Unbanked review (2025)

With Unbanked, directors/writers David Kuhn and Lauren Sieckmann attempt to debunk some of the misconceptions about bitcoin.

It’s a laudable goal as any effort to increase financial literacy is helpful, but this documentary doesn’t provide as much clarity as its filmmakers intend.

Unbanked opens with a compelling premise describing the state of the global economy and the diminishing value of the U.S. dollar.

Kuhn and Sieckmann largely approach the discussion from a bitcoin-positive spin bolstered by interviews with subjects from around the world sharing about the benefits of the digital currency.

In their enthusiasm to address so many of the various uses of bitcoin, Kush and Sieckmann don’t utilize Unbanked enough to do more than a surface exploration of these ideas. In the opening sequence, a jovial Mr. G is collecting recyclables and sharing bitcoin pamphlets with folks on his route. Mr. G seems like a good guy and certainly well-intentioned with his distribution of the benefits of bitcoin even if Unbanked doesn’t actually show exactly how he’s reaping any rewards from bitcoin.

Among the interview subjects Kuhn and Sieckmann line up are former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor, Crucible founder Meltem Demirors and Sen. Ted Cruz. The latter might prove somewhat divisive based on political leanings for the otherwise non-partial presentation.

Unbanked provides these bitcoin enthusiasts a platform to expound on the presumably bright format of their investments. How bitcoin offers a way to get out from under the thumb of banks, who have laid out and enacted their very specific rules for financial solvency. Dorsey’s insights are interesting, but as someone Forbes estimates has a net worth of $3.8 billion, he’s not really tied to a bank’s whims or sweating out the legacy he’s going to leave behind for his children.

It’s why the highlights of Unbanked are the more personal stories from interview subjects like Yusuf Abdul-Ali, who set up a basketball tournament — The Bitcoin Classic — as a means of educating others about the format.

For Abdul-Ali, his concern with bitcoin is providing options for his daughter, not to line his pockets so he can have a fourth vacation home. Lagos-based Didi Taihuttu shares about how he and his family live off bitcoin and how he’s set up a bar that’s largely set up for bitcoin payments. These are the moments where Unbanked brings that personal stakes into bitcoin with people who will benefit the most from the format thriving.

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One of the major complaints about bitcoin is the speculative nature of the format and how it’s a fake currency. Unbanked mentions the issues and concerns, but Kuhn and Sieckmann don’t provide any hard data to refute them. Instead, the film just moves on to another talking head happy to wax poetic about how the bitcoin revolution is real and is only going to be more important in the years and decades to come.

What’s missing in Unbanked is a stronger, less evangelical bitcoin skeptic. Bitcoin advocates may figuratively be clapping in the pews, but for those less convinced of the future of bitcoin, the film needed to address legitimate concerns of the format. Or tackle more questions than bitcoin is largely used by criminals and drug dealers.

Some other token issues are raised about bitcoin’s damage to the environment, but it’s brushed aside by advocates suggesting the massive drain on natural resources would happen anyway so it’s best to be used in the service of bitcoin servers.

Unbanked is a decent bitcoin primer, but it certainly would have benefitted from a contrarian point of view to ask the tough questions to help determine if this shiny new currency really is as good as gold.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Unbanked will be available on Amazon Prime on Oct. 31.

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