American Comedy Series Name Drops Bitcoin

A famous TV show mentioned popular cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, but they were used in such a way, which highlighted a lack of knowledge regarding how these digital assets operate. A renowned TV series on SHOWTIME, ‘Shameless’ recently made a mention of Bitcoin. The title of the episode was ‘This is Chicago’ and a not-so-nuanced description of the pioneer cryptocurrency was provided by a character, along with its investment stance. The character was named Dash and the conversation revolved around him and the efforts he was making in using Bitcoin to leverage his Ethereum and Tether holdings. Dash went on to elaborate that he had developed a portfolio that consisted primarily of crypto and oil futures.

In May, his portfolio was gutted due to a crash in oil futures and he just wanted to ensure that his crypto holdings don’t do the same. Most of the viewers would probably be confused by the entire dialogue. The dialogues of the character come off as a bunch of crypto buzzwords that were mumbled together, so they would make even less sense to someone who is familiar with cryptocurrencies. While it is possible to use Tether for a leveraged Bitcoin trade, it is illogical to do things the other way round. Moreover, the comments made by Dash about BTC being ‘do 30’ were also unclear. 

After all, the asset has been moving upwards and has not declined by as much as 30% in months. If his reference was to the fall in Bitcoin’s price by $30, even that is a very minute drop. The only accurate part of the entire conversation was the fall in oil prices. This was brought about by the West Texas Intermediary (WTI) index falling into negative territory for the first time in 2020. Even then, Bitcoin hadn’t been down. The reference did not provide a rudimentary explanation about Bitcoin, especially for those users who may not be familiar with the first cryptocurrency.

It is possible that the name drop was poorly executed or the writer made an oversight. In the past, there has been a reference to Bitcoin in a number of shows. A hit comedy series, ‘The Big Bang Theory’ had a rather fun episode during its eleventh season where the characters were searching for Bitcoin that they had mined in the early years and then forgotten about it. There are also claims that a reference to Bitcoin was made on Dragons Den, where the dragons had invested in Bitcoin Prime, a bitcoin trading software. The software promised high returns on investing a certain amount of money. 

This claim has not been verified. As far as the episode on ‘The Big Bang Theory’ is concerned, it had a straightforward premise where the main characters had mined Bitcoin when it hadn’t been worth much because it felt like a game to them. They forgot about it for a decade and only remembered it after its 2017 bull-run. The HBO series ‘Euphoria’ also made a reference to Bitcoin where one character convinced another that it was a great option for sending and receiving anonymous payments.