If you can be the corp chain to rule them all, well, it's a massive opportunity.

If you can own the network of global payments, as we know from the card networks, that's a very profitable business.

This is likely going to be even larger.

That said, I really hope it doesn't succeed because otherwise we will have swapped one king with a different one. Welcome to the A16Z Crypto podcast.

I'm your host, Robert Hackett.

And today we're talking about who, if anyone, should own the rails of global money.

My guest is Christian Catalini, co-founder and chief

strategy officer of the global payment startup LightSpark, and a former architect of Meda's

shuttered Lieber project, one of the most ambitious attempts to create a corporate-backed digital

currency. In this episode, we talk about why Bitcoin is more than just digital gold, what Christian

learned from his time at Facebook, and why he believes openness, not corporate control,

will ultimately win out.

Christian also wrote a feature for us expanding on his argument, which you can read by subscribing

to A16Crypto on Substack.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

Now here's my conversation with Christian.

Kristen, thanks for being here.

My pleasure.

All right, so let's start with this.

What misconception do people have about the problem you're trying to solve?

I would say the biggest one is that, you know,

people think of Bitcoin as digital gold.

...