EPISODE DESCRIPTION In this episode, I sit down with Baron, a 20-year veteran of the oil and gas industry who started his career as a trader at Petronas and has spent decades working across crude oil, fuel oil, refined petroleum products, and derivatives. Baron is writing a book called The Litro Standard, and his thesis is fascinating: instead of anchoring money to gold or the US dollar, we should be anchoring digital finance to verified energy. We dig into how the current commodity settlement system is broken , why it takes 90 days to get paid for oil you sold today, why buyers never actually know the price they'll pay, and how tokenizing energy could compress that into an instant. We also get into the real-world oil market dynamics most people miss: why the Brent crude price hasn't exploded despite the Strait of Hormuz crisis, why China is the single biggest factor keeping oil below $100, and what would actually need to happen for oil to hit $130. This is one of those conversations where I genuinely felt like I was downloading years of insider knowledge in under an hour. DISCLAIMER Nothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research. It would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend. Be a guest on the podcast or contact us - https://www.web3pod.xyz/ CONNECT Baron LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baron-idriss-lamarre-00a390169/ Baron Twitter/X: https://x.com/Baron_Lamarre Web3 with Sam Kamani: https://www.web3pod.xyz/ KEY POINTS WITH TIMESTAMPS • [00:00] Sam introduces Baron and the Litro Standard , the idea of pegging digital money to verified energy instead of gold or the dollar • [02:00] Baron shares his background: 20 years in oil and gas, starting at Petronas in 2003 as an oil trader, covering crude, fuel oil, refined products, and derivatives • [03:53] What is the Litro Standard? Linking digital money to verified, audited energy , crude oil, natural gas, electricity , as collateral for settlement and trade • [05:17] Key benefits: energy-producing nations can anchor their currency to an asset they control, reducing dependence on the dollar • [08:20] How tokenizing oil in the ground works , buyers get direct access to producers, cutting out intermediaries • [10:13] The 90-day settlement problem: sell oil today, get paid in October , and the invoice price is not the price you agreed on • [13:52] The Strait of Hormuz problem and how the Litro Standard's location swap mechanism could reroute cargo through pooled reserves • [16:38] What is broken in today's financial system: trust is slow, costly, and politically fragile; Swift and correspondent banking have become geopolitical chokepoints • [20:20] The historical lesson people miss , monetary systems follow infrastructure revolutions, not the other way around • [25:35] Who really controls the oil price today: 80% is determined by financial markets and speculators, not producers • [27:01] Common misconceptions about the oil market , it is not as opaque or elite as people think, and refineries sometimes run at a loss just to keep operating • [30:43] Why Brent crude is still around $80 despite the Strait of Hormuz crisis , China's strategic reserve, alternative routes, and the $100 demand destruction threshold • [33:04] China as the buyer of last resort and how ADNOC leaving OPEC and joining the Shanghai Energy Exchange is reshaping price benchmarks • [38:33] Baron's boldest prediction: the next monetary revolution will not begin in central banks , it will begin in commodity markets, transaction by transaction • [40:27] Baron's ask: read the book, question assumptions, and join the conversation about the convergence of energy, technology, and money
