Neha Narula, Anders Brownworth, and Daniel Aronoff on Understanding Stablecoins in the GENIUS Era
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
Release Date: 03/16/2026
Stephan Luck on What History can Teach Us about Financial Stability
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Stephan Luck is a Financial Research Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In Stephan’s first appearance on the show, he discusses how the 2008 Great Financial Crisis shaped his career, how he and his coauthors leverage LLMs to comb through massive amounts of historical data, what this data can teach us about responding to bank failures, what people get wrong when they try and make historical analogies to the GENIUS era, the lessons we can learn from the German hyperinflation, and much more. Watch on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the for this week’s episode, now...
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Barry Eichengreen on the History of Global Currencies
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
Barry Eichengreen is well known author, economist, and economic historian from the University of California, Berkeley. In Barry’s first appearance on the show he discusses a career in untangling the world’s monetary history, the origins of his new book Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto, the first uses on currencies in the 7th Century BC, the unexpected start of the dollar, how we landed on the central bank model, the dollar’s rise to global reserve currency, which if any currencies as poised to take on the dollar, and much more. Watch on our new YouTube...
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Yesha Yadav, Chris Odinet, and Andrea Tosato on the Moneyness of Stablecoins
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Jeffrey Lacker on What a New Fed Treasury Accord Might Look Like
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
Jeffrey Lacker is the former president of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank and is a senior affiliated scholar at the Mercatus Center. Jeff returns to the show to discuss the history of the Fed Treasury Accord, the state of fiscal dominance, his five proposals for a new Fed Treasury Accord, his calls for reform around the discount window, a memorial to his friend and colleague Charlie Plosser, and much more. Watch on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on May 20th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David on X: ...
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Nik Bhatia on Bitcoin and the Case for Using Stablecoins for Statecraft
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
Nik Bhatia is an author of two economics books, a visiting fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute and the founder of The Bitcoin Layer. In Nik’s first appearance on the podcast, he discusses his niche in the Bitcoin community, the role of Bitcoin as a transaction asset, the threat or lack thereof of quantum computing on Bitcoin, his issues with the current eurodollar market, his new proposal to use stablecoins as statecraft, and much more. Watch on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on May 5th, 2026 Subscribe to...
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Bryan Cutsinger, Peter Ireland, and Will Luther on Lessons Learned from the Fed Framework Review
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
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Brendan Greeley on the 500 Year History of the Dollar
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
Brendan Greeley is a veteran journalist from the Financial Times and current PhD student at Princeton studying monetary history. In Brendan’s first appearance on the show, he discusses why he went for a PhD after being a journalist for 20 years, why the dollar’s history goes far beyond America’s founding, when America actually achieved a currency union, the untold origins of the dollar, how Herbert and Lou Hoover’s date nights played a role in the history of the dollar, the crucial importance of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz in understanding the dollar’s history, the happy...
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David Zaring on Skinny Charters and the Future of Banking
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
David Zaring is legal scholar and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In David’s first appearance on the show, he discusses the role the Great Financial Crisis played in FinReg scholarship, how he came up with the term “skinny” in the new skinny Fed master accounts, the tumultuous road of Custodia vs. the Fed, a reimagined way to look at federal bank charters, whether commerce and banking are actually still separate, Fed independence and how it functions in a more corporatist model, and much more. Watch on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the for this week’s...
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Bill Beach on the Future of United States’ Economic Statistics and Fiscal Position
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
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Tyler Goodspeed on Challenging the Way Economists Look at Recessions
Macro Musings with David Beckworth
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Neha Narula is the director of the Digital Currency Initiative which is based out of the Media Lab at MIT. Anders Brownworth is veteran software engineer in the crypto space and is a Senior Research Advisor at DCI. Daniel Aronoff is Research Affiliate in the MIT Department of Economics and a Collaborator at DCI. Neha, Anders, and Daniel join the show to discuss their work at DCI, the current state of stablecoins, their paper on the hidden plumbing of stablecoins, the basic mechanics of stablecoins, the technical and operational risks of stablecoins, the implications for the treasury market, interoperability between blockchains, and much more.
Check out the transcript for this week’s episode, now with links.
Recorded on February 27th, 2026
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Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:41 - Background of the Group
00:03:11 - Digital Currency Initiative
00:05:36 - State of Stablecoins
00:10:42 - Hidden Plumbing of Stablecoins
00:15:42 - Basic Mechanics of Stablecoins
00:26:07 - Technical and Operational Risks of Stablecoins
00:39:09 - Implications for the Treasury Market
00:48:18 - Business Model of Stablecoins
00:49:24 - Interoperability Between Blockchains
00:52:53 - What’s the Deal with Tether?
00:56:23 - Outro