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Podcasts & media

Conversations on the economics of AI, stablecoins, and what Libra taught the industry.

2026

07.09 The Third Wave of FinTech and the Transformation of Financial Systems Panel intervention on the third wave of fintech — the link starts at the moment Christian takes the floor (1:01:58). LUOHAN ACADEMY Watch ↗

07.03 From Libra to Open Standard’s OUSD: What Facebook’s Failed Stablecoin Teaches Us What Libra’s arc teaches about Open Standard’s OUSD and collectively governed stablecoin rails. COINDESK PODCAST NETWORK Listen ↗

06.30 Anything AI can measure can be automated Anything AI can measure, it will automate — the dividing line for every job and firm. BEYOND THE PROMPT Watch ↗

06.24 The Unexpected Economics of AGI - with Christian Catalini, Tech Founder and Co-Creator of Libra The unexpected economics of AGI: why measurability decides what gets automated, and trust decides what gets deployed. BEYOND THE PROMPT - HOW TO USE AI IN YOUR COMPANY Listen ↗

06.23 Verification Is the Bottleneck of the AI Economy - Christian Catalini | PostAGI Ep. 02 Verification — not intelligence — is the bottleneck of the AI economy. POSTAGI PODCAST Listen ↗

06.23 Some Simple Economics of AGI A talk on Some Simple Economics of AGI: the measurability gap and the verification bottleneck. LUOHAN ACADEMY Watch ↗

06.23 Verification Is the Bottleneck of the AI Economy - Christian Catalini | PostAGI Podcast Verification is the bottleneck of the AI economy. EIGEN LABS Watch ↗

06.23 The Unexpected Economics of AGI - with Christian Catalini, Tech Founder and Co-Creator of Libra The unexpected economics of AGI, for operators deploying AI inside companies. BEYOND THE PROMPT Watch ↗

06.21 From Libra to AGI: Christian Catalini on the Future of Money From Libra to the economics of AGI: how digital money and machine intelligence converge. BITCOIN, FIAT & ROCK’N'ROLL Listen ↗

06.21 From Libra to AGI: Christian Catalini on the Future of Money From Libra's lessons to the economics of AGI — money, verification, and what comes next. BITCOIN, FIAT & ROCK'N'ROLL Watch ↗

06.05 Young People + AI = Superpowers? Why being young in the AI era is an advantage: “the best tools we ever had to push people to the frontier.” MTS LIVE Watch ↗

05.29 Agentic Payments Are the Wild West Agentic payments are the Wild West: what it takes to make machine commerce trustworthy. STABLECON Watch ↗

05.28 WORK AFTER con Christian Catalini e Simone Cicero With Simone Cicero: AI agents, fintech, and how post-AGI organizations will actually work. COSMICO Watch ↗

05.11 #rcnyc5: Some Simple Economics of AGI New York’s research community digs into the AGI paper — verification bandwidth as the binding constraint. HASHED #RCNYC Watch ↗

03.26 The Economics of AGI: Why Verification Is the New Scarcity w/ Christian Catalini The measurability gap, and why verification becomes the new scarcity as execution gets cheap. BANKLESS Listen ↗

03.26 Your Job Will Be Automated. Here’s the Only Skill That Survives Your job will be automated — verification is the skill that survives. BANKLESS Watch ↗

03.19 AI Just Gave You Superpowers — Now What? What individuals should do as AI collapses the cost of execution — rebuild expertise faster than the market rate. THE A16Z SHOW Listen ↗

03.05 AI just gave you superpowers. Now what? AI just gave you superpowers: how individuals compound them before the market catches up. A16Z CRYPTO Watch ↗

03.04 Some Simple Economics of AGI — a conversation A Q&A on the economics of AGI: why verification, not intelligence, becomes the binding constraint as the cost of execution collapses. ARE WE COOKED? Listen ↗

01.14 Nobody’s Gonna Trust Your Corp Chain Why closed corporate blockchains lose to open networks: cooperate on the platform, compete on products. A16Z CRYPTO SHOW Listen ↗

01.14 Why Open Networks Win The case for open networks over closed corporate rails, in sixteen minutes. A16Z CRYPTO Watch ↗

2025

10.24 Lightspark Sync 2025: Open Networks Open networks keynote at Lightspark Sync 2025. LIGHTSPARK Watch ↗

06.04 [FBC Summit 2025] Christian Catalini (Lightspark) On payments, stablecoins, and open rails at the FBC Summit 2025. FFTECH LAB @ UCSB Watch ↗

