Ether Capital Podcast Ether Capital

In February 2022, we hosted a webinar on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and cryptocurrency with Carolyn Wilkins, external member of the Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee and former Sr. Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada. 

Our discussion focused on understanding how CBDCs operate and what makes them different from cryptocurrency. We also talked about/debated if there's a way they can co-exist. 

Ether Capital's CEO Brian Mosoff took part in the event, which was moderated by Bloomberg Senior Editor Michael Regan. This is a special podcast episode that features the full recording of our conversation.

05:50 What differentiates a CBDC from digital banking
07:20 Can CBDCs and cryptocurrency co-exist?
12:30 Looking at stablecoins and how they factor into the equation
15:30 The true meaning of decentralization and whether or not it's achievable 
20:40 Views on how traditional finance will respond to CBDCs
27:05 Price speculation vs. innovation
31:45 Financial inclusion in developing countries
33:30 A whole world outside of Bitcoin 
39:00 Regulators have their work cut out for them
43:00 Q&A

Chris Giancarlo, former chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, joins us to talk about embracing digital transformation. He explains why governments need to update legacy banking infrastructure and create a more open and inclusive financial system.


00:00 Disclaimer
01:04 "Crypto Dad"
05:33 Digital generation and TradFi exclusivity
08:20 Entity-based regulation vs. activity-based regulation
11:00 The highway analogy
13:31 Financial insitutions gathering too much information
16:41 The Empire Strikes Back
18:58 No clear message from Washington
21:07 Countries getting it right
22:38 Achieving financial liberty and protecting individual privacy
26:00 How institutions can compete with an open financial system
28:43 The Fed engaging the private sector
31:22 What Chris Giancarlo would like to see happen

We caught up with U.S. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce to talk about her views on crypto and the challenges American policymakers face when it comes to regulating the US$2.5+ trillion industry

We welcome Ken Kruger, of MOON, a startup focused on making crypto an easy and efficient form of payment. How does it work? Will this onboard more users into the crypto ecosystem? Listen in to find out how this startup is working to changing the game.

Our guest is Justin Drake, a leading researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. Justin is an architect of the Ethereum 2.0 vision. We discuss Ether's store of value thesis and its new monetary economics.

We talk with Som Seif, CEO of Purpose Investments about the recent announcement of the world’s first physically settled Bitcoin ETF.  Som is considered a pioneer in the ETF industry, first through his work building Claymore, which he then sold to Blackrock in 2005 and is now building Purpose, an asset manager with over 10 billion dollars of AUM. We drive into the journey that got us to this historic moment.