Podcasts that help you solve the headline-making puzzle
Shatikanta Das, the RBI governor, issued an unusual warning on Thursday. Cryptocurrencies have no underlying value, not even a tulip, he said, in a reference to a 17th-century speculative bubble. To put this anxiety in context, consider one data point. A few weeks ago, the market value of all cryptocurrencies was around $3 trillion, the ballpark range of India’s annual GDP.
So, are cryptos a gigantic hoax, or is there something more to it? There are a range of crypto podcasts that seek to answer the question. A good place to start would be Economic Lowdown, which explains the idea of money. Without a grasp of this idea, many crypto podcasts can be unintelligible. Money is a medium of exchange accepted – within a country – because an authority – usually, the central bank – says so. Cryptocurrencies are encrypted strings of data. Their integrity is maintained not by one authority but by a peer-to-peer computer network technology called blockchain. That’s just the basics.
So, are cryptos a gigantic hoax, or is there something more to it? There are a range of crypto podcasts that seek to answer the question. A good place to start would be Economic Lowdown, which explains the idea of money. Without a grasp of this idea, many crypto podcasts can be unintelligible. Money is a medium of exchange accepted – within a country – because an authority – usually, the central bank – says so. Cryptocurrencies are encrypted strings of data. Their integrity is maintained not by one authority but by a peer-to-peer computer network technology called blockchain. That’s just the basics.