Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock'n'Roll Archiv

Public permissionless blockchains offer open, interoperable infrastructure—but create compliance and operational challenges for regulated financial institutions. Wee Kee Toh of Kinexys at J.P. Morgan and Michael Maurer of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative explore four key roadblocks: front-running, transaction censorship, unsolicited tokens and gas fees reaching sanctioned entities. They discuss potential safeguards, their limitations and why broader adoption requires collaboration between banks, blockchain developers and regulators.

Why do stablecoins matter most where traditional banking works least? Nick Philpott explains how stablecoins are reshaping cross-border payments, FX and access to global money.

Why have stablecoins not transformed payments yet? Jai Massari explains what Libra got right, how stablecoins differ from tokenized deposits and what still needs to change for mainstream adoption.

September’s digital money briefing: Pontes launches, banks build tokenized deposit networks, stablecoins expand into banking, and tokenized equities bring crypto, exchanges and Wall Street closer together.

Co-host Michael Blaschke’s solo stocktake after Sonja Davidovic (IMF) and Peter Grosskopf (AllUnity). Where stablecoins win, where cards keep chargebacks, and why PSD2 can’t tell you if your agent’s payment was authorized.

What are commercial bank money tokens, and why do corporates need them? Manfred Richels and Tim Bailey explain how CBMTs work and where they fit alongside stablecoins and CBDCs.

Bitcoin rallied 25%, a hardware wallet flaw shook self-custody, and Citi entered crypto custody. A fast recap of August’s biggest moves in Bitcoin, stablecoins, and digital money.

AllUnity’s Peter Grosskopf joins us on agentic payments. From launching a euro stablecoin (plus Swiss franc and Swedish krona) to real-world use cases, hear where machine-driven payments are heading.

Every crypto holder relies on one thing and rarely thinks about it until it fails: how the keys are kept safe. Just days after the Coldcard hack drained over $100 million from users who appeared to do everything right, Ledger's Head of EMEA Kasper Luyckx joins Stefan to explain what really keeps digital assets safe, from hardware signers to bank-grade HSMs. Kasper, who has seen custody from both sides after years at UBS and Crypto Finance, walks through what actually went wrong at Coldcard (a seed generated in software instead of the secure chip, with far too little randomness), why it was an isolated firmware failure rather than an indictment of self-custody, and how Ledger's in-house attack lab, the Donjon, works. From there the conversation opens up: the real gap between retail and institutional custody, where multisig, MPC and HSMs fit, and the big shift from simply storing crypto to on-chain payments and tokenized securities. They also dig into AI on both sides of security, including Ledger's new Agent Stack, where AI agents can propose transactions but a human still approves each one on the device. The throughline: as AI makes vulnerabilities cheaper to find, keeping a human in the loop matters more than ever, and most people will end up holding value in a hybrid of self-custody and trusted custodians. Enjoy the episode.

What are agentic payments, and how will they change payments? Sonja Davidovic explains the architecture, opportunities and challenges of AI agents initiating payments on our behalf.

OUSD launches with 140 firms, Swift’s ledger pilots with 17 banks, Circle gets a US bank charter, and the Digital Euro enters trilogue. July 2026 in full.

RL1 goes live. SWIAT CTO Ivica Aračić on building a neutral cooperative platform where assets, services, and central bank money finally meet—and why Canton is the real rival.

Joey Garcia discusses Libra's legacy, OpenUSD and why stablecoin regulation is evolving differently around the world. A global perspective spanning MiCA, the GENIUS Act and beyond.