About this episode
What if the money in your pocket wasn’t a tool for freedom, but a mechanism for control? Inflation, surveillance, and financial exclusion actively shape who can save, speak, or participate in the global economy. Alex Gladstein joins the show to examine money as a human-rights issue, exploring how new digital tools are being used in places where traditional financial systems fail or are weaponized. Alex reframes money as a human-rights issue - tracing how digital currencies are reshaping power at the margins: enabling dissidents, protecting savings, and creating escape hatches from broken systems. It’s not about speculation or hype... it’s about sovereignty, repression, and what freedom actually looks like in a digitized global economy.--Timestamps:(00:00) - Introduction(00:17) - Bitcoin as Freedom Money(01:46) - The Need for Freedom Money(04:04) - Global Financial Repression(10:12) - Bitcoin's Resilience and Privacy(20:00) - Case Studies and Real-World Impact(23:03) - Bitcoin and the Future of Nation States(25:01) - The Cost of War and National Debt(25:36) - The Role of Banks in Government Spending(27:06) - Bitcoin's Potential to Empower People(27:36) - Dictators vs. Bitcoin(28:51) - The Rise of Stablecoins(29:43) - Bitcoin vs. Altcoins(38:13) - Ethereum's Flaws(40:39) - Bitcoin's Impact on Oppressed Nations(44:43) - The Future of Bitcoin and Dictatorships--Referenced in the Show:Alex Gladstein: https://alexgladstein.com/Freedom Money Essay – https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/why-bitcoin-is-freedom-money/--Jacob Shapiro Site: jacobshapiro.comJacob Shapiro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jacob-l-s-a9337416Jacob Twitter: x.com/JacobShapJacob Shapiro Substack: jashap.substack.com/subscribe --The Jacob Shapiro Show is produced and edited by Audiographies LLC. More information at audiographies.com--Jacob Shapiro is a speaker, consultant, author, and researcher covering global politics and affairs, economics, markets, technology, history, and culture. He speaks to audiences of all sizes around the world, helps global multina
