Digital Economies/Money
A Trust Fund for Everyone to Defuse the Stablecoin Time Bomb – Project Syndicate
, 12/07/2025
ATHENS – Margaret Thatcher famously quipped that the problem with socialists is that, eventually, they run out of other people’s money. But what happens when bankers run out of other people’s money, as seems likely to happen soon? Either we end up with another calamitous financial meltdown or we innovate to serve the public interest […]
The stablecoin time bomb hidden in Trump’s GENIUS act: Prepare for the next financial meltdown – UNHERD, 19 JUNE 2025
, 25/06/2025
Francisco Goya’s etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters was an artist’s stern warning of the hideous forces unleashed in the mind when reason lowers its guard. Today, stablecoins are the gruesome forces being released into the global economy as President Trump’s crypto dreams, unchecked by reason, morphed into the GENIUS Act. Stablecoins are the […]
The Argentinian President’s crypto scam exploited the dangerous illusion of apolitical money
, 21/02/2025
On Friday 14th February, President Milei of Argentina tweeted about the $LIBRA coin, encouraging his followers to buy it on the grounds that it would “help fund small businesses and start-ups”. As if that weren’t enough, he shared a link for people to buy it online. Naturally, within a few hours, $LIBRA’s price shot up. […]
Cory Doctorow reviews my TECHNOFEUDALISM for truthdig
, 16/10/2023
Socialists have been hotly anticipating the end of capitalism since at least 1848, when Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto – but the Manifesto also reminds us that capitalism is only too happy to reinvent itself during its crises, coming back in new forms, over and over again. Now, in Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis – the “libertarian Marxist” former finance […]
Time to Blow Up the Banking System – Project Syndicate, March 2023
, 09/04/2023
The banking system we take for granted is unfixable. The good news is that we no longer need to rely on any private, rent-seeking, socially destabilizing network of banks, at least not the way we have so far. This time the banking crisis is different. It is, in fact, worse than in 2007/8 when we […]
The Techno-Feudal Method to Musk’s Twitter Madness – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 06/12/2022
Immediately after taking over Twitter and pronouncing himself Chief Twit, Elon Musk affirmed his commitment to safeguarding the platform as the “public square” where anything and everything is debated. It was a smart tactic, because it successfully diverted the public’s attention from what Musk is really up to. ATHENS – Elon Musk had good reasons […]
How the West poisoned its money – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 10/10/2022
ATHENS – Capitalism conquered the world by commodifying almost everything that had a value but not a price, thus driving a sharp wedge between values and prices. It did the same to money. The exchange value of money always reflected people’s readiness to hand over valuable things for given sums of cash. But, under capitalism, […]
Dangerous fantasy: Gold, Bitcoin won’t help you find freedom outside government – Interviewed on Kitco NEWS
, 06/06/2022
Central banks should issue their own democratically controlled crypto, not bypassed by Bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies” I told David Lin, Anchor and Producer at Kitco News; a service catering largely to the crypto community who (as you will see in the comments) cannot stand my rejection of their collective fantasy that crypto currencies will liberate us from […]
Discussing Crypto, the Left & Technofeudalism with Evgeny Morozov – CRYPTO SYLLABUS long interview
, 23/04/2022
Rare is the person who could expertly comment – in a single interview! – on the rise of NFTs and their origins in the virtual worlds of gaming, the logic of the emerging regime of techno-feudalism, and the folly of El Salvador’s Bitcoin-heavy negotiating tactics with the IMF. Luckily, we have found this person in […]
The causes of inflation and what to do about it – Keynote at Banking Conference, Sofia 2 DEC 2021
, 26/01/2022
Invited by the Bulgarian Central Bank’s Deputy Governor, here is a keynote I delivered in Sofia, on 2nd December 2021, in which I offer a historical explanation of the nature and causes of our current inflation – as well as a proposed policy response that would help (but which vested interests are impeding).
