Stay ConnectedDigital currencies are here to stay. In this podcast, we dive into the world of the new money. We explore Bitcoin, stablecoins, central bank digital currencies, and many other innovations in the realm of digital currencies.
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Zodia Markets' Nick Philpott on stablecoins, FX and why the future of cross-border payments may already be emerging outside traditional banking
Cross-border money still moves through chains of banks, separate ledgers and settlement cut-offs. Where correspondent banking has retreated, access can matter as much as speed. Can stablecoins provide the needed infrastructure?
Jonas Gross and guest host Jonathan Knoll welcome Nick Philpott, co-founder of Zodia Markets, to BFRR's digital money interview series. Drawing on his years at Standard Chartered and his work on Libra, Philpott explains why stablecoins address problems that look very different from London, Lagos or Singapore.
His journey begins with client dinners in Nigeria paid for with bricks of cash, and a brother mining Bitcoin to buy virtual spaceships. Those experiences lead into a discussion of fragmented payment networks, currency controls and the gaps left by banks withdrawing from certain markets.
Philpott makes the case for putting cash on-chain before expecting tokenised securities markets to deliver their full benefits. The conversation examines where stablecoins, tokenised deposits and wholesale CBDCs fit, and why moving to 24/7 settlement requires changes to treasury operations, liquidity management and the repo market.
Dollar dominance is another central theme. Philpott sees opportunities for non-dollar stablecoins where local currencies are difficult to access, time zones constrain settlement or regional trade creates demand. Their success, he argues, may depend more on transaction velocity than market capitalisation.
Zodia Markets offers a view of wholesale execution: Philpott reports an average transaction size of $2.4 million and describes a $120 million trade settled in 90 minutes. He outlines plans for more currency corridors, payments, on-chain FX and tokenised money market funds.
The episode closes with a revealing observation from banking conferences: some executives debate stablecoins in public while using them privately. For banks, restrictive risk policies can also conceal demand as clients move their transactions elsewhere.
Standard Chartered - Non-USD Stablecoins Report
Zodia Markets - The 200-Year-Old Stablecoin Debate Jonathan Knoll LinkedIn
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Disclaimer: The content of this podcast reflects the private opinions of the hosts, serves exclusively for general information purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Always remember: Do your own research—inform yourself before making any investment decisions, such as buying Bitcoin. First try to understand what Bitcoin is and how to store it. This podcast does not provide financial advice. Note that the co-hosts might be invested in crypto assets. Read more on our website: Click here
All links marked with "*" are affiliate links. If you use these links for purchase, the podcast receives a small share of the revenue without any additional costs to you. On the contrary, affiliate links often include discount promotions, so you can even save money. We would appreciate it if you use these links to support us. Thank you very much!
Jai Massari on Libra's legacy, stablecoins, tokenized deposits, regulation and what it will take to make digital money and stablecoins mainstream
Stablecoins can move money around the world. But when is a payment legally complete, what happens if an issuer fails, and can the same token be used across jurisdictions?
In this new episode of Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock’n’Roll, Jonas Gross and guest host Jonathan Knoll of etonec speak with Jai Massari, a Lightspark co-founder, former Davis Polk partner and now of counsel at Arktouros. Having helped design Libra’s legal architecture, she brings a perspective on what makes digital money work.
Massari revisits Libra’s ambitions and the weight of its Facebook origins. The project’s reserve design and redemption mechanics remain relevant, she argues, even though its technology could not overcome the policy obstacles. Its consortium model also leaves an open question: can shared distribution and scale outweigh the difficulty of making decisions among competitors?
The discussion then examines stablecoins and tokenized deposits. A bank deposit remains a claim on a bank; a regulated, reserve-backed stablecoin has a different economic structure. Their usefulness depends on the payment: speed, funding costs and existing banking connections all matter.
On stablecoin regulation, Massari discusses the US GENIUS Act, Europe’s MiCA and the distinction between stablecoin issuance and the broader market-structure debate around CLARITY. She also questions whether comprehensive crypto legislation could constrain innovation before the industry has developed its most useful applications.
