_placement = \"adunit0\";\r\namzn_assoc_tracking_id = \"totafreearti-20\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_mode = \"search\";\r\namzn_assoc_ad_type = \"smart\";\r\namzn_assoc_marketplace = \"amazon\";\r\namzn_assoc_region = \"US\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = \"bitcoin\";\r\namzn_assoc_default_category = \"All\";\r\namzn_assoc_search_bar = \"false\";\r\namzn_assoc_title = \"\";\r\namzn_assoc_rows =\"1\";\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"\/\/z-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/onejs?MarketPlace=US\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cryptoslate.com\/bbcs-controversial-documentary-about-crypto-millionaire-shows-the-dangers-of-mainstream-media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week, the BBC pulled a documentary about a crypto trader after the Guardian raised questions about the legitimacy of its claims. The U.K. broadcaster quickly removed the documentary from its program but offered no explanation on whether or not it performed any background checks. The Guardian called the incident an \u201cembarrassment\u201d for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethereum-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1862,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions\/1862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoheretostay.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}