About this episode
Featured Guests:
Sean Snaith - Director, UCF Institute for Economic Competitiveness
Honghui Chen - Director, Master of Science (M.S.) FinTech Initiative at UCF
Jim Balaschak - Principal, Deanja, LLC
Mike O'Donnell - Executive Director, UCF Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Alexander Golding - Founder and CEO, HelpedHope; Bitcoin Investor
David Metcalf - Senior Researcher and Director, Mixed Emerging Technology Integration Lab (METIL), Institute for Simulation & Training
Jim Adamczyk - Senior Executive VP / CLO, Fairwinds Credit Union
Episode Transcription:
Paul Jarley: This episode has bank robbers, bitcoin, blockchain, and bacon. Maybe those are the four Bs of Fintech? As it turns out, not all of them are a thing.
Paul Jarley: This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I'm Paul Jarley, dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I've got lots of questions. To get answers, I'm talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, "Is this really a thing?" Onto our show.
Paul Jarley: I have a murky past. I paid my way through graduate school by teaching macro and micro economics to inmates in a federal penitentiary. How I got that gig is a story for another day. Suffice to say, it's not easy to get into a facility like that. Most of my students were drug dealers, counterfeiters, or tax evaders. My best student was a bank robber.
Paul Jarley: When I first heard of bitcoin and its alleged underworld origins I thought, "Yeah. Government's gonna shut that down right away. It's not going to be a thing." Some South American countries like Bolivia and Ecuador have shut down bitcoin; many countries in the Muslim world have too.
Paul Jarley: Countries like China have made it difficult to trade, others like India and Canada have safeguards that keep it out of its banking system. But, here in the United States bitcoin is legal. Why? To answer that question I went to my resident hater of all government regulation.
Paul Jarley: Well, that's a little harsh. He's the director of the UCF Institute of Economic Competitiveness, Dr. Sean Snaith.
Paul Jarley: Hey, Sean. Got a couple of questions for you.
Sean Snaith: All right.
Paul Jarley: Sean is one of the most recognized people at UCF and his office is just down the hall from mine.
Paul Jarley: Why are cryptocurrencies like bitcoin legal? Doesn't government have a monopoly on money production?
Sean Snaith: They do. The thing is, with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies they really haven't infringed greatly on the role of money as the medium of exchange that is official government money.
Paul Jarley: It's not really legal tender is what
