CryptoDad Shows why the Future of Money Is Digital

Former CFTC Chair Chris Giancarlo on modernizing global finance

Ric Edelman: It's Friday, June 7th. On today's show, free money for children. Plus, a conversation with the honorable Chris Giancarlo, former Chair of the CFTC on the Digital Dollar Project. Let me tell you about the Harlem Children's Zone, a nonprofit group in New York City. They've launched a first of its kind program. They're giving $10,000 grants to thousands of children in Harlem charter schools and the kids get the money when they turn 25. All told, they've raised $300 million. They hope to expand this program to 10 other cities. Professional money managers will manage the assets. They hope to earn 5% a year. By age 25, each account should be about $26,000.  

The median family income for people in this area is $18,000 a year, far below the poverty line. To get the money, the kids are going to have to graduate both high school and college. They will also have to complete financial literacy courses. Eventually, the program will fund 10,000 students across the country, each one of them getting $10,000 in cash. 

The kids are going to be restricted on how they can spend the money. They'll be able to use it only for wealth building purposes, like a down payment on a home, or continuing ed, or to start a business. A board will review their proposals. The money is coming from donors who are mostly billionaires, including hedge fund manager, Stanley Druckenmiller, Wall Street titan, Keith Meister, and Ken Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot.  

Druckenmiller says he's willing to manage the money for free. And if he does, I bet those kids are going to get a lot more than 5% a year. 10% or 12% is more like it. That means those kids could end up with 50 grand a piece, not just 26 grand. Pretty darn exciting. I'm happy to say that this program, although a far greater scale than anything I could possibly do, is fairly similar to what Jean and I are doing at Rowan University. We've established there the Edelman Scholars Program, and every year we fully fund college for six Rowan students. When I say fully fund, I mean fully fund. We not only pay their tuition, room, and board, they also get an annual stipend to cover all of their ancillary expenses. 

And then, when they graduate in four years, we give them another $17,000 in cash to help them get started in their new post college life. We're really excited about the Edelman Scholars program, and we hope that that will spur similar thinking across the country at schools elsewhere, where they all have able donors to support similar programs. And that's why we're so excited about what's happening at the Harlem Children's Zone. This is pretty darn exciting. And I hope that this spurs others to think of similar ways to help America's youth.  

Coming up next, a conversation with the honorable Chris Giancarlo, former Chair of the CFTC on the Digital Dollar Project. 

----- 

Ric Edelman: You're listening to The Truth About Your Future. I'm Ric Edelman, and I'm really excited to be bringing onto the program with us right now, the honorable Christopher Giancarlo. Chris is the former Chair of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He's now senior counsel to the international law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher. And he's considered one of the most influential individuals in financial regulation. Chris was a member of the US Financial Stability Oversight Committee, the president's working group on financial markets and the executive board of the International Organization of Securities Commissions. And most fun of all, Chris Giancarlo is also known as CryptoDad. In fact, that's the title of his book, CryptoDad: The Fight for the Future of Money, and he's co-founder and Executive Chairman of The Digital Dollar Project, which is why I've asked him to join us on the show here today. In fact, the President of France once appointed the Chairman to the rank of Chevalier in the National Order of Merit in recognition of his expertise in crypto finance. That's what we want to talk about today. The future of value, payments and money and how digital networks are impacting all of this. So, Mr. Chairman, it's a pleasure to have you joining us on the podcast today.  

Chris Giancarlo: Ric, thank you so much. You know, as they say in sports radio, long time listener, first time caller, it's great to be with you today. 

Ric Edelman: It really is. And I'm a big fan of your book, CryptoDad. Why did you write that? And the subtitle, The Fight for the Future of Money, is there a fight going on? 

