When the Referees Play Favorites (Part 2)

The power to regulate is the power to delay.

May 10, 2022

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ABOUT

This episode is sponsored by Nexo.io.

Join “Speaking of Bitcoin” hosts Adam B Levine, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Stephanie Murphy for a look at the recent U.S. bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund approval that has some in the crypto community increasingly optimistic about its potential to revolutionize finance forever!

But should they be?

Ever since the first bitcoin (BTC) spot ETF was rejected by regulatory bodies in 2017, investors have had to watch their investments crumble. The prospects for a successful outcome have seemed bleak. So why do we keep talking about these failed products and why does it seem like everyone is clambering aboard with hope once again as if nothing happened the last time around?

The show tackles a paradoxical situation where a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission tasked with investor protection may actually push consumers into riskier vehicles, before shifting gears towards knowledge-power-confounding "Darth Vader" effect and bipartisan legislation aimed at protecting U.S. investors from volatility risks.

Credits

This episode featured Stephanie Murphy, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Adam B. Levine. It featured music by Jared Rubens and Gurty Beats, with editing by Jonas. Art for this episode was provided by Helen Cramer/Unsplash and was modified by Speaking of Bitcoin.

HOST

Adam B. Levine

Adam B. Levine joined CoinDesk in 2019 as the editor of its new audio and podcasts division. Previously, Adam founded the long-running Let's Talk Bitcoin! talk show with co-hosts Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos.

Finding early success with the show, Adam transformed the podcast's homepage into a full newsdesk and publishing platform, founding the LTB Network in January of 2014 to help broaden the conversation with new and different perspectives. In the Spring of that year, he would go on to launch the first and largest tokenized rewards program for creators and their audience. In what many have called an early influential version of "Steemit"; LTBCOIN, which was awarded to both content creators and members of the audience for participation was distributed until the LTBN was acquired by BTC, Inc. in January of 2017.

With the network launched and growing, in late 2014 Adam turned his attention to the practical challenges of administering the tokenized program and founded Tokenly, Inc. There, he led the development of early tokenized vending machines with Swapbot, tokenized identity solution Tokenpass, e-commerce with TokenMarkets.com and media with Token.fm. Adam owns some BTC, ETH and small positions in a number of other tokens.