People by WTF

I've said it before I'm a crypto critic. I've never bought a Bitcoin, never held a stable coin, never traded a perp. So I sat down with Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, the company that stores more crypto than anyone else on the planet and asked him to explain the whole thing from scratch, like I was an idiot. What followed was the most patient walkthrough of this industry I've ever been given: what a blockchain actually is, why proof of stake replaced proof of work, how stable coin issuers make money, and why he believes fractional reserve banking the foundation of every bank you've ever used shouldn't be the foundation of anything. I pushed him on where the yield really comes from, why an intermediary deserves my treasury returns, and whether crypto has quietly become the opposite of everything Satoshi wrote in that white paper. I'm still not buying a Bitcoin. But for the first time, I understand why so many people do.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
05:12 Income inequality and making everyone a capitalist
11:15 Inequality's magnitude and AI's concentration problem
17:54 Why AI agents will pay in stablecoins
24:28 The risk and yield economics of stablecoins
31:21 Remittances, a digital rupee and tokenized gold
38:09 Bitcoin and blockchain from first principles
45:25 Mining economics and the Michael Saylor playbook
51:09 How proof of stake secures a network
56:52 Smart contracts and DeFi lending explained
1:01:42 Creating entrepreneurs and India's fear of failure
1:08:16 India's crypto adoption and the leverage wipeout
1:15:56 Banks, stablecoins and the fractional reserve debate
1:22:13 The everything exchange and money as energy
1:27:50 The AI bubble question and open source models
1:34:43 Going to Washington and suing the SEC
1:40:01 The rise of perpetual futures trading
1:45:32 Bitcoin's psychology and fair market data
1:51:35 Base and building the new financial system
1:57:25 Whether Brian would run for president
2:02:14 Sleep, health and advice for obsessive traders
2:08:50 Bitcoin versus gold and remittance opportunities
2:13:34 Agentic commerce, moats and capital formation

#nikhilkamath-Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas
Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast
Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
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Brian Armstrong – CEO of Coinbase
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barmstrong/
X: https://x.com/brian_armstrong
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brian_armstrong/?hl=en

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#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

#nikhilkamath-Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas
Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast
Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/

Brian Armstrong- CEO of Coinbase
LinkedIN- https://www.linkedin.com/in/barmstrong/
X- https://x.com/brian_armstrong
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/brian_armstrong/?hl=en

Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn

Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59

Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th

#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

I sat down with Nikos Christodoulides, the President of Cyprus — and the rare leader who came to politics as a historian first. Cyprus is a country of a million and a half people sitting on the bridge between Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, which makes it one of the most strategically placed nations on earth right now. We got into why he believes the world is sliding back into raw power politics, why the institutions built after World War II no longer reflect reality, why India has to be at the centre of whatever replaces them, and why he thinks war is the easiest mistake a country can make and the hardest to undo. We also talked about democracy under pressure, why he moved from the left to the centre-right over a lifetime, what AI might do to work and governance, and what it actually feels like to wake up every day and carry the weight of a country. He told me it's a very lonely role — and that the only thing that matters is whether history, not tomorrow's headlines, judges you well.

00:00 Introduction
03:07 Being a historian first, a politician second
08:02 Why power politics is returning to the world
12:03 The case for India on the UN Security Council
17:01 How postwar institutions favoured the incumbents
22:23 Whether democracy still delivers economic progress
27:02 Designing a new regional order from India to Europe
34:39 Why interests, not values, reshape alliances
40:53 The only real way to avoid war
42:35 Where he stands on left versus right
46:02 Moving from academia into political reality
47:11 What AI could do to work and democracy
52:08 Thinking about the next generation, not the next election
56:22 What it feels like to hold power
1:03:09 What diplomacy taught him about negotiation
1:07:57 A closing argument for India's leading role

#NikhilKamath – Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas
Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast
Twitter/X: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/

Nikos Christodoulides – President of the Republic of Cyprus
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikos-christodoulides-660b02139/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikoschristodoulides/?hl=en
X: https://x.com/Christodulides

Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn

Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59

Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify
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#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

Most politicians know history. My next guest is a historian who became a president. He runs Cyprus — a million-and-a-half people sitting on the bridge between Europe and the Middle East — and he thinks the world is sliding back into the kind of power politics he spent his academic life studying. We got into why starting a war is easy and finishing one is almost impossible, why he believes India has to lead the next world order, and what it actually feels like to hold power. Full episode drops soon.

#NikhilKamath – Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas
Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast
Twitter/X: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/

Nikos Christodoulides – President of the Republic of Cyprus
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikos-christodoulides-660b02139/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikoschristodoulides/?hl=en
X: https://x.com/Christodulides

Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn

Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59

Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th

#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

I always assumed India was becoming the pharmacy of the world, until this conversation made me sit with the sharper truth that we're the generic pharmacy of the world, and from there we got into whether China really killed our API industry or whether Indians still quietly lead it, why a drug like semaglutide turns into a miracle and a problem the second everyone wants it, the side effects nobody wants to talk about, the ethics of running a prescription-driven business, whether the global enthusiasm around Indian hospitals is actually justified, and why fear might be the single biggest thing holding Indian entrepreneurship back.

#nikhilkamath Co-founder of Zerodha and Gruhas
Host of 'WTF is' & 'People By WTF' Podcast
Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/

Rajeev Juneja-Vice Chairman & Managing Director at Mankind Pharma Ltd
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajeev-juneja-27882a24b/

G.V Prasad Reddy-MD & Co-Chairman at Dr. Reddy's
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gvprasadster/

Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn

Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59

Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify
https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th

#WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline