Christian Catalini (catalini)

Christian Catalini

Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Lightspark. Founder MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab. Previously: Co-Creator of ≋ Diem / Libra.

111 Followers

Recent casts

Several people have asked why I don’t see dollarization as a strong use case for stablecoins. While it’s currently driving adoption, and the idea of stablecoins reinforcing dollar dominance is appealing, the concept is fundamentally flawed. First, countries have the ability to make the widespread use of stablecoins very hard for consumers, and they will do so if any player gains significant scale. The reason this hasn’t happened yet is that stablecoins are still a rounding error. Libra was seen as a threat from the start due to its potential scale, and any stablecoin that reaches a similar level of regulatory attention will face the same treatment. Second, if you play this out, dollarization is a bug, not a feature. It will lead to new capital controls and won't help USD dominance. The first adopters will be the small economies facing hyperinflation—precisely the ones US Treasury is concerned about destabilizing.

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Crypto Policy Needs to Empower Builders, Not Speculators— Crypto Policy Needs to Empower Builders, Not Speculators — If the United States is to lead in crypto and AI, it needs clear rules that recognize the value these innovations can bring to the economy. Unfortunately, neither presidential candidate seems to understand this. The cryptocurrency industry is going all in on November’s US presidential election. But for all the investment it remains unclear how either candidate would approach the issue and prioritize builders over speculators. To establish the US as a leader in this strategic sector, the next administration must first replace the current lineup of hostile financial regulators, led by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler, who has consistently rejected meaningful dialogue with the industry.

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1/ Startups are vessels traveling through uncertainty. PG’s “founder mode” is about fighting information degradation. This means not hiring people who have perfected managing up—much of big tech selects for this!—but have terrible judgment, ideas or ability to drive results.

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Top casts

1/ Imagine a world where you can send and receive messages irrespective of the messaging app you use. Same with sending and receiving money, reading updates from your social or news feed, finding the right product or service, or interacting with an AI agent.

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Frames are the type of innovation that is hard for incumbents to replicate. Permissionless creativity at its best.

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It's like the 90s: stablecoin issuers are Netscape, deposit tokens are Internet Explorer. But this time regulators want to make sure you won't be able to run anything that doesn't come bundled with Windows...🤔

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Onchain profile

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