Happy Friday everyone. I spent yesterday at Future of Finance in New York, a one-day event where Fortune brought together big names from traditional finance like BlackRock and Apollo, and newer players like PayPal and Robinhood. At the day's crypto panel—which featured Coinbase, Grayscale, and Ripple—I was struck by how much the companies' executives came across as part of the finance industry rather than, as has been the case in years past, fringe challengers. The most remarkable moment when it came to crypto, however, was our dinner keynote featuring Andrew Yang and Anthony "the Mooch" Scaramucci.
Both men have walked in the highest corridors of U.S. political power. Yang was a major candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate primary, while Scaramucci served a brief but memorable stint in the White House as Donald Trump's communications director. Since then, both have become strong proponents of crypto. Yang shared his quirky but compelling vision that entails using blockchain as part of a larger time-bank system that would compensate Americans for a wide variety of labor such as childcare that is currently unpaid—a system he says will become essential at a time when AI is poised to eliminate millions of jobs.
