In Episode 286 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Diana Choyleva and Dinny McMahon, the co-authors of a comprehensive new report that examines China’s plans to decouple from the dollar-based global trading and financial system. In this conversation, Choyleva and McMahon discuss Beijing’s rationale for wanting to transform the renminbi into an international currency, how the Chinese communist party is striving to make that transformation, why it might prove unattainable, and what progress we can expect them to make over the coming decade. Regardless of whether the yuan proves capable of challenging US Dollar hegemony, the changes that Beijing is pursuing will have a profound impact on the functioning of trade and financial markets around the world. These changes will create new challenges for governments, businesses, and investors. Understanding what these challenges are, the steps that Beijing will take to overcome them, and how policymakers in the US and Europe will respond is crucial to making any reliable forecast about the future of the international political economy. If you want to listen to the second part of this conversation, which includes a discussion about the digital renminbi, how Beijing is trying to institutionalize yuan outflows and increase international demand for the yuan, and policy prescriptions for Western governments you can do that by becoming a subscriber to one of our three content tiers at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. All subscribers get access to our premium feed which you can listen to on your phone using your favorite podcast app just like you are listening to this episode right now. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of our Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 12/01/2022

In Episode 285 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Stephen Findeisen, a fraud investigator who goes by the pseudonym "Coffeezilla” and runs an eponymous YouTube channel dedicated to exposing scams, con artists, and fraudsters. His work has been widely covered in the media including on the BBC and VICE and Coffeezilla himself was recently profiled in a feature article for the New Yorker. Stephen’s investigations into FTX, Tether, Digital Currency Group, and the continued fallout and contagion sparked by the collapse of Luna and other related crypto companies, hedge funds, and lending platforms are the subjects of today’s incredibly timely conversation. Coffeezilla and Demetri recorded this episode on the afternoon of Friday, November 25th, and spent the first half bringing everyone up to speed on the latest developments. In the second hour, they do a deep dive into the crypto firm Genesis and its parent company DCG, including the important role played by the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust in serving as collateral for much of the firm’s counterparty exposure. They also devote a great deal of time discussing the stablecoin Tether, otherwise known by its acronym USDT and some of the recent revelations that have emerged from the FTX-Alameda bankruptcy. These revelations include suspicious and troubling connections between Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire, his political relationships, and the executives and proprietors of several corporate entities based both in and outside of the Bahamas, including a US Federally insured bank (Moonstone) in Washington state that has become the source of immense speculation. You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 11/25/2022

In Episode 284 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Marshall Kosloff, the co-host of the Realignment podcast about the recent mid-terms, Trump’s announcement that he’s running for President of the United States in 2024, the politics of the Ukraine war, and an Ubermensch culture in tech that has influenced conversations about US domestic and foreign policy. The underwhelming performance of republicans in the 2022 mid-term elections has cast into doubt many pundits’ expectations about the strength of the Republican party and Trump’s own electability in 2024. What caused the underwhelming performance of Republicans in the mid-terms and whether or not that weakness will continue in the next election cycle is something that Demetri and Marshall discuss in the first hour of their conversation today. The second hour is primarily a conversation about the politics of the Ukraine war and the rise of what Demetri describes as a new “Ubermensch” or “Superman” culture in tech. This culture, which intersects with elements of transhumanism, promotes its own version of global governance and a “transnational homelessness” that Demetri believes is antithetical to the wishes and desires of most people on earth. You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 11/17/2022

