Hello everyone, my name is Dalia D'Agostino, and welcome to FinTech TV.
I'm pleased to welcome J.
Christopher Giancarlo, former chairman of the US Commodity Return, a Futures Trading Commission, co-founder of the Digital Dollar Project, and the man many people call Crypto Dad.
Thank you for joining me.
Great to be with you, Dalia.
A few years ago I started a YouTube channel dedicated to teaching financial literacy to kids.
Now, thanks to the wonderful team at FinTech, I have the chance to interview inspiring business leaders and hear their thoughts on money, the future of finance, and advice for young people starting their financial journey.
Let's begin.
It's unusual for someone to be appointed by two very different presidents, which shows that you know how to get along with everybody and get the work done.
What lessons can can kids take from this, when, for example, dealing with two very different teachers?
Now, there's no question that President Obama and President Trump are very different leaders, and I have the honor of serving under both of them.
What I found, and I found this generally in being in Washington.
Was that I focused on the substance of my of my area of expertise and stayed out of politics.
Um, I found that, uh, my 40 years in the financial service industry.
In the, in what I knew about it could be a great help to their to the leaders as long as I stayed out of politics, I think they pretty much allowed me to get on with the job.
I have focused on the substance of how financial markets worked, how trading markets worked, and stayed out of the political aspects.
Yukofounded the Digital Dollar Project, which compares, which explores what a future version of money could look like.
Most kids my age are used to paying digitally with apps like Apple Pay.
What do you think this project will change even more?
How kids change, how kids pay for things?
Well, the future is going to be very different than the past.
We're, we're going into a digitally networked future, something actually that that the kids of your generation fully understand, whether you're trading game tokens or other things online.
And as we do that we need to prepare the dollar for that.
We need to make sure the dollar is futureproof, that the dollar itself becomes a networked instrument, but we also want to make sure we preserve its status as a reserve currency.
And finally, we want to make sure the dollar continues to represent the values of a free, um, of a free marketplace of a free society.
Values of individual privacy with the right balance for against law enforcement needs and so our work at the digital dollar Project is to focus on that.
I think you're all going to find that the dollar is gonna change dramatically from the physical instrument of paper dollars and coins into a digital instrument and hopefully if we do our work at the digital dollar Project, we'll make sure that it also represents the values of a free society.
You said something about um in-game currencies.
Would you consider that money?
Yes, yes, so, so the, the money, what we think of as money is usually backed by a sovereign backed by a government. uh, it's Uncle Sam.
It, it's, it's George Washington's picture on our money that reflects it's the, it's the, it's issued by our government and reflects the power of our government to make sure that its tax base can support that money.
And as we move into a digital future, there will be corporate forms of digital money, stable coins, but I believe ultimately there will also be government-backed forms of digital money in the form of what's called central bank digital currency, and it's important that that central bank digital currency reflects the values of the society from which it comes.
In the case of a dollar, it must reflect the values of a democratic, free society.
Through your work advising companies on the future of finance and technology, you've seen a lot of exciting and sometimes scary ideas.
What is one exciting thing kids should know about where digital money is going, and what is one thing they should always be careful about?
Well, one thing that's very exciting is I think um money is going in many ways in the same directions as digital photography, you know, you don't remember, but your parents certainly remember when all photographs were based upon film.
And you got a photograph that was a one-off.
You couldn't do much with it other than put it in a photo album, but with digital photography, you could, you could change the background, you could, uh, make adjustments in the photo, but you can send it.
It's, it exists in the cloud.
It's in a networked state.
Well, that's where money is going.
Money is going to become as, as useful as digital photographs are.
You're gonna be able to uh do things with your money.
You're gonna be able to put calculators on it, investment contracts.
You're gonna be able to send it anywhere in the globe in a matter of seconds.
So, but with that utility comes the fear that you'll send it to the wrong place.
You'll send it to the wrong person.
So you're going to need to be cautious with your once you get this higher utility, this greater usefulness of money, you're gonna be, you need to be careful.
That you're not scammed into using that utility, that usefulness for the wrong purposes.
Do you think that because kids are growing up with this new money, do you think they'll be better at accepting these scams?
Absolutely.
You're gonna have 1/6 sense of how you're dealing with things.
The benefit you have is you've grown up in a digitally networked world.
Uh, people of my generation are having to learn this world, but you understand it intuitively from the start.
You earned a reputation as someone who understands both traditional finance and new digital ideas, 1 ft in the old world, 1 ft in the new.
What is one old school money habit that still matters today, even in a world where kids and adults like me only know apps, cards, and digital wallets?
Yeah, so, so while, while the format of money is changing, the same principles that my generation knew and the generation before me knew is, is are principles that you need to know.
Number one, you need to learn to save money.
Every generation needs to learn to save money.
You need to have a rainy day fund at all times.
So when you need to learn to earn money, and that you will do naturally as you grow older, but of that money you earned, you need to learn, and we all need to learn.
We all need to develop the habit of saving some of that money so that it's there when we need it.
Some people call you crypto dad because of your foundational work in digital assets.
If you were giving kids a friendly, simple lesson about crypto, what it is, how it works, and how to think about it, what would you say?
What was the, what's the version you'd want a 13 year old to walk away with?
Well, what I would say is crypto is a lot more than just some new type of, maybe call it play money or just some sort of funky new digital asset class.
It's really a whole new architecture of finance itself.
Here we are at the New York Stock Exchange.
This is built upon the architecture of things of value being recorded on a balance sheet of a corporation.
In the future, money is going to be recorded on digital networks in the cloud and elsewhere, and so the format of money is changing and yet still the basics of how to use your money to empower yourself and not use it for things that are fleeting, but things that are lasting is one of the core concepts that I think every generation needs to learn.
Um, that's the end of my question, but I did wanna ask you, do you have anything you're working on?
Um, I'm working on a number of things right now.
Um, most importantly, I'm working on, um, on getting my band back together so we can do some work, uh, play.
We'll be doing some things this summer.
So that's a lot of fun, you know, everybody's develops hobbies and you need those hobbies in life, and for me it's playing music.
Hm.
Well, um, that's the end of our questions.
Thank you so much for joining us, and I hope you and everyone watching has a great day.
Thank you so much.