For cross-border payments, the missing pieces include recognition of foreign issuers, certainty over payment and collateral use, and comparable rules for reserves, redemption and insolvency. Without coordination, blockchain payments risk inheriting familiar financial frictions.
The episode closes with agentic payments: how AI agents can prove their authority, who is responsible when they exceed it, and why existing agency and contract law may provide a starting point for the next generation of payments.
[Jai Massari Article on stablecoin myth busting] (https://openbanker.beehiiv.com/p/stablecoinmythbusting)
[Jai Massari Article on singleness of stablecoins] (https://openbanker.beehiiv.com/p/stablecoinsingleness)
Jai Massari Atlantic Council article on global stablecoin regulation
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Disclaimer: The content of this podcast reflects the private opinions of the hosts, serves exclusively for general information purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Always remember: Do your own research—inform yourself before making any investment decisions, such as buying Bitcoin. First try to understand what Bitcoin is and how to store it. This podcast does not provide financial advice. Note that the co-hosts might be invested in crypto assets. Read more on our website: Click here
All links marked with "*" are affiliate links. If you use these links for purchase, the podcast receives a small share of the revenue without any additional costs to you. On the contrary, affiliate links often include discount promotions, so you can even save money. We would appreciate it if you use these links to support us. Thank you very much!
ECBs Pontes goes live, tokenized deposit and stablecoin consortias form and equities are represented on token form on chain.
September brought two parts of digital finance into sharper focus: the money used to settle tokenized assets and the markets where those assets trade. The Eurosystem launched Pontes, connecting DLT-based wholesale transactions to central bank money. A group of 21 financial institutions advanced plans for a joint dollar stablecoin. In the United States, the SEC opened a conditional route for trading tokenized stocks after the CLARITY Act failed to advance in the Senate.
In this September news episode, Michael and Manuel Klein are joined by Anne-Sophie Gógl, Chairwoman of the Digital Euro Association and Digital Money Lead at KPMG Germany. They examine Pontes’s two settlement modes, the importance of legal finality in T2 and the ECB’s plan to invest a small portion of its own funds in tokenized public-sector securities. They also discuss the digital euro pilot’s search for online merchants and the Eurosystem’s proposals to revisit MiCA’s stablecoin reserve rules.
Beyond central bank money, banks and fintechs are building competing payment routes. The question is whether these networks will connect or create another set of isolated pools of liquidity.
Then the focus shifts to securities. Nasdaq’s planned $100 million investment in Payward, parent of Kraken, and the London Stock Exchange’s separate partnership with Payward bring crypto-native distribution closer to regulated market infrastructure. Coinbase’s stock-backed tokens on Base add a different model, with distinct legal rights and limits on who can use it. What happens to custody, shareholder rights and market oversight when a share can move through a wallet?
The episode also covers Bitcoin and Ether’s September rebound, ETF flows and the debate over Germany’s crypto holding-period tax exemption. Together, these developments show how the next phase of digital finance will depend on the design of the cash leg, the legal structure of assets and the institutions connecting the two.
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Knowledge Bite Michael: Paper of Bindseil et al. “The Multi-Issuance Issue" Knowledge Bite Anne-Sophie: Agentic payments: when payments learn to think; Monthly Report – September 2026 Knowledge Bite Manuel: DB flow article: Interview with Thomas Vlassopoulos, Director General Market Infrastructure and Payments at the European Central Bank (ECB): “Europe has a window of opportunity – but it will not be open forever”
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Disclaimer: The content of this podcast reflects the private opinions of the hosts, serves exclusively for general information purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Always remember: Do your own research—inform yourself before making any investment decisions, such as buying Bitcoin. First try to understand what Bitcoin is and how to store it. This podcast does not provide financial advice. Note that the co-hosts might be invested in crypto assets. Read more on our website: Click here
All links marked with "*" are affiliate links. If you use these links for purchase, the podcast receives a small share of the revenue without any additional costs to you. On the contrary, affiliate links often include discount promotions, so you can even save money. We would appreciate it if you use these links to support us. Thank you very much!
From US debt and dollar stablecoins to China's gold rails and Europe's euro-stablecoin push, why money has become a geopolitical weapon, and what the great reset means for the euro.