In Episode 283 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Vance Spencer and Michael Anderson about the downfall of FTX, the political back-story behind Sam Bankman-Fried’s legislative push to build a regulatory moat around his business empire, and the path forward for the crypto industry. As the crisis at FTX was unfolding, Vance received a call from none other than Sam Bankman-Fried. The two had never spoken before, but Vance had become recently critical of Sam’s efforts to lobby Washington for regulation that many felt would benefit him and his companies at the expense of everyone else in the industry. The legislation that SBF was pushing for would be particularly detrimental to the ecosystem of crypto known as decentralized finance or “DeFi” for short. Cashing in on the tens of millions of dollars that he spent to curry favor with lawmakers, Fried spent his time behind the scenes persuading them to pass a bill known as the ‘Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act.’ Sponsored by Senators Debbie Stabenow and John Boozman, the DCCPA would, according to some of its critics, make it impossible for open source developers to function within the U.S., limit access to decentralized financial products and applications for U.S. consumers, and create a regulatory monopoly for FTX in the United States. On their call Sam stated multiple times that if the DCCPA didn’t go through the S.E.C. was going to come after everyone. It was going to come after the DeFi projects and it was going to come after some of Framework’s own investments. Sam Bankman-Fried was explicit, telling Vance Spencer that Framework would be “materially harmed if they did not get on side.” This was apparently part of a larger narrative being pushed by Sam Bankman-Fried in the months leading up to his phone call with Spencer. It’s what Ryan Selkis, founder of crypto market intelligence firm Messari, described in a recent tweet as a “committed contingent of crypto policy people that want you to know that the Big Bad Wolf of Gary Gensler is coming to get you if the DCCPA doesn’t pass.” At the same time there were rumors circulating that regulators may have somehow been working on behalf of SBF. Specifically, US representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota tweeted out a few days ago that there were reports coming into to his office suggesting that the chairman of the SEC was “helping SBF and FTX work on legal loopholes to obtain a regulatory monopoly.”  To our knowledge, Tom Emmer has not put forward any evidence to support his claims and no one on this call—not Demetri, Michael, or Vance—is making that assertion. While the facts of this story are still coming together, what we have learned thus far gives credence to every bias and suspicion that most Americans have about their government and the corrupting influence of money in Washington. It’s at the heart of everything that’s gone wrong with our political system and it’s a big part of why extremists on both the left and right of the political spectrum have gained the support of an increasingly radicalized electorate. Demetri’s hope with this conversation, besides telling a newsworthy story, is to prevent the narrative from being hijacked and recast as the case of some rogue, evil genius that we can easily blame for a problem that is systemic in nature. Yes, Sam Bankman-Fried a bad dude, but our system rewards bad dudes. And too often it punishes good ones. We need to change that. If we want to see a positive change in our country—whether in crypto, finance, the media, or in the nation’s capital—we have to work together to fix the problem. And we have to hold people accountable, including ourselves, because in a democracy there is no one else. You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 11/11/2022

In Episode 282 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with famed short seller Marc Cohodes about Sam Bankman-Fried, the recent bankruptcy of FTX, and the bigger story behind the alleged fraud that he and his network of enablers have perpetrated. Marc Cohodes has famously exposing numerous corporate frauds at great personal expense and risk to himself and his family. So, when Cohodes began raising the alarm earlier this year by publicly calling FTX a scam, while describing Sam Bankman-Fried as a fraudster, many of us took notice. During this time, Sam Bankman-Fried was largely seen as the new golden child of crypto. He spent the last several years cultivating a cultish following and rubbing shoulders with some of the most powerful people in the world. He was the second largest donor to Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign behind only George Soros and worked hand-in-glove with politicians and policymakers to regulate the crypto industry in a manner that would favor him, his companies, and his network of financial enablers. On its surface, this looks like your typical financial fraud case. And in some sense, it is. But there are elements to this story that are uniquely suspicious, like Sam’s own origins and how he developed his wealth to begin with. The origins of his co-founder Gary Wang—who no one talks about—and the backgrounds of other members of his organization including chief compliance officer Dan Friedberg and chief operating officer Constance Wang also raise concerns. How this otherwise disheveled multi-billionaire who reportedly sleeps on a futon in the Bahamas came to exercise so much political influence and hold so many ownership stakes in companies and venture funds in and outside of crypto remains a mystery. But it’s a story that Marc Cohodes has been working on for almost a year and it is the focus of today’s explosive conversation. You can gain access to our premium feed and listen to today’s episode by subscribing to any one of our three content tiers at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. This will give you access to our entire episode library which you can listen to on your phone using your favorite podcast app just like you are listening to this episode right now If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 11/10/2022

In Episode 281 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Meghan O’Sullivan and Jason Bordoff. Meghan O’Sullivan is a former deputy national security adviser on Iraq and Afghanistan. She is currently Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and a board member of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Kennedy School. She sits on the board of directors at Raytheon and the Council on Foreign relations, and is the North American Chair of the Trilateral Commission. Jason Bordoff is the Co-Founding Dean of the Columbia Climate School, the Founding Director of the Center on Global Energy Policy, and Professor of Professional Practice in International and Public Relations at Columbia University. Jason also served as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director for Energy and Climate Change on the Staff of the National Security Council, and, prior to that, held senior policy positions on the White House's National Economic Council and Council on Environmental Quality. Our episode today focuses on energy policy and the immense challenges inherent in trying to balance national security concerns with international climate objectives. As Meghan and Jason have both argued, moving to a net-zero global economy will require an unprecedented level of global cooperation. It will also lead to conflict along the way and inevitably produce winners and losers. While government investment and private sector innovation is crucial to managing this transition, conscious steps need to be taken in order to mitigate the geopolitical risks that this change will create, of which the war in Ukraine is only the latest example. The goal of today’s conversation is to provide you with a framework for thinking about what this transition is going to look like, the challenges and opportunities that it will create along the way for governments, business, and investors, and what will be needed from all of us in order get it right. You can access the transcript and intelligence report to this week’s conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 10/31/2022

