Why Money Is Falling Behind the Times

On this week’s episode of Merryn Talks Money, investment and macroeconomic analyst Lyn Alden joins Merryn Somerset Webb to explore the history and future of money. Discussing her book Broken Money: Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make it Better, Alden argues that our present monetary system has fallen behind technological developments. “When you look at the long tail of most currencies, which is actually where most people in the world live, they experience rapid currency debasement,” says Alden.

Which, according to Alden, is why we shouldn’t be too quick to discount cryptocurrencies. “Things like Bitcoin or stablecoins allow people in all these different jurisdictions to say, well, instead of my local, rapidly debasing currency that my wages and my savings are denominated in, I can go around that system and I can say, ‘I want dollars from this jurisdiction or I want this decentralized.’”