A new BBC Two documentary gives inside access to the tech billionaires using blockchain technology and cryptocurrency to dismantle centralised banking and government systems.
The Tech Billionaire Takeover aired on BBC Two on Sunday 12 July and is available on BBC iPlayer and Apple TV in some regions.
‘The Tech Billionaire Takeover’ doccie
The documentary, presented by Matt Shea, profiles entrepreneurs who believe the nation-state is an outdated system ready to be replaced by code. Their pitch is decentralisation and freedom. The question the film keeps asking is: freedom for whom?
Editor’s note: BBC iPlayer is not available in South Africa. We’ve embedded a short recap from the documentary for readers who can’t access the full programme:
Crypto surpassed fossil fuels as the biggest campaign finance donor in the last US election cycle, spending $238 million versus the fossil fuel industry’s $219 million, according to crypto reporter Chris Harland Dunaway.
Sun, TRON, and the SEC case that quietly went away
Justin Sun is a crypto entrepreneur and billionaire whose blockchain network, TRON, processes more than $5 trillion in transactions per year.
The platform is decentralised, meaning it operates across many computers globally rather than through a single authority, which makes it harder to tax and regulate. More than half of all illicit crypto transactions reportedly happened on TRON.
In March 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Sun with fraud, claiming he manipulated token prices and concealed payments to celebrities who promoted them to the public.
Sun subsequently invested more than $75 million in World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture set up by President Donald Trump’s family. After Trump took office and restaffed the SEC with crypto-friendly appointees, the regulator filed a joint motion with Sun’s lawyers to pause the investigation.
The case was later dismissed. Rainberry, a company owned by Sun, paid a $10 million civil penalty.
A spokesperson for Sun said the dismissal imposed no penalty on Sun himself, the Tron Foundation, or the BitTorrent Foundation, and that the settlement was reached on a no admit/no deny basis by Rainberry alone.
World Liberty Financial and the Trump family profit
World Liberty Financial is co-founded by Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, with the title of co-founder emeritus. The company is run in part by Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump, Barron Trump, and Zack Witkoff.
President Trump officially stepped down from the company when he took office. His family trust still owns a stake and profits from it, including from the sale of a cryptocurrency coin called USD1. The Trumps receive 75% of net profits every time the coin is sold by World Liberty Financial.
As of December 2025, the Trump family had reportedly made more than $2.3 billion from crypto through these arrangements.
A representative for President Trump told the BBC there were no conflicts of interest and that Trump acts only in the best interests of the American public.
Building countries from scratch, with blockchain
Some of the billionaires featured in the documentary are not waiting for governments to change. They are building new ones.
In 2024, Sun was elected Prime Minister of Liberland, a micro-nation on a disputed strip of land in the Danube River claimed by neither Serbia nor Croatia. More than 30 billionaires, many from the crypto world, have lent it their support.
Elections happen every three months on a blockchain, where votes are weighted by a system of merits that can be earned through financial contributions. More money means more say.
US billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper is also creating his own digital country, called Draper Nation, with bitcoin as its national currency. He is additionally an investor in Prospera, another such project.
“Government is providing bad service at a high cost”, Draper told the BBC, adding that blockchain, bitcoin, and smart contracts would replace it. “Absolutely. That’s what’s happening. It’s just a matter of time.”
Crypto companies Coinbase, Ripple, and Tether appeared among the top donors to a White House ballroom event, according to Harland Dunaway, sitting alongside names like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft.
The technology promises decentralisation. What it is producing, the documentary suggests, is a new concentration of wealth and power in the hands of those who control the code.