In Episode 280 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas shares the the audio from a live Q&A call that he recently hosted for members of the new Hidden Forces Genius tier with Wall Street Journal chief economics correspondent Nick Timiraos. These calls are part of our Investor Roundtable series and include discussions with experts who our members would like to hear more from and who they would like to have the chance to ask questions to directly. We had a chance to discuss some of the news coming out ahead of the FOMC meeting this week, including increased calls for the Fed to slow its rate of tightening and concerns about the Fed’s long-term independence in the face of political pressure. You can access transcript to this investor roundtable by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 10/26/2022

In Episode 279 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Kaiser Kuo. Kaiser is the host and co-founder of the Sinica Podcast, the editor-at-large of The China Project, and the former director of international communications for Baidu, China’s leading search engine. How does China see the world? What do we get wrong when talking about China? What are the central diving forces in Chinese politics? And what “does China want?”  While concrete answers to such complex social and political questions are illusive, grappling with them is essential if we want to find a peaceful way through what is becoming an increasingly dangerous period in US-China relations. The goal of this conversation is to provide you with a more circumspect and culturally informed perspective on China. You will learn about the country’s history, the lived experience of its people, their assumptions, values, and beliefs about the world and their place in it, and to learn to see ourselves and the world from China’s eyes. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week’s conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io and I or someone from our team will right back to you. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 10/24/2022

In Episode 278 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Shermer. Michael is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine. He hosts his own podcast, “The Michael Shermer Show,” and is the best-selling author of books like “The Believing Brain, “Giving the Devil His Due,” “The Moral Arch,” “The Mind of the Market,” and many more. Shermer's latest book titled "Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational" presents an overarching review of conspiracy theories—who believes them, why, which ones are real, and what we should do about them. Long a fringe part of the American political landscape, conspiracy theories are now mainstream: 147 members of Congress voted in favor of objections to the 2020 presidential election based on an unproven theory about a rigged electoral process promoted by the mysterious group QAnon. But this is only the latest example in a long history of ideas that include the satanic panics of the 1980s, the New World Order and Vatican conspiracy theories, fears about fluoridated water, speculations about President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and the notions that the Sandy Hook massacre was a false flag operation and 9/11 was an inside job. The purpose of today’s conversation is to provide you with a framework for thinking about conspiracies—what they are, the different types of conspiracies that exist, and why we believe in them. You will also learn how to distinguish between real conspiracies and imagined ones and what we can do as a society to tilt the information landscape toward producing more accurate models of the world without resorting to censorship or the policing of thought and information. You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week’s conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you want access to our Hidden Forces genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io and I or someone from our team will right back to you. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 10/21/2022

In Episode 277 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Perry Mehrling. Dr. Mehrling is Professor of International Political Economy at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University, where he teaches courses on global money. He is perhaps best known for having pioneered the so-called “money view,” an economic framework that attempts to put the real-world practitioners’ view of financial markets into an academic perspective. Mehrling’s most recent book, “Money and Empire,” is in some sense a biography of the US Dollar told through the life and times of the renowned economic historian, Charlie Kindleberger. The book traces the evolution of Charlie’s thinking alongside the rise of the international dollar system. It’s an illuminating history of the economic forces of international trade and finance and how those forces shape and are shaped by the politics of national interest. The goal of today’s conversation is to help deepen your understanding of a system that has proven to be far more resilient than many of its critics and most ardent supporters could have possibly imagined. What has made the system so strong, the challenges that could impede its function, and the role of politics and war in accelerating changes to it are all topics that we explore today.  You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report of this week’s conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. If you have questions about our genius tier, which includes access to the Hidden Forces community, Q&A calls with guests, in-person events, and dinners, you can learn more at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you have further questions, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 10/10/2022