This is a Flashback Episode, we are going back to Jan 2017 in which Andreas Antonopoulosgreets us at the beginning of the bull run of 2017 on his second appearance on The Bitcoin Podcast Network. When I dove down the rabbit hole of Bitcoin in late 2013, Andreas’ YouTube talks and podcasts pulled me further in. He swings by the show again to tell us a bit about the current scene of crypto and to talk a bit about his new book, The Internet of Money. Beyond the more pragmatic applications of cryptocurrency for the millions of unbanked around the world, Andreas also waxes philosophic on deeper topics such as the history of money, the role cryptocurrency can play for individual sovereignty and privacy, and the implications of currency as language, where currency transfer is, at root, an expression of value akin to speech. In addition, in a few days we’ll be in DC to celebrate Equibit and the opening date of their official ICO! Matt McKibbin swings by the show to talk a bit about it. If you want to participate sign up here – https://ico.equibit.org/EDC is building Equibit, the world’s first peer-to-peer equity marketplace and a complete platform for issuers to manage their investor relations without the need for depositories and transfer agents. Equibit allows issuers to use cryptocurrency tokens, called ‘equibits’, to authorize and disseminate their shares. It also includes a secure, P2P communications system allowing for private messages and polls to be instantly sent to individuals and groups on the network. It is important to invest on things that will give back to you, one of the best recommendations I give is to find a good insurance company such as One Sure Insurance to always get full cover.

Demetrick, Dr. Corey Petty, and Jesse are back for an episode where the regulated players finish moving in and the outsiders start getting shown the door.

BlackRock, Google, Visa, Stripe, MasterCard, Coinbase, and DBS just announced Open Standard USD. It is called open the same way OpenAI is called open. The reserve yield goes to the participating institutions instead of holders, minting and redemption fees get scrapped, and governance sits under a company collectively owned by the biggest financial players on the planet. The guys break down what happens when the payment rails, the asset managers, and the ad tech giants all agree on the same stablecoin at the same time.

Meanwhile Tether is done in Europe. USDT trading pairs are gone from Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, and Crypto.com in the EEA because Tether refused to seek MiCA e-money authorization. Demetrick reveals he has an open short on Tether somewhere on the internet and would very much like to find it.

The guys also cover the ENS drama that turned out not to be drama at all when the king of the castle stepped in and killed the privacy committee vote from the top. Plus Michael Saylor selling more Bitcoin, and the theory that this is less about strategy and more about staying out of jail.

The back half of the show goes philosophical when Corey lays out an essay he wrote called the paradox of democratizing access. When you lower the barrier of entry to a specialized field, you do not get innovation. You get an army of newcomers who confidently reinvent things the experts already figured out, other people throw money at them because money attracts money, and eight moon markets later you are still watching the same cycle. Cue the pitch for Corey to play the Architect from The Matrix explaining this to a young crypto enthusiast in a gray suit.

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