The following is a conversation with Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, the

largest cryptocurrency exchange platform with 98 million users in 100 countries, listing

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, and over 100 popular cryptocurrencies.

I recorded this conversation with Brian before this week's SEC probe into whether some

of the crypto listings are securities and thus need to be regulated as such.

As always, with conversations that involve cryptocurrency, I try to make it timeless

so that the price, soaring high or crashing down low doesn't distract from the fundamental

technological, economic, social, and philosophical ideas underlying this new form of money, energy,

and information.

Our world runs on money.

The exchange and store of value.

A cryptocurrency seeks to build the next chapter of how money works and what it can do.

Coinbase and Brian are trying to do this by working together with regulators and governments,

which is a long and difficult road.

bureaucracy's resist change for better and for worse.

The latest SEC probe is a good representation of this.

It is a serious attempt to limit fraud, but one that also runs the risk of limiting innovation

and limiting financial freedom of individuals.

This is a complicated mess and I applaud everyone involved for trying to work through it.

I hope in the end, the interest of the individual wins.

Decentralization, after all, is a hedge against the corrupting nature of centralized power.

And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor.

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