Guest: Marieke Flament, Independent Board Director, Strategic Advisor & Co-Author, Currency of Power Marieke Flament on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mariekeflament Currency of Power (Marieke Flament & Nicolas Colin): currencyofpower.co Qivalis, the regulated euro stablecoin backed by European banks: qivalis.eu Ray Dalio, Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order (referenced in the episode)
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All links marked with "*" are affiliate links. If you use these links to buy the recommended products, we receive a small share of the revenue at no extra cost to you. On the contrary, the affiliate links often come with discounts, so you can even save money (e.g. when buying Bitcoin via Relai). We would be grateful if you used these links to support us. Thank you!
What if your wallet could decide how to spend your money?
AI agents can already search, compare, negotiate and initiate payments at machine speed. The harder question begins after the money has moved: was that specific transaction actually authorised?
In part three of BFRR’s series on agentic payments, the host takes stock of two earlier conversations—with Sonja Davidovic of the IMF and Peter Großkopf of AllUnity. Their diagnoses align, yet their conclusions expose a fault line: probabilistic AI systems are being connected to payment infrastructure built around deterministic rules, binary outcomes and legal finality.
The episode examines the IMF’s three-layer model for separating intent and orchestration, control and authorisation, and settlement. It asks where an agent’s mandate should live and whether cryptographic controls can turn spending limits into enforceable constraints.
Stablecoins remain compelling for agent-to-service transactions, where fractions of a cent can determine whether payment for an API call, data fetch, article or AI inference is viable. Cards retain a powerful advantage in agent-to-merchant commerce: mature chargeback rules for judging disputes when goods fail to arrive or an agent makes the wrong decision.
The deeper problem is legal. A payment may pass strong customer authentication and still fall outside the user’s mandate. Drawing on Nydia Remolina’s “bounded delegated authorisation” test, the episode explores how machine-readable constraints, runtime conformity and auditable evidence could distinguish valid delegation from an unauthorised payment.
For banks, PSPs and payment networks, this creates a concrete agenda: define their role, build an evidence chain, establish “Know Your Agent” controls, create mandate dashboards and agree recourse arrangements with AI providers.
The conclusion marks a shift in perspective. The money layer is becoming solvable. The binding constraint for agentic payments in Europe may now be the ability to prove what a customer actually authorised.
Co-host Michael Blaschke’s solo stocktake after Sonja Davidovic (IMF) and Peter Grosskopf (AllUnity). Where stablecoins win, where cards keep chargebacks, and why PSD2 can’t tell you if your agent’s payment was authorized.
Part 1 of BFRR’s agentic payments series with Sonja Davidovic
Part 2 of BFRR’s agentic payments series with Peter Grosskopf
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Disclaimer: The content of this podcast reflects the private opinions of the hosts, serves exclusively for general information purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Always remember: Do your own research—inform yourself before making any investment decisions, such as buying Bitcoin. First try to understand what Bitcoin is and how to store it. This podcast does not provide financial advice. Note that the co-hosts might be invested in crypto assets. Read more on our website: Click here
All links marked with "*" are affiliate links. If you use these links for purchase, the podcast receives a small share of the revenue without any additional costs to you. On the contrary, affiliate links often include discount promotions, so you can even save money. We would appreciate it if you use these links to support us. Thank you very much!
Manfred Richels and Tim Bailey explain commercial bank money tokens, their use cases and how they fit alongside stablecoins and CBDCs.
Corporate balance sheets still run on commercial bank money, while the assets and business processes surrounding them are increasingly moving onto DLT networks. Commercial Bank Money Tokens (CBMTs) are designed to close that gap: they place a regulated bank liability directly on-chain without asking companies to adopt a fundamentally different form of money.
In this episode, Dr. Jonas Groß and Manuel Klein speak with Manfred Richels, Head of Corporate Payments at the German Savings Banks Association (DSGV), and Tim Bailey, Chief Commercial Officer at Red Date Technology and a leader of the Universal Digital Payments Network (UDPN). They explain what makes a CBMT different from a stablecoin. A CBMT remains a claim against a regulated bank, can be redeemed at par into central bank money and may be interest-bearing. The DLT record becomes the primary source of truth.