Chris Giancarlo: There is a fight going on. It's a fight that's taking place around the globe, and we here in the States have been somewhat insulated for it, but it's time we end that isolation and wake up to it. Because if we don't, if the United States doesn't get involved, doesn't assure our open society values, the closed societies, the worlds are going to win that fight and make sure that the future of money is one that we're very unaccustomed to a future of surveillance, a future of censorship and a future of control. So yes, indeed, there is a fight going on.  

Ric Edelman: Well, give us a little more concrete examples of the nature of this fight. Fight regarding what exactly?  

Chris Giancarlo: So, you know, we're in a new phase of the internet. The first phase of the internet is known as the internet of information. And when that phase began 30 years ago. Transitioning us from using the postal service to communicate to using email and text messaging and then be able to gain not only information on the web, but use the web for commercial activities. That wave of the internet that internet of information was one that the United States was front and center in. Not only were you front and center in developing the core software protocols like HTML and others that are the methodology by which this communication network operates, but we are front and center in making sure the values of free society prevail. It was the United States, along with the other world democracies, but really led by the United States, that made sure that the internet that we know is one that is an open architecture. It's one that closed societies of the world, China and others, are not able to condition and control for their own purpose. So at least it's difficult for them to do it. And most of the world has access to the open internet that the United States led. Well, we're now going into another wave of the internet. And at this time, the internet is allowing us to do to money, and finance and banking, what it's already done to social interaction, to information gathering, to ecommerce, and that is use the internet as the architecture for how we store value, how we record who has value and who is transferring value to them. Now value can be simple, it can be money, but it can also be ownership interests and things like a home or an automobile. So all things of value, stock certificates, debt instruments, titles to ownership can be record on this new methodology, the internet, as opposed to the way we've done it for the last 400 years in human history, and that is recording value on the balance sheets of 7,000 or so financial institutions. If you stop to think about it, it is odd that everything I've managed to save for retirement is not actually stacks of hundred dollar bills in Fidelity's vault. It's an IOU, and an IOU from a commercial entity that I hope will be there when I eventually retire. But as we've seen with three or four banks just in the last 18 months, they may not be there. And with it goes people's retirement savings, but for government insurance. What this internet of value says is let's record that value on something that has never gone down in its 30 years. And that's the internet and with an immutable record of who has what. Now, I know that sounds far off, but 20 years ago, ecommerce seemed far off. And today, it's very much part of our world. That's why I call it the fight for the future of money. In the future of money, we will record value on these systems. And things like bitcoin and Ethereum and stablecoins are just means of recording it. And I'll end with this point, Ric, before turning to your next point, but right now, the standards, the global standards are being set for how this system of that, how these internet systems of value are being set. And unlike 30 years ago, when the United States led that effort to make sure those systems of information were free for democracy. Today, the United States is absent at the global standard setting. Who is present is China, and they want to make sure that the standards for how these systems work are ones that are safe for surveillance, safe for censorship and safe for control. And what we do with the digital dollar project is advocate that the United States take a leadership role in making sure that the standards for the internet of value are the same ones of the internet of information. Ones that are safe for democracy and for freedom and for human liberty.  

Ric Edelman: And so it sounds to me as though you're describing two different fights going on simultaneously. The first is within the financial services industry itself. The paper-based protocol where we record everything. Just think back to Ebenezer Scrooge, when he was writing down in a ledger, the transactions of his enterprise versus electronic record keeping so you've got the institutions that don't want to go into the 21st century. They like to do business their old way where they had control over those pen and paper ledgers. But there's also a second fight going on between frankly the democracies of the world led by the United States and the totalitarian governments. China and Russia, Iran, North Korea, most predominantly, as they are seeking to impute their currency on the world where they can exact control, because isn't that the big fear everybody has? If you put it on the internet, I lose privacy, I lose control. And isn't that what has got some people freaked out about the use of the internet for money?  