05.16 Forget Bitcoin: Stablecoins Are the Real Revolution | Christian Catalini, Clay Robbins, and Sam L Forget Bitcoin — stablecoins are the real revolution in payments. SLOW VENTURES Watch ↗

2023

10.07 The Future of Payments with Bitcoin & Lightning Conference talk on what it takes to turn Bitcoin and Lightning into real global payment rails. PACIFIC BITCOIN 2023 Watch ↗

07.09 Unlocking the Potential of Bitcoin: Building Lightspark A long-form conversation on building Lightspark and making Bitcoin useful for payments. THE WOLF OF ALL STREETS Watch ↗

06.14 Introducing Lightspark Introducing Lightspark from the Bitcoin 2023 main stage. BITCOIN 2023 Watch ↗

2021

04.28 How the Facebook Digital Currency Dream Has Changed CNBC's report on Libra's evolution into Diem — with the project's co-creator on where it went and why. CNBC INTERNATIONAL Watch ↗

2019

11.18 Libra crypotocurrency and blockchain | Christian Catalini Libra, cryptocurrency, and blockchain — the design and the regulatory reckoning. HBS DIGITAL INITIATIVE Watch ↗

11.07 MIT Sloan Experts Series – Christian Catalini: Breaking Down the Libra Cryptocurrency Breaking down Libra: the economics behind the design. MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT Watch ↗

11.05 A Libra Co-Creator on How Facebook Will Make Money From Calibra Laura Shin's Unchained, episode 144 — the economics of Libra and what Facebook stood to gain. UNCHAINED Watch ↗

2018

06.25 Some Simple Economics of the Blockchain Some Simple Economics of the Blockchain: verification costs and networking costs. MIT SLOAN ALUMNI Watch ↗

2016

09.26 The MIT Digital Currency Experiment The MIT Digital Currency Experiment: giving every MIT undergraduate access to Bitcoin in 2014. MIT SLOAN ALUMNI Watch ↗

Archive — talks, panels & earlier appearances

2026 Libra, Stablecoins, and the Battle Between Open and Closed THE FUTURE OF FINANCE IS OPEN

2025 Christian Catalini, Co-Founder of Lightspark BLUECHIP DIALOGUES

2025 How to Build Stablecoins on Bitcoin with Spark L2 STABLEDASH

2025 A Bitcoin and Stablecoin Play for the United States BITCOIN POLICY INSTITUTE

2024 Nashville Tapes: Christian Catalini GALAXY

2024 EP11 with Christian Catalini BLOCKCHAIN SCHOLARS PODCAST

2024 Building on Bitcoin Lightning Network and Lessons from Libra FINTECH NEXUS

2022 How Crypto, Stablecoins, CBDCs and Web3 Will Reshape Competition CENTER ON FRONTIERS OF COMPUTING STUDIES

2022 The Future of Fintech: DeFi, NFTs, Smart Contracts, Web3 PHILADELPHIA FED

2022 Stablecoins and Their Role in the Financial System OMFIF DMI SYMPOSIUM

2021 From Cryptocurrencies, Stablecoins and Diem to CBDCs CENTER FOR GAME THEORY, STONY BROOK

2021 From Cryptocurrencies, Stablecoins and Diem to CBDCs LUOHAN ACADEMY

2021 From Cryptocurrencies, Stablecoins and Diem to CBDCs OMFIF

2021 Facebook-backed Diem taking a 'phased approach' to launch CNBC INTERNATIONAL

2020 Bitcoin and Blockchain — A New Backbone for Human Trust TALK

2020 Cryptocurrencies and Central Bank Digital Currencies PHILADELPHIA FED

2020 Economics of Libra 2.0 CESC 2020

2019 Economics of Libra SAN FRANCISCO BLOCKCHAIN WEEK

2018 Initial Coin Offerings: The Rise of Crypto Capitalism THE ENTREPRENEUR FORUM

2018 MIT Professor Answers Questions About Blockchain SCRIPPS NEWS

2016 Seeding the S-Curve (with Catherine Tucker) HBS DIGITAL INITIATIVE

2016 The Value of Negative Citations MIT SLOAN

2015 Syndicates Are the Killer App of Crowdfunding MIT SLOAN

Press & speaking

Research featured in Nature, Science, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, WIRED, and Bloomberg. Invited talks at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury, the World Bank, and the IMF.

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