#03 - Vinay Gupta - History of Money, Foundations of Crypto and Applications for Emerging Markets

CEO at Mattereum, Vinay Gupta (@leashless), the man who lead the launch of the world's second-biggest cryptocurrency Ethereum at its outset, joins us for a very special third episode on the Innovation Civilization Podcast. We cover the history of money starting from ancient humans to today, the fundamental tech and thesis of crypto along with what emerging market policymakers & citizens can do to leverage this foundational technology. We are also joined by Empasco Partner Artur Safaryan (@asafaryann) and Co-founder Waheed Rahman (@iwaheedo). Here are the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players, you should be able to click the timestamp for the episode.  (00:00) - Introduction (02:36) - Vinay's story on being one of the early adopters of cryptocurrencies (03:57) - What is a smart contract? (04:50) - Origins and use of money (09:42) - Characteristics of money (11:32) - Digitization of money (14:10) - Problems with paper money (16:27) - Who is/are Satoshi Nakamoto? (19:18) - What is cryptocurrency? (22:32) - Is cryptocurrency considered as money? (28:06) - Where are we on the timeline with respect to the radical changes brought about by cryptocurrencies?  (30:46) - What are the missing components for the large-scale adoption of cryptocurrencies? (38:10) - Is crypto here to make you rich?  (39:11) - Benefits of cyptocurrency (44:13) - What enabled the rise of cryptocurrencies? (47:04) - How can governments in emerging markets leverage cryptocurrency for policymaking and state development? (58:56 ) - How blockchain is currently used in the charity space?  (61:55) - What should individuals in developing nations do to get into the crypto space?  (68:52) - Future of blockchain technology (71:42) - Outro