Chris Giancarlo: Absolutely, Ric. So there's so much in there to unpack. So you're absolutely right that the existing system, let's call it an account based system of recording value. And those accounts don't necessarily speak to one another. My retirement account at Fidelity is not necessarily known by Bank of America, where I do my checking account. There's no interaction between those. And so there's no global network of where I've recorded value. The notion of an internet based system of accounts is that it will be recorded on an immutable, registry. And what's so attractive about that, before we get to what's frightening about that, but what's attractive is that is, I have been direct interaction with my value in the same way I've direct interaction with the internet now for information without having to say, mother, may I...I know it's 5pm you're about to shut the doors, but can I please get a hundred dollars out of the bank? We live in banker's hours. We live with a degree of intermediation between us and our things of value. If I want to get the title to my automobile, I've got to go down to the county registry during the hours they're open and God forbid, the county clerk is at lunch, I've got to wait till he comes back from lunch or she comes back from lunch to get access to my own item of value that title to my automobile. So on and so forth. We live in a system where our value is in a sense behind the walls of an institution. It may be a commercial institution, maybe a government institution, but it's not something that's accessible to me 24/7, 365. And if I want to move something, moving the title of my automobile from New Jersey to California or moving my money from New York to London is a big deal. And it costs a lot of money to do it. In an internet world, it's available to be 24/7. It transcends place because I can move it around the world at the swipe of a mouse. And with smart contracts, I might even be able to move it in time forward to my as yet unborn grandchildren by programming that into my money. So the opportunities of an internet based as opposed to an account based system of value is very exciting. It also presents a lot of challenges, but not insurmountable challenges. With bitcoin, for example, that's an example of a pseudonymous system where one's identity is not revealed when transactions are done. And there's a lot of experimentation already with different technologies that would allow us to do digital currency in a way that protects identity, that would allow us to use the internet for systems of value that protect identity. Ric, you and I could spend an hour talking about those systems, and I don't want to take too much time. Just take it from me having studied this for the last decade. We can get over the issue of privacy. We can balance privacy with law enforcement in this new system of money if the United States assumes a leadership role. If we don't, those players who are at the global stage want to make sure that this new system of money is one that gives government actors or commercial actors full insight into what people are doing with their money. That doesn't fit with our Democratic ideals. It doesn't fit with our constitutional rights. And so I see this new future, I call it the fight for the future of money is both one that could empower us as citizens to have a more direct relationship with our things of value with our retirement money with our checking money with our everyday things of value, but it's also one that could turn this into a new type of serfdom with governments and big tech companies having control of every transaction we make. The difference is in the balance right now, and the opportunity for the United States to step forward as we did 30 years ago to step forward once again and show leadership is now it's right in front of us now. And I think we and your listeners have to make sure that leadership is provided in the way that we know how to do when we set our mind to doing it. 

Ric Edelman: You know, it's interesting that you raise the notion of tech companies, not just governments. When I gave you my list of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, I guess I probably should have included on that list, theoretically at least, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.  

Chris Giancarlo: Absolutely. There's a new product on the scene called a stablecoin. It's basically a cryptocurrency backed by reserves of US treasuries, but it could be backed by commodities like oil or even diamonds. And they provide this type of 24/7 access, all those benefits that I talked about. And I, for one, am very excited about stablecoin development, but there is no promises by the stablecoin operators to protect anybody's privacy. In fact, if anything, the data opportunity for them is enormous, and there is no laws on the books that determine how they use that data. And just as we've seen in social media where government tells social media companies, what conversations can be had online and which ones cannot. We can envision a world where government says to stablecoin operators, hey, we're going to give you a license to conduct your stablecoin activity, but don't you dare allow people to, you name it, buy ammunition, support right to life, support Planned Parenthood, whatever the hot issue of the day could become a basis for government to tell stablecoin operators, what transactions to allow what transactions not to allow. We live in a free market economy. We have these wonderful freedoms promised by our constitutional freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion. But in a free market system, those freedoms are expressed financially, right? Freedom of speech is what publications do we subscribe to? Freedom of assembly is what organizations do we pay dues to become members of? Freedom of religion, what churches and synagogues do we tithe or contribute to? Well, if a big tech company could suddenly wake up one day and say, you know what? We don't want you being a member of that organization. We won't allow your money to be used for that. We won't allow you to subscribe to this publication. Then what's happened to our First Amendment freedoms? And besides our First Amendment freedoms only apply to government restrictions. Private companies can restrict them all they want. So again, we are truly in a fight for not only a future of money, a fight for the future of freedom. If we don't get these values. I'd like to talk about the value of digital money versus the values. The values may become the most important element of this new digital architecture of finance. If we get the values right the United States can enjoy another three centuries, or at least three generations of reserve currency status for our currency. But if we get the values wrong, I think people will be attracted to go elsewhere. So getting the values right in this new digital internet of value is critically important.  

