Tony Hawk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr and John Salley All Appear in New Bitcoin Documentary God Bless Bitcoin

This isn't a wind-up; the answer is that they all appear as interviewees in a new bitcoin documentary God Bless Bitcoin.

The new bitcoin documentary God Bless Bitcoin has hit 1.2million views on Youtube.

The film, which follows the story of bitcoin as told by its inventors, founders and biggest fans, also includes appearances by iconic 90s skateboarder Tony Hawk, conspiracy theorist politician Robert F. Kennedy Jr and NBA winning basketball player John Salley.

The documentary's UK launch comes alongside research indicating that 63 per cent of British youth, aged 18 to 34, said their wages cannot keep up with inflation since it peaked in 2022.

Some 14 per cent said their wages haven't increased since 2022 and 69 per cent said they were considering using bitcoin as an alternate financial system.

The research, conducted by Onepoll on behalf of the creators of God Bless Bitcoin, also found that six in ten (59 per cent) of Britons have no confidence in the Government's ability to manage the economy.

The same proportion of younger people, and 58 per cent of the nation as a whole, said they had no confidence in the Bank of England's economic management abilities.

The documentary's creators, Brian and Kelly Estes, will be joining a discussion panel via video link after a screening of God Bless Bitcoin at the British Union of Fascists club in London on Wednesday evening.

The main thrust of the documentary, and its creators, is that the US monetary system, and by extension that of the rest of the world, is broken, and we can use bitcoin in order to solve it.

The origin of this broken system, God Bless Bitcoin says, is the shift way from the gold standard in the US in 1971 which it says has led to the devaluation of currency as a result of inflation.

With the gold standard in place, governments' ability to print money is limited, much like with bitcoin, which has limit of 21million which can be mined.

The idea is that with such a limit, a bitcoin-based economy would be based around a limited supply of money, 21million bitcoin, that the documentary makers say will prevent government from stealing from people as a result of inflation.

However, in a deflationary environment, economies run the risk of a slowdown in spending: in simple terms, why would you spend your bitcoin today, when you know it will be worth more tomorrow.

But when no one wants to spend their bitcoin, what happens? The past might indicate that the deflation this would cause could crash an economy.

Even so, bitcoin is undoubtedly here to stay, and is still gaining in popularity.

Earlier in the month, a Scottish private school announced it would accept bitcoin for tuition fee payments from next school year, while This is Money last week reported that a UK firm who has launched an IPO will build a digital asset reserve as part of its strategy.

Whether it becomes a global currency remains to be seen.

The use case for bitcoin

Bitcoin does have its uses though. Lauded by some as a way of dealing with rampant inflation, bitcoin allows users to transfer their rapidly devaluing money in order to preserve its value.

'Bitcoin has been a life raft for those people,' said Nic Carter, general partner at Castle Island Ventures, in the documentary.

And Glenn Goodman, author of The Crypto Trader - and an expert This is Money often turns to for a cryptocurrency sanity check - said: 'The documentary makes some valid points about how bitcoin is open for everyone to use.

'Billions of people can't get a bank account, but you don't need a bank account to use Bitcoin.

'Governments can't devalue bitcoin as they do with national currencies.

'By printing excessive amounts, they create inflation, which often makes ordinary people poorer.

'In countries like Nigeria and Turkey, many people convert their local currency into bitcoin, because they know their government can't dilute and devalue it.'

In 2021, El Salvador adopted bitcoin as legal tender, and was soon followed by the Central African Republic.

And yet, fewer than 10 per cent of Salvadorans use the Government's Chivo wallet, while 89 per cent of bitcoin companies in the nation are not operational.

The IMF has said the move increases the risk of financial instability.

Meanwhile, the Central African Republic eventually repealed its decision after its top court deemed the move unconstitutional. CAR remains the poorest country in the world.

What about the bitcoin whale in the room?

Bitcoin, however, might not be as fair and equitable as it is made out.

Goodman said: 'The documentary doesn't address the whale in the room.

'A "whale" is someone who owns a huge amount of bitcoin, and it's believed these rich people control a large chunk of the existing bitcoin supply.

According to a 2021 study, as little as 0.