The story of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is a tragic reminder of the lasting impact of colonial injustice and how it extends into modern finance. This episode is sponsored by hellointerpop.io and The Sun Exchange . It’s why this episode, on the potential for blockchain technology and digital currencies to empower people in such places, begins with a powerful monologue by Sheila about the shameful, century-long legacy of a slavery-era debt. That debt, i...
May 21, 2021•52 min•Ep. 28
With CoinDesk’s Consensus just a week away, we decided that this week’s Money Reimagined episode should focus on the big macro and geopolitical themes that will be its hallmark. This episode is sponsored by hellointerpop.io and The Sun Exchange . Highlights of that landmark event include Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard’s perspective on the future of money, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio’s thesis on the end of the dollar’s dominance and a discussion/debate on the inflation ...
May 14, 2021•51 min•Ep. 27
If you were to describe what crypto represents in its entirety, either to the insiders who are obsessed with it or to the “normies” looking on with wonder from the outside, you might focus on technical issues related to immutability, censorship resistance, smart contracts, decentralized exchanges and so forth. Or you might use the language of finance and “asset classes” to talk about bitcoin as “digital gold” or ether as a commodity token that runs a decentralized network. This episode is sponso...
May 07, 2021•53 min•Ep. 26
In what has become a de facto world tour of crypto hot spots, this week “Money Reimagined” is headed to Nigeria. This episode is sponsored by hellointerpop.io and The Sun Exchange . We talked to two Nigerian entrepreneurs – Yele Bademosi, the CEO of payments app Bundle Africa, and Adia Sowho, a venture builder and operator – about the burgeoning crypto innovation ecosystem in their country. Among this entertaining pair’s many insights was the idea the Nigerian Central Bank’s February order...
Apr 30, 2021•45 min•Ep. 25
With all the gyrations in crypto markets, it is easy to lose sight of why this technology has drawn so many passionate believers. In this week’s episode we go straight to that point by diving into the theme of human rights and the role that bitcoin can play as a medium for saving and spending that is free from the confiscatory powers of government – including those of authoritarian regimes. This episode is sponsored by hellointerpop.io and The Sun Exchange . Throughout its life...
Apr 23, 2021•46 min•Ep. 24
This week’s Money Reimagined episode was recorded at the ideal moment to take stock of the biggest development in the crypto space this year: Coinbase’s public listing on the Nasdaq exchange. The show was recorded on Wednesday, the day of the listing, just after 4 pm, the time at which U.S. stock markets closed. So, with the help of Wall Street Journal reporter Paul Vigna (who was Michael’s co-author for both The Age of Currency and The Truth Machine) and of CoinDesk Director of Research N...
Apr 16, 2021•48 min•Ep. 23
Without letters of credit, bills of lading, shipping documents and trillions of dollars in global goods trade would grind to a halt. (And you thought our dependency on the Suez Canal was a problem!) This episode is sponsored by Interpop.io But the world’s system of trade finance, a highly complex setup involving banks, insurers, shipping companies, data providers and all manner of intermediaries, is far from ideal. There is massive fraud – check the New York Times’ account of the recent Gr...
Apr 09, 2021•53 min•Ep. 22
Few countries have as deep and long-lasting a history of financial crises as Argentina. Given how otherwise blessed it is with natural and human resources, Argentina is Exhibit A in the argument that repeated monetary mismanagement will do lasting harm to long-term prosperity. A century of such crises, which has bred profound mistrust of the institutions of government among Argentines, took their country from being the seventh-richest nation on earth to the 75th. Now, with the advent...
Mar 26, 2021•51 min•Ep. 21
An insider's look at how Bitcoin is making renewable energy sustainable featuring industry veterans Meltem Demirors and Harry Sudock. As big banks, publicly traded corporations and some of the biggest names in finance become increasingly bullish on Bitcoin’s prospects, only a few objections really remain. These days on Wall Street it’s all about responsible investing as seen through the lens of “Environmental, Social and Governance,” (better known as ESG). On this episode of CoinDesk’s “Money Re...