The conversation follows the token across a multi-bank transaction. When money moves from Bank A to Bank B, the first bank’s token is burned and the recipient bank issues a new token representing its own liability. Settlement between the banks follows separately in central bank money. This architecture is intended to make commercial bank money usable in smart contracts while retaining established compliance, accounting and risk-management treatment.
Richels and Bailey also discuss the live Siemens–Evonik pay-per-use pilot, where sensor data and chemical consumption trigger an automated payment; programmable delivery-versus-payment; and agentic B2B payments in which an AI agent is cryptographically linked to an accountable person or entity. They examine the expansion of the CBMT initiative beyond Germany, the role of Pontes, Appia and Project Agorá, and the likely coexistence of tokenized deposits, stablecoins, CBDCs and conventional payment rails. At stake is a practical question: can banks make deposits programmable without sacrificing the legal certainty and controls that make them useful?
CBMT Sandbox Video Demonstration
Academic Paper - Structural Framework for Tokenized Money Networks
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Disclaimer: The content of this podcast reflects the private opinions of the hosts, serves exclusively for general information purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Always remember: Do your own research—inform yourself before making any investment decisions, such as buying Bitcoin. First try to understand what Bitcoin is and how to store it. This podcast does not provide financial advice. Note that the co-hosts might be invested in crypto assets. Read more on our website: Click here
All links marked with "*" are affiliate links. If you use these links for purchase, the podcast receives a small share of the revenue without any additional costs to you. On the contrary, affiliate links often include discount promotions, so you can even save money. We would appreciate it if you use these links to support us. Thank you very much!
Bitcoin jumps, custody goes institutional, and stablecoins push the next wave of digital money.
August delivered few headlines, but the markets refused to take a summer break. In this BFRR Monthly Briefing, co-hosts Dr. Jonas Gross and Manuel Klein examine Bitcoin’s sharp rise from roughly $63,000 to nearly $79,000, renewed inflows into spot ETFs and the macroeconomic signal sent by the U.S. Treasury’s decision to expand buybacks of longer-dated bonds. They also assess President Trump’s latest meeting with crypto executives and ask what another delay to the CLARITY Act means for the United States—and whether Europe can turn regulatory stability into an advantage.
The episode’s central question is more fundamental: Who should be trusted to safeguard digital assets? The COLDCARD incident, in which attackers exploited weak randomness in wallet seed generation and stole more than $100 million in Bitcoin, challenges the assumption that hardware wallets eliminate counterparty risk. Jonas and Manuel compare self-custody with institutional custody and explain why “don’t trust, verify” still depends on software, audits, operational discipline and human judgment. Citi’s forthcoming Bitcoin custody service provides the institutional counterpoint, combining digital assets with its broader Custody+ infrastructure.
The discussion then turns to private forms of digital money. Tether has completed its first full audit of its financial statements, receiving an unqualified opinion from KPMG U.S. Revolut is bringing euros on-chain with EURR, a new stablecoin issued by Stripe-owned Bridge, while Circle has named major financial institutions as founding validators for its Arc network. Standard Chartered and HSBC, meanwhile, have completed the first live cross-border tokenized-deposit transaction on Swift’s blockchain-based ledger.
In the Knowledge Bites, the hosts review a BaFin survey exposing persistent gaps in German investors’ understanding of crypto assets and a BlackRock paper on Bitcoin’s possible role in a traditional 60/40 portfolio. A concise look at the choices now shaping crypto custody, stablecoins and the future architecture of money.
Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock’n’Roll Website Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock’n’Roll Telegram Channel
Knowledge Bite Jonas: Re-Underwriting Bitcoin: Still a Portfolio Diversifier Knowledge Bite Manuel: Wissenslücken bei Krypto-Anlegerinnen und -Anlegern
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Disclaimer: The content of this podcast reflects the private opinions of the hosts, serves exclusively for general information purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Always remember: Do your own research—inform yourself before making any investment decisions, such as buying Bitcoin. First try to understand what Bitcoin is and how to store it. This podcast does not provide financial advice. Note that the co-hosts might be invested in crypto assets. Read more on our website: Click here
All links marked with "*" are affiliate links. If you use these links for purchase, the podcast receives a small share of the revenue without any additional costs to you. On the contrary, affiliate links often include discount promotions, so you can even save money. We would appreciate it if you use these links to support us. Thank you very much!
