Ep. 97: Allen Farrington - Architecting the Monetary Endgame

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Sep 23, 2025

Allen Farrington, a writer and co-founder of Bitcoin-focused venture capital firm Axiom, shares insights on the transformative power of Bitcoin. He explains why the most promising startups will use Bitcoin as invisible infrastructure rather than explicitly branding themselves as crypto companies. Farrington discusses the failures of current stablecoin systems under real demand, the advantages of Taproot Assets and Lightning for cheaper, scalable payments, and anticipates a future evolution from stablecoins to eCash as a leading digital currency.

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ANECDOTE

Slow Burn To Bitcoin

Allen describes a slow, cumulative discovery of Bitcoin starting around university rather than a single eureka moment.
He credits studies in math, philosophy, Austrian economics, and early software work for keeping him open to Bitcoin.

ANECDOTE

Investment Training At Baillie Gifford

Allen recounts working at Baillie Gifford where he studied companies and long-term investing for years.
That role trained him to look for misunderstood long-term value and prepared him for Bitcoin venture work.

INSIGHT

Temporal Arbitrage Investment Thesis

Axiom seeks companies using Bitcoin as fundamental technology that enable new goods or much cheaper services.
They practice 'temporal arbitrage' by investing early where technical understanding is low but will rise over a decade.

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My guest today is Allen Farrington, writer, investor, and co-founder of Axiom, a Bitcoin-focused venture capital firm backing companies that use Bitcoin as real infrastructure rather than speculation. Allen co-authored “Bitcoin is Venice” and “Only the Strong Survive” and draws on a background in math, philosophy, Austrian economics, and long-term equity investing to explain why Bitcoin is both a technological breakthrough and a venture opportunity hiding in plain sight. In this episode, he shares why he believes the most valuable startups will use Bitcoin as invisible plumbing for payments, energy, and financial services rather than marketing themselves as “Bitcoin companies.” We explore why current stablecoin systems break under real demand, how Lightning and Taproot Assets enable issuer competition and scalable payments, and why the long arc ends with e-cash and Bitcoin-native money. Allen frames Axiom’s edge as “temporal arbitrage”: investing early where technical understanding and adoption are low, anticipating that in a decade the market will recognize the value created by Bitcoin-based infrastructure.

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-- CHAPTERS –

00:00 - Coming Up

01:12 - Introduction to Allen

03:20 - Discovering Bitcoin & Career Trajectory