A journey through the era of digital money with Rod Garratt

October saw key moves in institutional blockchain and geopolitics – from Luxembourg’s BTC investment to Swift’s shared ledger, Europe’s RL1, and China’s stablecoin moves.

SWIAT-CTO Ivica Aračić maps the as-is and to-be architecture of DLT-based financial market infrastructure using the IMF’s ASAP framework—revealing what works, what’s missing, and how Europe moves from pilots to production.

Tristan Thoma discusses the role of blockchain and national digital currencies in driving financial inclusion, economic resilience, and innovation. Drawing on real-world insights from El Salvador and Bolivia, he explains how tokenization and smart regulation can empower countries and their people.

Manuel and Rod Garratt explore CBDCs, stablecoins, and tokenized deposits—covering privacy, politics, and the future of payments from Rod’s journey at the NY Fed to global digital money innovation.

September was full of news around stablecoins and blockchain and payments infrastructure – new collaborations and ecosystems emerge around Tether, Circle, Stripe and Coinbase with a focus on payments use cases.

Rhys Bidder is a prominent academic voice on stablecoins. We discuss what sets stablecoins apart from other forms of money and why he thinks they could play a key role in the future of money and payments.

Myles Harrison, CPO at AMINA Bank, reveals the three-layer architecture powering Switzerland's fastest-growing crypto bank and their proven approach to bridging traditional finance with 24/7 crypto operations.

We dive into Juan Guse’s fascinating book profiling four ordinary men who became crypto millionaires. A sociological look at sudden wealth, class mobility, and the human side of digital money.

New players entering the stablecoin space, but does it really need further stablecoins? And: US (again) with massive news on crypto adoption – and privacy

Alex Höptner, CEO at AllUnity, about his past as CEO at traditional- and crypto exchanges and the plans of AllUnity, the first German BaFin regulated Euro Stablecoin