In Episode 136 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with CoinDesk Chief Content Officer Michael Casey about “The Great Monetary Inflation” and the future of digital money. The two chronicle the financialization of the global economy that occured between the end of gold convertibility in 1971 and the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. They discuss how the period of the 1970’s weighed heavily on the American zeitgeist and the political transformation that occurred between the start of the Iran hostage crisis and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The episode culminates in a conversation about the political and monetary forces that have been unleashed in response to the spread of COVID-19 and their implications for the future of capitalism and liberal democracy.

For those interested in attending the Consensus 2020 conference, you can find more information at https://www.coindesk.com/events/consensus-2020. You can also sign up for Michael’s weekly email newsletter, Money Reimagined, as well as other CoinDesk newsletters at https://www.coindesk.com/newsletters. 

You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Michael Casey is the Chief Content Officer at CoinDesk, the leading media platform for the blockchain and digital asset community, and a cofounder of Streambed Media, a tool suite for video creators to manage their rights and generate comprehensive usage data.

For almost two decades, Casey was a journalist, global finance columnist and managing editor at The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. After leaving The Journal, he spent four years at MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative and worked as a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management.

He has published five books, including The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything and The Age of Cryptocurrency, both co-authored with Paul Vigna.

A native of Perth, Western Australia, he is a graduate of the University of Western Australia and has higher degrees from Curtin University and Cornell University.