A reading of a recent speech by Benoit Cœuré, the head of the BIS Innovation Hub, on “Central bank digital currency: the future starts today.”
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NYDIG, the institutional-grade platform for Bitcoin, is making it possible for thousands of banks who have trusted relationships with hundreds of millions of customers, to offer Bitcoin. Learn more at NYDIG.com/NLW.
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“The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features NLW, with editing this episode by Michele Musso and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is “Only in Time” by Abloom. Image credit: Hiroshi Watanabe/DigitalVision/Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk.
Located 1,500 miles south of the nation of Cote d’Ivoire and about 2,500 miles east of Rio de Janeiro, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, lies one of the most remote human settlements on Earth: The island of St Helena.
Given its remote location, St. Helena has had a history unlike most other islands, and people who live there are unlike any others in the world.
Learn more about the island of Saint Helena, its history, and life on the island, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
It’s part two of the Never Forget Extravaganza! We’re joined again by military tech journalist Kelsey D. Atherton to explore the deep and decades long entanglement between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon—from the early days of the semiconductors industry being born in the cradle of military contracts to the contemporary period of, as one Pentagon startup calls it, “the new Manhattan Project” of artificial intelligence. We wrap up by considering what the next phase of the forever war machine will bring.
Follow Kelsey on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AthertonKD
Subscribe to Kelsey on Substack: https://athertonkd.substack.com/
Some stuff we reference:
• Silicon Valley Giants—Not Start-Ups—Dominate DoD Tech $$ | Kelsey D. Atheron: https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/silicon-valley-giants-not-start-ups-dominate-dod-tech/
• Reports of a Silicon Valley/Military Divide Have Been Greatly Exaggerated | Jack Poulson: https://techinquiry.org/SiliconValley-Military/
• Silicon Valley Takes the Battlespace | Jonathan Guyer: https://prospect.org/power/silicon-valley-takes-battlespace-eric-schmidt-rebellion/
• Project Maven: Amazon And Microsoft Scored $50 Million In Pentagon Surveillance Contracts After Google Quit | Thomas Brewster: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/09/08/project-maven-amazon-and-microsoft-get-50-million-in-pentagon-drone-surveillance-contracts-after-google/?sh=40ebfa5e6f1e
• Silicon Valley Mystery House | Langdon Winner: https://bibliodarq.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/sorkin-m-ed-variations-on-a-theme-park.pdf
• Cold War Armory: Military Contracting in Silicon Valley | Thomas Heinrich: https://faculty.fiu.edu/~revellk/pad2011/heinrich.pdf
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Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)
Niels Jorgensen is a former New York firefighter for over 21 years, who was there at Ground Zero on September 11th, 2001. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(08:52) – September 11, 2001
(36:48) – Falling man
(40:58) – Ground Zero
(47:17) – 20 for 20
(50:27) – What it means to be a great firefighter
(53:11) – Why did you become a firefighter?
(55:00) – Tally Ho
(57:46) – New view of the world
(1:05:16) – Empathy
(1:09:49) – Leukemia
(1:25:18) – New York City
(1:31:28) – John Feal
(1:44:57) – Conspiracy theories
(1:53:45) – Faith
(1:55:44) – Modern communication
(2:00:11) – Hand written letters
(2:14:02) – Love
(2:25:45) – War in Afghanistan
(2:37:24) – Brave stories from 9/11
El Salvador’s decision to make bitcoin legal tender shocked the world. Earlier this week the rapidly-developed and adopted bitcoin law went live, kicking off what seems primed to be an era of accelerated change unlike anything seen in our lifetimes.
Join hosts Adam B. Levine, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Stephanie Murphy for a quick three part discussion on the launch challenges, implications and listener comments from our previous show on the topic.
First, the launch: It was messy, but it happened. Alex Gladstein had an insightful twitter thread in the days leading up to it. Matt Ahlborg dug into the day-1 government issued wallet and found a mixed bag. He found extra controls on the money given out at launch but a fairly robust technological package including native SegWit support and a functional lightning network integration
Second, the implications: This path towards adoption was not what we expected. What El Salvador's move to use bitcoin directly suggests is that dollarized nations, or those who use another countries currency and in doing so become subject to their monetary policy decisions, may prefer bitcoin's non-monetary policy to either domestic or imported control. That's in sharp contrast to nations like India, China and the US who use their currencies and controls over it to accomplish policy goals. These powerful players see central bank digital currencies as a way to supercharge their monetary policy compared to their influence today over physical banknotes.
And finally, the local perspective: We had two listeners write in with corrections to our prior episode (We were incorrect about the reason why El Salvador "dollarized" their economy in 2000, it was billed as a move to lower the cost of borrowing, not because of elevated inflation) along with the many concerns and questions which are still unanswered. You'll find both listeners comments in full linked below.
Have any questions or comments? Send us an email at adam@speakingofbitcoin.show
Today's show featured Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Stephanie Murphy and Adam B. Levine. This episode was edited by Jonas, with music by Jared Rubens and Gurty Beats. Our album art is based off a photo by Photo by Wilson Edilberto Santana Suarez on Unsplash, modified by Speaking of Bitcoin
COVID Update: Mu Variant; News Items: Just Below Pricing, Magnetic Field Record, Mars Rock Sample, Getting Rid of Cash; Who's That Noisy; Your E-mails and Questions: Electric Cars; Science or Fiction
Dan Tapiero, founder of 10T, returns to “The Breakdown” to discuss:
Investing $750 million into growth equity for digital asset ecosystem startups
The number of crypto unicorns growing from 20 to 70 in a year
How institutional investor questions have changed over the last 12 months
How regulatory headwinds are negatively impacting the U.S. crypto industry
Why the long-term macro environment is likely to stay positive for crypto for years to come
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NYDIG, the institutional-grade platform for Bitcoin, is making it possible for thousands of banks who have trusted relationships with hundreds of millions of customers, to offer Bitcoin. Learn more at NYDIG.com/NLW.
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“The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is “Only in Time” by Abloom. Image credit: Boris SV/Moment/Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk.
Veteran Chicago journalist Carol Marin joins Reset to share her memories of 9/11 and lessons she wants to pass on to the next generation of journalists.
This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11, and as the withdrawal from Afghanistan dominates the headlines, so does the conversation about the forever war and its implications. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Azmy has been challenging the U.S. government repeatedly over the past two decades, litigating matters from the rights of Guantanamo detainees, to discriminatory policing practices, to government surveillance, to the rights of asylum seekers and accountability for victims of torture. Azmy is also the author of the chapter "Crisis Lawyering in a Lawless Space: Reflections on Nearly Two Decades of Representing Guantánamo Detainees" in the Crisis Lawyering collection from NYU Press.
In our Slate Plus segment, Dahlia is joined by Mark Joseph Stern to talk about a case concerning religious freedom in the execution chamber, which made it off the shadow docket and into the light of day. They also explore who on earth has standing in Texas’ SB 8 anti-abortion law.