Ric Edelman: And that's the key phrase, isn't it? They'll go elsewhere. And at the moment, the elsewhere is the Chinese digital currency, which is ahead of us. So talk about what the Chinese are doing and the risk that that poses for us and for democracy worldwide.  

Chris Giancarlo: Well, we've already seen that modern society really values conveniences in their activities, right? We've already seen that people are willing to give up lots of data about themselves for the convenience of ecommerce. They're willing to give up a lot of value for themselves for the convenience of being able to transmit messages and photos and images on TikTok or images on Facebook. If a society with very different values than us nevertheless introduces a currency with tremendous conveniences, conveniences of programmability, ability to hook smart contracts up to direct money, conveniences of 24/7 global access, we could see an analog dollar. The dollar remains an analog paper instrument in a world with our economic, not only economic competitors, but our economic adversaries deploy a digital currency with those conveniences. We could see the dollar's value proposition wane. It's an interesting historical case. The reason why our dollar is called the dollar is because, three centuries ago we modeled it on a different currency that was the most technologically advanced of its time, and that was the Spanish dollar. The Spanish dollar was minted using new world silver, which was more consistently pure than old world silver, meaning it was more fungible. One Spanish dollar was the same as another Spanish dollar, but it also was minted in a way that had eight equal pieces. Known as pieces of eight, making it much easier to use and change. In fact, we modeled the dollar on it, not only with its name, but our own dollar is originally dividable to eight pieces, half dollars, quarter dollars, and what we used to call bits. Two bits was 12 cents. So the dollar was dividable into eight as well. We modeled it on the most technologically advanced instrument of its time. When now we're in a new century. China is rolling out a very sophisticated digital yuan that is fractionable, it's readily available 24/7, and we're sitting back in the United States saying, well, there's nothing wrong with what we've got. We sound a lot like Spain three centuries ago, not modernizing ahead with the US dollar surpassed the Spanish dollar. We need to do the same thing. We need to move with the times and not be afraid to move with the times. We're Americans, after all. We can get this right, we can get the privacy issue right, but we do need to modernize our currency at a time when our economic adversaries are modernizing theirs, and we need to counter their sophistication, but also their coupling, their sophistication. With an absolute surveillance and censorship tool, we need to match the sophistication, but do it on our system of values, our respect for human liberty, our respect for human privacy.  

Ric Edelman: You recently spoke at the Bretton Woods Committee, where you said that it's clear that digital currency is coming and coming fast. You also had a meeting at CIA headquarters on this similar topic. Why would the CIA be interested in this particularly and talk more broadly about the implication of the fact that these digital currencies are coming quickly?  

