The pandemic was the period during which I became fully "orange-pilled" about cryptocurrency and blockchains. I had already had baseline familiarity from working on the Edward Snowden NSA document stories (Snowden is a Bitcoin fan) but seeing the way in which decentralized finance ran circles around Wall Street through Reddit channels sent me down a rabbit hole of curiosity. I binged on books including "The Age of Cryptocurrency" by Michael Casey among many others. I also discovered @balajis.eth podcasts and he was also a great resource in taking the time to chat with me about the technology and becoming someone to bounce ideas around with.

Crypto has a ways to go but as someone who has benefitted immensely from the internet I do believe in the promise of decentralized networks, finance, and organizations. Among journalists I'm a bit of an outlier (though I'm not alone) but I wrote a manifesto summarizing my views on the matter sometime back: https://mazmhussain.substack.com/p/what-bitcoin-and-crypto-are-for

Murtaza wrote about how cryptocurrency solved a problem that wasn’t theoretical for him: how to send money home.

(I almost feel we take that for granted now in the community, as stablecoins work so well, but it’s still a huge win over the legacy system.)

Murtaza's story is a powerful reminder of cryptocurrency's real-world impact. It's incredible to see how stablecoins have transformed the way we send money across borders, often in ways the legacy system couldn't. We might take it for granted now, but it's undeniably a game-changer for so many.