Aditi Sahasrabuddhe is a political scientist at Brown University and the author of the new book, Banker’s Trust: How Social Relations Avert Global Financial Collapse. In Aditi’s first appearance on the show, she discusses how central bankers’ relationships in the 1920’s impacted the global economy, how the ending of those relationships played a part in the Great Depression, how we can apply those principles to the Great Recession and the present, and much more.

Check out the transcript for this week’s episode, now with links.

Recorded on July 30th, 2025

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:50 - Aditi’s Intellectual Journey

00:03:57 - Louis Franck at the National Bank of Belgium

00:05:46 - Relationships and Crisis

00:11:07 - Central Bank Club

00:17:06 - Central Bankers and the Butterfly Effect

00:22:33 - Montagu Norman and Benjamin Strong

00:32:06 - Émile Moreau

00:34:48 - Japan

00:38:11 - Benjamin Strong and the Great Depression

00:48:55 - Great Financial Crisis

00:51:18 - India

00:55:25 - Jerome Powell the Central Banker

00:58:23 - Outro

Will Luther is an associate professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University and a fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute. Josh Hendrickson is a professor of economics and the chair of the economics department at the University of Mississippi. Josh is also a fellow at BPI. Will and Josh return to the show to defend the idea of a strategic Bitcoin reserve, discuss the future of Bitcoin, and contend with the problem of Bitcoiners, and much more.

Check out the transcript for this week’s episode, now with links.

Recorded on June 25th, 2025

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:39 - Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

00:23:33 - Future of Bitcoin

00:45:07 - Scaling Bitcoin

00:50:46 - Outro

Rashad Ahmed is a former Treasury and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency financial economist and is currently an economist at the upstart Andresen Institute for Finance and Economics. In Rashad’s first appearance on the show, he discusses the real-world impacts of the GENIUS Act, what US stablecoin regulation means for the rest of the world, the state of crypto adoption, and much more.

Check out the transcript for this week’s episode, now with links.

Recorded on June 27th, 2025

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Bumper

00:00:31 - Intro

00:01:44 - Rashad’s Career

00:07:33 - Global State of Crypto

00:23:48 - Stablecoins and Safe Asset Prices

00:40:00 - Sovereign Default Risk and Cryptocurrency Adoption

00:56:51 - Outro