A practitioner’s view on how stablecoins are powering the shift to agentic payments.
AI agents can already search, compare and negotiate. The harder question begins when they need to pay. In the second episode of BFRR’s series on agentic payments and digital money, we move from the agent’s decision-making process to the money leg: Do autonomous agents need stablecoins, and where does that thesis break down?
Guest Peter Grosskopf, CTO and COO of AllUnity, examines the issue from a practitioner’s perspective. Established by DWS, Flow Traders and Galaxy, AllUnity issues EURAU, CHFAU and SEKAU and develops infrastructure for AI-driven commerce.
His background spans banking infrastructure, regulated exchanges, DeFi products and digital-asset policy.
The discussion begins with a fundamental tension. AI systems are probabilistic; payment systems require deterministic authorisation, auditability and legal finality. Can budgets, approved counterparties and time-bound mandates be enforced through code, or must those controls remain with wallets and facilitators?
The economic case becomes clearest in machine-to-machine transactions. Card fees can make tiny payments for an article, data query or API call uneconomical. Low-cost blockchain rails reduce the viable transaction size from several euros to a few cents, creating a market for services consumed one request at a time. AllUnity’s model combines discovery, checkout, x402-based payment facilitation and payout, making content searchable and purchasable by software.
Stablecoins are not the answer for every transaction. Cards retain an advantage when physical goods, fraud or delivery failures make chargebacks essential. On-chain finality can become a liability when an agent errs. Escrow and programmable reversibility could narrow that gap if common standards emerge.
The episode also addresses European liquidity, MiCAR and missing consumer infrastructure. The likely future is a division of labour: stablecoins for low-cost digital services; cards where acceptance and reversibility remain decisive.
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Disclaimer: The content of this podcast reflects the private opinions of the hosts, serves exclusively for general information purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Always remember: Do your own research—inform yourself before making any investment decisions, such as buying Bitcoin. First try to understand what Bitcoin is and how to store it. This podcast does not provide financial advice. Note that the co-hosts might be invested in crypto assets. Read more on our website: Click here
All links marked with "*" are affiliate links. If you use these links for purchase, the podcast receives a small share of the revenue without any additional costs to you. On the contrary, affiliate links often include discount promotions, so you can even save money. We would appreciate it if you use these links to support us. Thank you very much!
How the Coldcard hack, AI-powered attackers and a shift to payments and tokenized securities are reshaping digital-asset custody, and why the future of holding value is hybrid.
Digital assets promise direct ownership. That promise becomes fragile when the technology protecting the keys contains a flaw—or when an AI agent acts faster than a human can supervise it.
In this episode of Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock ’n’ Roll, Stefan Grasmann speaks with Kasper Luyckx, Head EMEA and Financial Institutions at Ledger, about the changing economics of digital asset custody. Luyckx previously worked on blockchain initiatives at UBS and led wallet and staking infrastructure at regulated custodian Crypto Finance.
Luyckx explains software and hardware wallets, self-custody and regulated custody, and the governance required when institutions safeguard client assets. He also puts multi-signature, MPC and hardware security modules into context.
A recent Coldcard vulnerability illustrates why offline storage cannot be treated as automatically secure. According to Luyckx, predictable seed generation reduced the randomness protecting certain wallets. If open-source code, audits and AI-assisted reviews can miss a critical weakness, what should “secure enough” mean?
Ledger’s answer includes continuous testing by its internal security lab, the Donjon, and a growing use of AI in penetration testing and code review. Yet AI cuts both ways. It lowers the cost of discovering vulnerabilities for defenders and attackers, potentially creating a less secure transition period before defensive capabilities catch up.
Banks increasingly want one custody layer for crypto assets, stablecoin payments and tokenized securities. That requires greater throughput, privacy, richer asset data and governance suited to complex instruments.