Chris Giancarlo: Well, first of all, the existing dollar based system has given the United States enormous advantages, not just economically, but also in terms of being able to use soft power around the world. The ability to sanction countries for activities that are considered hostile to our view of the world has been an enormous advantage to the United States and to those who may be critical of it. It's certainly, a less lethal use of statecraft than say the alternative, which is warfare. So we have drawn enormous benefit from that as countries move off a dollar based banking system to a digital currency based system, our range of sanction activity will be lessened. And so, therefore, our law enforcement agencies are very concerned about that. Secondly, however, they're also very aware that digital systems of value create records of activities. They can be done anonymously, but they still create records of activities, which can be a boon for law enforcement in the world. So American law enforcement and foreign policy agencies are very aware of the changing global nature, the waning influence that sanctions are going to have in this new, digital internet of value, but also the possibilities for, observation of money laundering of global prostitution rings and human trafficking and others that this new technology would enable. So it's not surprising, I think, that our law enforcement agencies are very interested in following and hopefully, I hope other branches of our US Government, including our financial regulators, move away from conflating financial stability with maintaining the status quo and actually recognize that financial stability actually comes with moving forward and not resisting innovation. 

Ric Edelman: So I imagine this is an explanation of why you wrote in your book that digital money is simply too important to be left to central banks.  

Chris Giancarlo: Yes, it's a slight pun. At the end of World War I, looking back on the carnage of that war, French Premier Clemenceau said, you know what, in hindsight, maybe war is too important to be left to the generals. In other words, maybe the people need to have a say in that. Well, I feel the same way about money. Money is as much a social construct as it is a government construct. Especially fiat money. Without the belief of the people in that piece of paper, it has no value. It's no longer tied to gold. It has no value. And as we think about the future of the dollar, we cannot just leave this to the central bank. And I say that with great respect for our, Federal Reserve and Chairman Powell and others that are there that are very thoughtful. But we need to think about a digital dollar in a holistic fashion. How does it serve humanity? How does it serve the American people? How does it serve the global environment? What is the right balance between, human liberty and the right to privacy, the right to human autonomy? In our economic choices in our financial choices and legitimate needs of law enforcement. There is a legitimate need for law enforcement when it comes to financial transactions. But how do we get that balance right? Historically, we've gotten that balance because we've recognized that people's privacy is supreme unless there's probable cause of law breaking, in which case, law enforcement has to obtain a subpoena in order to get our private information. Sadly, since 9/11, there's been far more data being handed over to government without a subpoena, and that's something we're going to have to, I think, reestablish that balance in the new digital internet of value.  

Ric Edelman: We're talking with Chris Giancarlo. His book is CryptoDad: The Fight for the Future of Money. And he's also co-founder and Executive Chair of the Digital Dollar Project. When you were chair of the CFTC, Chris, you brought the first bitcoin ETF onto the market. It was a bitcoin Futures ETF. That was back in 2021. This year, as you know, of course, the SEC approved spot bitcoin ETFs. Why, in your view, did it take the SEC so long to do this? And what would you say is the significance of the SEC's approval of these products?  

Chris Giancarlo: Well, I would say it's disappointing that it's taken this long. Five years ago, as you noted, we at the CFTC in December of 2017, greenlighted not just the United States first, the world's first regulated market for any type of crypto. And as you mentioned, that was a bitcoin Futures product. We built a regulatory structure around it, it was durable, but it was flexible. And today, five years later, that marketplace is deep. It's liquid. It's transparent. It's well regulated and it's relatively free of fraud and manipulation. Well regulated by one of the world's premier financial regulators, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. So I'm very proud of that. And I think the most salient, characteristic of what we did five years ago is it showed that regulators can engage with crypto and can engage successfully if they have a willingness and a mind to do so. So I say that with some disappointment that it has taken five years for the SEC to wrap their head around, this ETF product. But since it's launched as you know, and I'm sure many of your listeners know, this has been the most successful ETF product in the history of ETF products that the previous record was two years for gold ETFs to reach $10 billion in value. The new bitcoin Future ETF reached that mark in only six weeks. So it's been a remarkably successful product. I think the SEC is learning a lot from the product as we did five years ago when we launched the bitcoin Future. And I think that this will become the jumping off point for the SEC to approve more products. Again, if the leadership is there to do so.  