Mar 19, 2021•51 min•Ep. 20
At the end of a high-energy week in the burgeoning digital art world, “Money Reimagined” brings you the third and (for now) final edition of our NFT series. In between recording this episode and publishing it two days later, a non-fungible token attached to a piece of digital art sold for a whopping $69.3 million. The sale, orchestrated by Christie’s, turned the digital creator known as Beeple into the third-highest paid living artist. It also represented a high point in the media attentio...
Mar 12, 2021•45 min•Ep. 19
In this week’s “Money Reimagined” podcast episode, we take the discussion around central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) down from the high-level geopolitical themes we’ve addressed previously and into what the technology can do for people at the grassroots level. To do so, Sheila Warren and I talked to Serey Chea, director general at National Bank of Cambodia, and Makoto Takemiya, co-CEO of Tokyo-based blockchain technology provider Soramitsu, about Cambodia’s new “Bakong” central bank di...
Mar 05, 2021•55 min•Ep. 18
This week on Money Reimagined, we bring you part two in our series on non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, the crypto-based digital scarcity solution that’s taking the art and entertainment worlds by storm. After last week tackling the stage-setting theme of how access to information determines value in the art world and who gets to set it, this week we go to the thin of the wedge and look at real-world use cases where NFTs are poised to blow up that centuries-old power dynamic. To do that ...
Feb 26, 2021•59 min•Ep. 17
With much of the world focused on bitcoin and ether as prices breach new all-time high after all-time high, the “Money Reimagined” crew embarks on a more nuanced journey, one that eschews world-changing networks for an art-changing renaissance that's been long in the making. We're talking, of course, about the nonfungible token (NFT) movement that has engulfed the world of crypto collectibles. With big brands like Christie’s auction house and the National Basketball Association getting involved ...
Feb 19, 2021•55 min•Ep. 16
This week’s Money Reimagined dives into the increasingly urgently needed Ethereum 2.0 upgrade. What is it and why does it matter? We talk with Danny Ryan, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. He has become a key player in the complicated “herding the cats” task of “herding the cats” of getting thousands of different stakeholders in this vibrant decentralized community aligned enough to undertake the massive 2.0 transition with sufficient cohesion. With Danny’s help we break the whole thing d...
Feb 12, 2021•57 min•Ep. 15
There’s a reason the Gamestop/WallStreetBets drama of the past two weeks got so much attention. It’s because it speaks forcefully to the inequities and systemic problems in both our financial markets and the internet economy and how they’ve shaped our politics and social tensions. So, in true Money Reimagined form, we wanted to have a super high-level discussion about what all this means for the future of money and society. And for that we called on someone who is a master at drawing big-p...
Feb 05, 2021•51 min•Ep. 14
For this episode, we travel, metaphorically, to a town in the Swiss Alps that’s for the first time in 50 years experiencing some peace and quiet in January. This week was the World Economic Forum’s “Davos Agenda,” a conference filled with the usual roster of high-powered speakers but conducted entirely virtually, over Zoom, instead of in Davos. So, as Sheila took time out from helping run that agenda, we invited her colleague Adrian Monck, a long-time WEF managing director, to reflect on t...
Jan 29, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 13
As the Biden Administration gets underway, what can we expect for cryptocurrency technologies alongside an ascendent bitcoin? One day into the new President’s tenure we’ve brought in Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association and Amy Davine Kim, Chief Policy Officer at the Chamber of Digital Commerce. In this episode we'll take a look into the regulatory future as we explore the relationships, lobbying and policymaking efforts within Washington. Album Photo by Tabrez S...
Jan 22, 2021•47 min•Ep. 12
On this episode of Money Reimagined the discussion comes home for an insiders look at how new, disruptive technology and government interact. For this discussion, hosts Michael Casey and Sheila Warren of the World Economic Forum are joined by Marvin Ammori, best known for his work on network neutrality and Internet freedom issues. Rounding out the panel is Christopher Giancarlo, former CFTC chairman and founding principal of the Digital Dollar Foundation. --- "My background is really 20 years of...