Finally, Luyckx introduces Ledger’s approach to AI agents: let agents prepare transactions, but keep keys and final authority outside their reach. Human approval, hardware-backed identity and policy-based controls could provide the deterministic layer that probabilistic systems lack. The likely future is a hybrid custody model built around purpose, value and risk.
[Guest:] Kasper Luyckx, Head of EMEA, Ledger, on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kasperluyckx/)) Ledger Ledger 2026 AI Security Roadmap / Agent Stack Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock’n’Roll Website
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Disclaimer: The content of this podcast reflects the private opinions of the hosts, serves exclusively for general information purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Always remember: Do your own research—inform yourself before making any investment decisions, such as buying Bitcoin. First try to understand what Bitcoin is and how to store it. This podcast does not provide financial advice. Note that the co-hosts might be invested in crypto assets. Read more on our website: Click here
All links marked with "*" are affiliate links. If you use these links for purchase, the podcast receives a small share of the revenue without any additional costs to you. On the contrary, affiliate links often include discount promotions, so you can even save money. We would appreciate it if you use these links to support us. Thank you very much!
Buy Bitcoin on Relai, directly or as a savings plan: click here * With the referral code "ROCK" you can reduce the transaction fees by 0.1% and support Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock'n'Roll at the same time.
All links marked with "*" are affiliate links. If you use these links to buy the recommended products, we receive a small share of the revenue at no extra cost to you. On the contrary, the affiliate links often come with discounts, so you can even save money (e.g. when buying Bitcoin via Relai). We would be grateful if you used these links to support us. Thank you!
IMF's Sonja Davidovic explains agentic AI, the architecture behind agentic payments and the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Artificial intelligence has long supported payment decisions. Agentic AI goes further: it can interpret a user’s objective, decide what action to take and initiate a payment under delegated authority. That shift from “click to pay” to “decide and pay” could fundamentally change who, or what, participates in the financial system.
In the first episode of a new BFRR series on agentic payments, hosts Jonas Gross and Michael Blaschke welcome back Sonja Davidovic of the International Monetary Fund. Drawing on the IMF note “How Agentic AI Will Reshape Payments,” co-authored with Hervé Tourpe, they separate credible potential from hype.
Davidovic explains the core tension at the heart of the concept. AI systems reason probabilistically and adapt to new information. Payment infrastructures require clear authorization, auditability, legal finality and deterministic outcomes. A three-layer model offers a way to reconcile both worlds. Agents interpret intent and orchestrate actions in the first layer; mandates, budgets and authentication rules govern authorization in the second; established payment rails provide final settlement in the third.
The discussion moves from architecture to practical applications. E-commerce may be the most immediate use case, covering product selection, payment and returns. Agents could also identify anomalies and trigger compliance procedures, while treasury and liquidity management may benefit from autonomous allocation across fragmented markets.
The potential comes with difficult questions. How can an agent be prevented from exceeding its mandate? Who is liable when it makes the wrong decision? How can institutions contain cyber risk, protect personal data and explain opaque machine reasoning? What happens when thousands of agents react to the same market signal at once?
The episode also examines whether credit cards, stablecoins, tokenized deposits or CBDCs are best suited to machine-initiated transactions. The answer may depend on the use case. Adoption, Davidovic argues, will ultimately be determined by authorization, accountability, governance and trust.
Paper: How Agentic AI Will Reshape Payments
Previous BFRR Episode with Sonja Davidovic
Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock’n’Roll Website
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Relai*: Buy Bitcoin with Relai—you can do a one-time purchase or savings plan: Click here. Use the referral code "ROCK" to reduce transaction fees by 0.1% while supporting Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock’n’Roll.
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Disclaimer: The content of this podcast reflects the private opinions of the hosts, serves exclusively for general information purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Always remember: Do your own research—inform yourself before making any investment decisions, such as buying Bitcoin. First try to understand what Bitcoin is and how to store it. This podcast does not provide financial advice. Note that the co-hosts might be invested in crypto assets. Read more on our website: Click here
All links marked with "*" are affiliate links. If you use these links for purchase, the podcast receives a small share of the revenue without any additional costs to you. On the contrary, affiliate links often include discount promotions, so you can even save money. We would appreciate it if you use these links to support us. Thank you very much!
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