#Ep. 50: Special 50th episode - Everyone's an 'Economist'

About this Episode

It’s our 50th episode anniversary!!! In this episode, Nic and Ahmed are back to co-hosting together, and for this special milestone, we have a special topic in store.

We are joined by Amin Elkholy, Siddiq Farid and Matt Hamilton to discuss all things economy, crypto, sound money, pending recessions, global reserve currency and much more!

The first topic is all about crypto or fiat, examining traditional currencies and what sound money could look like in the future. Amin and Ahmed look from a historical point of view whereas Matt and Siddiq look at this from a technological perspective.

Since currencies and money are tied with central banks and monetary policy, the conversation diverges into the role of central banks in the future, how credit, leverage, and distribution of money works, particularly the distribution of money into private banks, and ultimately why the tools that central banks use today could be totally disrupted with transparent distribution of money via the concept of central bank digital currencies.

The conversation then goes into the pros and cons of central bank digital currencies, the impact of removing cash and China’s plans to be the first country to issue a central bank digital currency.

Amin gives fascinating ideas around how commercial banks can possibly innovate when central bank digital currencies do become a reality. In this scenario, will consumers be in the driving seat if there is an efficient allocation of money and capital from the central bank to the consumer and then the consumer decides which bank they can deposit their money, effectively leading to dynamic and competitive interest rates and pricing?
The discussion continues into the concept of money vs gold, and how consensus plays a big role in whether a currency is accepted or not.

As a limited supply of a currency can bring certain stability to that currency and an economy, Nic argues that leveraging has created an enormous amount of wealth and is thus a key factor in the economy. However, we see huge amounts of inequality in wealth and income distribution with only a tiny percentage of the world population managing to amass most of the generated wealth. Amin sees it from a different perspective where the distribution of money supply is not distributed properly and thus income and wealth inequality can arise.

As the economy is globally slowing down, the gentlemen speak about an impending recession and look at history lessons to try and dictate the future. Matt speaks out against negative interest rates and explains how the U.S. is currently experiencing it and what he expects the Fed’s reaction will be.

Nic then asks the guests to predict what the future will look like in 15 years! Check out what they had to say.

All of the above and more will be on this week’s episode of Encrypted!

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