Nik Bhatia is an author of two economics books, a visiting fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute and the founder of The Bitcoin Layer. In Nik&#x27;s first appearance on the podcast, he discusses his niche in the Bitcoin community, the role of Bitcoin as a transaction asset, the threat or lack thereof of quantum computing on Bitcoin, his issues with the current eurodollar market, his new proposal to use stablecoins as statecraft, and much more. Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the transcript for this week&#x27;s episode, now with links. Recorded on May 5th, 2026 Subscribe to David&#x27;s Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus Follow David on X: @DavidBeckworth Follow Nik X: @Timevalueofbtc Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings Check out our Macro Musings merch! Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:49 - Nik&#x27;s Career and Background 00:12:32 - Crypto Assets for Transactions 00:18:28 - Quantum Computing and Bitcoin 00:24:08 - Stablecoins as Statecraft 00:58:36 - Outro

Nik Bhatia on Bitcoin and the Case for Using Stablecoins for Statecraft

Macro Musings with David Beckworth

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Macro Musings with David Beckworth

## Participants

- **David Beckworth** (Mercatus Center at George Mason University)
- **Nik Bhatia** (Bitcoin Policy Institute; The Bitcoin Layer)

## Transcript

Welcome to Macro Musings, where each week we pull back the curtain and take a closer look at the most important macroeconomic issues of the past, present, and future. I am your host, David Beckworth, a Senior Research Fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and I'm glad you decided to join us. Our guest today is Nik Bhatia.

Nik is the author of a new paper titled Stablecoins as Statecraft, Reclaiming U.S. Financial Sovereignty in the Eurodollar Market. It's an interesting paper that makes the case for stablecoins as a role in U.S. monetary sovereignty and reclaiming the eurodollar market abroad. And Nik, welcome to the program. Thanks, David. Great to be here. It's great to have you on. Now, you are a visiting fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

You also are the founder of the Bitcoin Layer. You're also a professor, an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business. And you've written this working paper for the Bitcoin Policy Institute. And again, as I mentioned, this paper explains how stablecoins can be used to reclaim some of the government control of the eurodollar market.

Maybe that's too strong of a term, but to bring them back into the regulatory perimeter of the U.S. government. And I guess, Nik, this is the first question out the gate. That's a little surprising to see the Bitcoin Policy Institute have a paper on how to get the eurodollar market within the regulatory perimeter. So tell me about the backstory of this paper. What motivated you to write it and why BPI got behind it? It's a great question, David.

The origin of this paper comes from years of research into the eurodollar system. So I'll just give you a brief history. I was a treasuries trader. That's my career background. I traded treasuries for a large institutional asset manager, and I was trading cash treasuries, treasury futures, other interest rate derivatives.

And so global macro, monetary policy, the Fed, and U.S. treasury rates are my core competency. That's my background. That's what I studied. That's where I come from. So along that path, I became a Bitcoiner. And the year was about 2016. And so I have two worlds here, one as a traditional finance treasuries trader and the other as this new school Bitcoin researcher.

And my career over the past decade has blended these two worlds together. Now, I wrote two books, published one in the year 2021 called Layered Money and a book I published last year called Bitcoin Age.

Layered Money is an overview of money, a 1,000-year brief history of money, and a light introduction to Bitcoin and a historical background for why Bitcoin is appropriately called digital gold. That's the purpose of Layered Money. Bitcoin Age, my second book...

Nik Bhatia on Bitcoin and the Case for Using Stablecoins for Statecraft

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Nik Bhatia on Bitcoin and the Case for Using Stablecoins for Statecraft

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.