Ric Edelman: You made the comment earlier that we don't have any laws on the books governing stablecoins. We, same time don't have any laws on the books governing anything about crypto, stablecoins or any other kind of digital asset. It's been a very, contentious issue on Capitol Hill. Most members of Congress want to see something. There has been a very strong effort by members of Congress to encourage Gary Gensler, the Chair of the SEC, to create regulation governing crypto and Gensler has so far refused to do that. One of the big decisions Congress has to make when it does engage with the legislative activities, which we're all expecting next year after the elections, is who's going to be the crypto regulator. The two leading candidates, of course, are either the SEC or the CFTC. Some are arguing for a brand new third regulator to do it. I would assume you being a former Chair of the CFTC, you prefer that the CFTC do this. Make your argument as to which regulator ought to be responsible for overseeing the safety and security of the activities in the crypto community.  

Chris Giancarlo: Okay. Well, I'm going to answer your question, but I kind of come out in an interesting way. You know, our founders of our republic actually believe that a divided government was the best way to ensure maintenance of people's liberty, and that reflected itself in the 20th century, creating two different market regulators, the SEC and the CFTC. And when I was in the private sector for 30 years before I went into government, I always had some hope that perhaps those two agencies would be merged. Well, having served in one of them, I'm really glad they're not. I think it actually matches the founder's belief that by having the two agencies being something of rivals to one another, it's actually made each one of the agencies a little bit better because of that sort of unstated competition that exists between them. I don't believe we would have had a bitcoin Future five years ago if it had been left to the SEC, and I don't think we would have had a bitcoin ETF in January of this year, had not the CFTC gone ahead and led the way. So I think that the two agencies play off each other, and I think that's kind of how our founders like things in this country. So having said that, I will say that building on that, I think that the right way to go forward is the way Congress exactly seems to be crafting their legislation that still hasn't gotten through yet, where there's a zone for the CFTC and there's a zone for the SEC. For those cryptos that are commodity like, meaning that there's not a central enterprise there, like bitcoin, like Ethereum, the CFTC would maintain its oversight for that, which has been now established for half a decade. For those that are enterprise driven, that are really financing instruments to finance an enterprise, the way a security or a debt instrument works, then the SEC would continue its oversight. I think that can be made to work. It's complicated. It's different than the way the rest of the world does it under a unified regulator. But that's the way we've historically rolled in the United States, and we do have the world's largest financial markets by a factor of multiples over any other continental economy in the world. So we must be doing something right with this division between the CFTC and the SEC. And I would think there's no appetite for a third regulator in Washington. So I think with right leadership, we can make the CFTC, SEC divide work. Certainly, I was able to make it work alongside Chairman Jay Clayton when I was, in government, and I think that, once we get through our current state of somewhat resistance to this innovation, and we get back to a traditional American approach of embracing innovation, I think we can make our regulatory structures right, work well. 

Ric Edelman: Are you hopeful that we're going to see such legislation creating these rules of the road in 2025? And how dependent is it going to be on who wins the election?  

Chris Giancarlo: Oh, it's hard. I mean, legislation is hard. I spoke recently to Senator Lummis of Wyoming, who's leading a bill in the Senate, and I speak fairly regularly to former folks who were my oversight committee at the House Ag Committee. They're optimistic of getting something done, but the window's closing. This is an election year. If it's not done by Memorial Day, or at least by 4th of July, it won't get done this year. If there's a change in government, I think there could be a new impetus. But, you know, at the CFTC we were able to create a regime for bitcoin Futures without legislation. I would have preferred legislation. I always asked for legislation, but I think the SEC and the CFTC could move forward if there's a willingness in lieu of legislation, and then hopefully Congress will pass something, but I would really encourage both agencies to not try to resist technology. It's un-American to do so. It's not going to serve us well. We've always embraced innovation and when we've done, we've been able to lead the world. I know this innovation is frightening for some, it's complicated, it's complex, but you know, we're good in this country about breaking down complexity and simplifying it. I think we could dominate this innovation. If we just sort of take the brakes off a little bit and be less afraid.  