Jan 15, 2021•46 min•Ep. 11
Join Michael Casey and Sheila Warren as they speak with Matthew Davie the Chief Strategy Officer of Kiva and Alpen Sheth Senior Technologist of Blockchain at Mercy Corps. It's Finally 2021, the year we all were promised. Even though the calendar has turned, the world is still on a wild ride. So today we go back to the fundamentals. They call it the charitable-industrial complex: a system where money for development, for humanitarian needs, and for improving the lives of billions is controlled th...
Jan 08, 2021•59 min•Ep. 10
Join Michael Casey and Sheila Warren as they speak with tech ethnographer Tricia Wang and metaMe CEO Dele Atanda, as they dig into social media privacy and the value of personal data. For the first time since the “Internet 2.0” era began at the turn of the millennium, the dominant social media, search and e-commerce platforms are facing existential challenges. The disruption could come from legal efforts as anti-monopoly lawsuits evolve in both the U.S. and Europe. Or it could come via some...
Dec 18, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 9
Raoul Pal, CEO of RealVision and influential global macro investor, found himself in the middle of this fight recently after he tweeted to bitcoiners that KYC is in their interest because it will bring institutional money into the asset and boost its value. As someone with an account bearing the name SexyWebCamPro100x noted in one of more than 700 replies to that remark, the tweet begged for a meme of someone kicking a hornet’s nest. Pal is an influential thinker about Bitcoin’s place in the fut...
Dec 11, 2020•53 min•Ep. 8
Join Michael Casey & Sheila Warren as they speak with Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO of AZA Finance and Sebastian Serrano, CEO of Ripio for a discussion on the past, present and future of bitcoin and stablecoins in Africa and South America. Bitcoin, Stablecoins and International Adoption This week’s accompanying Money Reimagined podcast episode looks at the adoption of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins in emerging markets, which over the past year has seen real signs of life...
Nov 20, 2020•48 min•Ep. 7
In the lore of digital disruption, Eastman Kodak Co.'s downfall is particularly momentous. Kodak was once one of the world's most powerful companies. But it failed to act on digital cameras and online photo sharing, despite seeing the trends years before. (Kodak engineer Steve Sasson created the first digital camera in 1975.) It's an apt story to remember now as the digital money revolution rolls ahead at a time of momentous political transition. On this episode of CoinDesk's Money Reimagined, j...
Nov 13, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 6
In this episode of our Money Reimagined podcast, Sheila Warren and Michael Casey speak with two outside-the-box thinkers on their ideas for improving governance. Quadratic Voting and Open Auctions One of our guests was Glen Weyl, the political economist and Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England, who co-authored the book “ Radical Markets ” with University of Chicago Law School professor Eric Posner. We chose to focus on just two of the many ideas that that book puts forwar...
Nov 06, 2020•45 min•Ep. 5
In this episode, Michael J. Casey and Sheila Warren of the World Economic Forum are joined by the newly reelected Premier of Bermuda, David Burt, who is spearheading projects to use the island as a testing ground for stablecoins and to launch a communally owned national digital bank. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info ....
Oct 30, 2020•52 min•Ep. 4
This system is broken. It has become a leviathan – too big, too comprehensive. Giant fines have skewed the risk-versus-payoffs for banks, which impose compliance on everyone regardless of size. (This is despite AML guidelines typically allowing ID exemptions for transfers of up to $1000, and in the U.S. up to $3,000.) It’s time to scale down, not up. “There is a principle in design that in order to optimize the system, to maintain the most positive outcome, we have to sub-optimize the sub-system...
Oct 23, 2020•49 min•Ep. 3
This week, Michael Casey and Sheila Warren talk to Hyperledger Executive Director Brian Behlendorf about self-sovereign identity, the topic of this week's column. A developer whose three-decade career has seen him deeply involved in efforts to foster a more open internet, Brian grasps, like few others, the nuances of how human beings should live within a rapidly changing digital economy. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do...
Oct 09, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 2
Money is changing, but where do we go from here? Through high profile interviews and thoughtful analysis, join CoinDesk's Michael Casey and Sheila Warren of the World Economic Forum as they explore the connections between finance, human culture and our increasingly digital lives. In this inaugural episode media studies professor Lana Swartz and multimedia artist Nicky Enright join the discussion. Sushi, Hotdogs, Yams, Shrimp. The whimsical, food-obsessed names of De...
Sep 25, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 1