What is money, really? And why Bitcoin is not the answer (even if blockchain is brilliant & potentially helpful in democratising money)
, 02/08/2021
Recently, I argued that a central bank cryptocurrency can be a useful tool in the struggle to democratise money. Such a tool is, of course, not enough. The main task in democratising money is first to democratise the central bank – before deploying useful instruments like a central bank cryptocurrency. As many readers (correctly) pointed […]
A central bank cryptocurrency to democratise money – Project Syndicate & Jordan Times
, 02/08/2021
The history of money has been the history of the struggles to control the payment system and the money tree. Today, with control over both resting in the hands of bankers, central banks’ efforts to boost business end up amplifying inequality while failing to address either economic stagnation or the looming climate disaster. The time […]
A free Central Bank account for all would be a good start for a revamped monetary system – WIRED
, 27/11/2020
Imagine that the Bank of England were to create a free bank account for everyone. Overnight, it would be far better placed to regulate the money supply in the public interest. Moreover, to stay in business, commercial banks would have to seriously raise their game. In times of trouble, such as the current pandemic, the […]
Why Bitcoin is not a socialist’s ally – Reply to Ben Arc
, 27/07/2020
On 15th July, Ben Arc published in Bitcoin Magazine an open letter addressed to me in a bid to convince me that I should re-assess my rejection of Bitcoin as a force for good; as a bulwark for democratising capitalism and paving the ground for socialism. Here is my reply: Dear Ben Arc, Thank you […]
Bitcoin, Blockchain and the Future of Europe – Interviewed by Tom Upchurch for WIRED
, 25/12/2017
In an exclusive interview with WIRED, Yanis Varoufakis discusses Bitcoin’s bubble, the fantasy of apolitical money and the opportunities for the blockchain to reform Europe. By TOM UPCHURCH Saturday 23 December 2017 When I first met Yanis Varoufakis in the summer of 2014, he was a highly respected but relatively obscure economist. Back then, the price […]
Socialising androids – Two Project Syndicate op-eds & one Guardian commentary
, 14/03/2017
Click here for my Project Syndicate op-ed in which I reply to Bill Gates’ proposal for a tax on robots, counter-proposing the idea first canvassed here of a universal basic dividend from a public share trust fund. See also this commentary in The Guardian.
The Politics of Negative Interest Rates – Project Syndicate op-ed
, 23/08/2016
ATHENS – Objects of desire come at a cost. Only bad things, like toxic waste, have a negative price, the equivalent of a fee payable to anyone willing to make them disappear. Does this mean that negative interest rates embody a new perspective on money – that it has gone “bad”? [To read on, click […]
Addressing Google staff on digital money & politics
, 03/05/2016
On 22nd April I had the pleasure of addressing Google staff on money, money’s digital future but also on the dangerous fantasy of apolitical money.
In conversation with John Nash Jnr on Ideal Money
, 02/06/2015
A conversation I was privileged to have with John Nash in June 2000 is posted below as a small tribute to a great man. (The conversation was motivated by a talk John Nash Jr gave in Athens in 2000 entitled IDEAL MONEY. The text of the conversation below was published in 2001 as a chapter in […]
MODERN MONEY: AESTHETICS AFTER THE GOLD STANDARD, UC Berkeley, Friday 7th November 2014
, 04/11/2014
An Academic Conference, sponsored by the Department of History of Art, University of California, Berkeley, November 6–7, 2014 Featured Speaker: Yanis Varoufakis Featured Artist: Danae Stratou Contact sferguson at usf.edu and jordanrose at berkeley.edu for more information. (The image is Andy Warhol’s 200 One Dollar Bills, 1962)
Economic lessons from video game communities – Le Monde
, 15/06/2014
Le Monde featured this piece on my research of social economies that emerge in video game communities. Readers may profit from reading the Reason interview on which it was based – and this recent keynote I delivered at the 2014 CFA Institute’s Conference in Seattle. Ce que les jeux vidéo nous apprennent de l’économie
The Metaphysics of Money – Guest post by Paul Tyson
, 14/06/2014
Recently I was at a coffee shop, and to test a metaphysical hunch I asked a few of my fellow caffeinated confreres this question: “What is money?” They all gave answers along the following lines. Money is an arbitrary symbol of exchange value that we just make up in order to facilitate trade and investment. […]