Ric Edelman: And that takes us to the final question I had for you, on that point. You're the founder of the Digital Dollar Project. Tell us what it is that that's trying to do and the work behind all your efforts there. 

Chris Giancarlo: So first of all, let me make very clear. The Digital Dollar Project does not exist to advocate for the United States to adopt the digital dollar. What we do exist to do, though, is ask three questions that nobody really seems to be asking. And that is how do we future proof the dollar for this 21st century world, of quantum computing, of artificial intelligence, of blockchains, and of cryptocurrency? How do we preserve the dollar's reserve currency status for more generations to come? And finally, how do we make sure that the future of any form of digital currency that's based on the dollar, whether it be a stablecoin, or whether it be a crypto, or whether it be a central bank digital currency, is one that is consistent with the American values of free trade free speech free enterprise and economic liberty to make the choices that we're all entitled to make and if they're lawful that they should remain our private business and not the business of any big tech company or any big government entity. That's the questions we ask and to do that, we conduct all kinds of roundtables and pilot projects. We put out whitepapers. We've conducted the first ever pilot of how a digital dollar would work in retail uses, the first ever pilot of how it would work in wholesale uses. We're working on a digital dollar bill of rights to reflect that notion money as a social construct. All of our work is publicly available at our website DigitalDollarProject.org and Ric, I invite your listeners to take a look at our website. And if you're interested in learning more, there's a place to do so, and request more information. All of our activity is open to the public. We're doing the work that, we think a democratic society should be doing, and a free people should be doing, to get ready for this digital future. Whatever the format the dollar takes in the future, we intend to have something to say about that.  

Ric Edelman: We have placed into the show notes the links to both CryptoDad.org and DigitalDollarProject.org so you can easily access both of those sites. I strongly encourage you to do so. That's Chris Giancarlo, the CryptoDad, here on The Truth About Your Future. Chris, thank you so much for joining us on the show today.  

Chris Giancarlo: Been my pleasure, Ric. Let's do it again soon.  

Ric Edelman: Look forward to it. 

----- 

Ric Edelman: Hey financial advisors, are you fluent in crypto, blockchain, bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, tokenization – and most importantly, crypto taxation, estate planning, and asset allocation? Take the online course, become Certified in Blockchain and Digital Assets. Thousands of financial professionals in 37 countries have enrolled. Become fluent in crypto so you can help your clients and build your practice. Enroll today and get your CBDA designation. 

----- 

Ric Edelman: On Monday’s show, should you live in a 55+ community? If you like what you’re hearing, be sure to follow and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts – Apple, Spotify, YouTube. And remember, leave a review on Apple podcasts, I read them all! Never miss an episode of The Truth About Your Future. Follow and subscribe on your favorite podcast app. I’ll see you next week.  

----- 

Subscribe to podcast updates: https://form.jotform.com/223614751580152 

Ask Ric: https://www.thetayf.com/pages/ask-ric 

----- 

Links from today’s show: 

Become Certified in Blockchain and Digital Assets: https://dacfp.com/certification/   

Edelman Scholars Program: https://ccca.rowan.edu/current_students/edelmanscholars.html  

Harlem Children's Zone: https://hcz.org/  

CryptoDad website: https://www.chrisgiancarlo.org/  

Digital Dollar Project website: https://digitaldollarproject.org/  

-----  

Follow Ric on social media: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RicEdelman 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ric_edelman/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricedelman/ 

X: https://twitter.com/ricedelman 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RicEdelman 

----- 

Brought to you by: 

Invesco QQQ: https://www.invesco.com/qqq-etf/en/home.html 

Schwab: https://www.schwab.com/ 

Disclosure page: https://www.thetayf.com/pages/sponsorship-disclosure-fee 

-----