Sam sets it up as a role-swap, with Dave (the permissioned business operator) arguing permissionless and Ian (the libertarian of the two) arguing permissioned. Dave opens with Marc Andreessen's 2014 New York Times op-ed (the original "declare a truth over the internet" framing) and uses it to argue that the only real innovation in a blockchain is solving one specific cryptography problem. Most of what gets called a blockchain today, he says, is doing nothing of the kind: ❝ A permissioned network of ten banks is going to go nowhere. ❞

Ian counters with what he calls "importing trustlessness." The pricing argument under it is sharper than the philosophy, because public blockchains cost cents in gas and carry billions in brand trust, which makes them a wildly mispriced utility for anyone building new market infrastructure.

Sam brings the debate back to the news. SEC Chair Paul Atkins and Commissioner Hester Peirce are advancing a tokenized stock innovation exemption that lets equities be tokenized (potentially without the issuer's consent) and traded on DeFi (decentralized finance) applications. The regulator is drawing the first formal map of where the permissioned and permissionless worlds meet.

Both hosts argue their way out of the positions they started with, and Ian's closing line is the one neither of them set out to deliver.

Tune into Episode 07 for where the debate actually lands, the SEC ruling that just bent the line, and Ian's closer.

Money Moves is a weekly conversation about the technologies rebuilding the global financial system. Stablecoins, tokenization, private credit, market structure, prediction markets, and what generative AI is doing to capital.

Three hosts, three vantage points. Dave Sutter builds the rails: he built one of the first Bitcoin wallets in the App Store, was an executive at Centre, the joint venture behind USDC, and now runs stablecoin infrastructure for global fintechs. Ian Epstein builds the markets that run on them: a decade running his own book as a senior portfolio manager at one of the best performing macro funds of its era, now co-CEO of Profitr. Samantha Lewis funds both, investing at Mercury Fund at the point where these worlds meet.

Two kinds of episodes. Deep dives are the three of them taking one question all the way down. Most weeks a guest joins who sees a piece of it none of the three can see alone: a founder, an allocator, a regulator, or someone who thinks the hosts have it wrong.

Made for people who work in finance and want the mechanism, not the marketing. No hype, no maximalism, no financial advice.

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