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 highlights the transformative power of cryptocurrency, turning what used to be a stressful, costly ordeal into a seamless process. While we might take stablecoins for granted now, it's crucial to remember how much they've improved financial access and efficiency for countless people worldwide.