In the first episode of my new live series on Tuesday, I was extremely fortunate to talk to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.
We covered a broad range of topics in half an hour, including what might be the weirdest idea of Trump’s second term so far (and that includes annexing Canada and invading Greenland): the Strategic Crypto Reserve.
I asked Krugman, do you even know what that is supposed to be?
Krugman: I mean, the short answer to your question is no, because I have no idea what he intends or actually really what it is. I mean, cryptocurrencies, you know, it's just ones and zeros on computer servers somewhere... Crypto is just stuff that's, you know, code that has no inherent value and has found no use. One of the things that I find amazing is that people keep on thinking of cryptos as futuristic when Bitcoin was introduced in 2009. I mean, Bitcoin is older than the iPad.
And it has yet to find any legal uses. The only thing that people really do with cryptocurrency is money laundering, ransom payments. Outside of the black economy, there is no use for this stuff. Now, Trump is going to... accumulate a reserve, which means accumulating basically the codes that say that this particular string of ones and zeros is yours. What you do with it, I don't know. I mean, it's not like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, where you can release oil from the places where it's stored in case of an energy emergency. In this case, particularly since there are no legitimate uses for this stuff.
I mean, you can use it, I guess, to pay off criminal organizations around the world or something. Yeah. It's one of the more bizarre things which can only really be explained, I think, by following the real money, following who's been paid off by this industry.
In addition to other topics—tariffs, mass deportations, and how much smarter the new Canadian PM is than Trump—I asked Krugman how he manages to stay sane amid the madness he has to write about every day. (You can probably understand why I sought this particular advice.) He came through with a great idea that all of us can put to use, starting right now. Watch the full interview here.
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