Digital Bytes by Team Blockchain Radio; Powered By Cyber.FM

Artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving from a tool into an autonomous actor capable of trading, managing capital and executing transactions. Yet the internet was never designed with a trusted identity layer for machines. As AI agents increasingly move both information and value, a fundamental question emerges: who verifies that an AI system is acting legitimately and on whose authority? The i...

As self-custody wallets and decentralised exchanges rapidly grow, legal recovery of Bitcoin and stablecoins is becoming dramatically harder. Over 580 million crypto users globally now increasingly control assets directly through private keys rather than regulated intermediaries, while DeFi volumes exceeded trillions of dollars in 2025 alone. This shift is eroding the ability of courts, banks, and...

Ancient Rome built one of history’s most efficient financial systems through trusted networks, standardised currency and rapid cross-border settlement. Today, USD stablecoins and agentic payment systems are reviving many of those same principles by enabling near-instant programmable transactions across global markets. As compliance-heavy banking infrastructure slows modern finance, then blockchain...

Crypto insurance is being fundamentally mispriced because it fails to reflect the speed and irreversibility of blockchain-based losses. Traditional underwriting assumes slow, assessable events, but, in crypto, loss unfolds in minutes and recovery windows close rapidly. As a result, response speed and real-time recovery capability are becoming critical determinants of loss severity. The market is s...

Remarkably, the most compelling argument for reskilling your workforce is not about people at all but about pure economics. On this episode of The Digital Byte Show, where Jonny Fry and James Tylee sits down with guest Declan Sheehy, a veteran with over 26 years in financial services including 18 years at HSBC managing billions in assets, to unpack why AI and tokenization are creating a talent cri...

Imagine transferring money internationally in seconds instead of waiting three to five days. That is the future Tom Francis, a former British Army officer turned tech strategist, believes is not just possible but imminent. Joining James Tylee and Jonny Fry, Tom breaks down why UK and European nations should be partnering with the United States right now. The US is investing over a trillion dollars...

Imagine completing a sterling-to-dollar transfer in seconds for just two basis points. That kind of speed and efficiency is now possible, and it is forcing lawyers and financial professionals to completely rethink how escrow works in the modern economy. David Parsons from London Digital Escrow makes a compelling case that traditional bank-based escrow converts real assets into IOUs, creating count...

Rarely does a single conversation connect 1980s Citigroup trading floors to the future of programmable money so compellingly. John Bertrand, director at On Demand Payment Technologies, joins hosts James Tylee and Jonny Fry to trace how decades of financial infrastructure work have led us to this precise inflection point in banking history. John's ten years at Citigroup in New York shaped his u...

Imagine bypassing Zillow entirely and letting your personal AI agent find, compare, and handle the paperwork on your next home. That future is closer than most people realize, and it's the core of this fascinating conversation between Jonny Fry of Team Blockchain and James Tylee, founder of Cyber.fm. James brings a remarkable background to this discussion. After building high-frequency trading...

Nasdaq’s move to enable tokenised equity trading within DTCC infrastructure signals that blockchain settlement is shifting from crypto experiment to core capital-market plumbing. If the world’s deepest and most liquid market adopts programmable securities and near-continuous trading, global exchanges, regulators and asset managers may face competitive pressure to modernise faster, or risk liquidit...

English law has never required sterling/legal tender to settle obligations. Precursor to the Bank of England, the 1694 National Land Bank failed, but its idea of using assets as payment lives on through freedom of contract. Corporates are able to legally settle £trillions in tokenised property, stablecoins or RWAs, therefore bypassing the BOE’s 40/60 regime, holding limits and unremunerated deposi...

As stablecoins move into regulated mainstream finance, they are shifting from crypto gateways to always-available digital cash for payments, settlement and treasury use. This raises a critical question: how much transactional liquidity could migrate away from bank deposits - traditionally the cheapest funding source for lending? Drawing on Taurus research and global regulatory developments, this a...

Digital money is increasingly shaped by national policy and regulatory design. Whilst authorities are converging on some core principles, they are diverging in how those principles are applied - with implications for organisations seeking to scale across borders. This article explores how regulatory divergence changes the way digital money needs to be designed, and what firms should do in response...

Tokenised money has moved from a niche crypto application to a central consideration for institutional finance and public policy. Across stablecoins, tokenised deposits, CBDCs and money market funds, differing design choices shape risk, usability and regulatory treatment. The evolving landscape reveals strong momentum in cross-border payments and settlement, alongside unresolved challenges around...

AI agents and the future of real estate acquisition in London  - London’s property market remains one of the world’s most valuable, but it is still too often slow, opaque and labour intensive. Transactions can take months, depend on fragmented data and require a choreography of intermediaries whose incentives are not always aligned. Artificial intelligence, paired with maturing digital conveyancin...

When James Tylee and Johnny Fry dig into digital wallets and crypto custody, they land on something pretty interesting: that old crypto mantra "not your keys, not your crypto" is fading fast. More people are trusting big custodial companies with their assets instead of managing their own wallets, which kind of looks like we're just rebuilding traditional banking all over again. The h...

Copy trading lets you mirror professional traders automatically, select who to follow, adjust allocation, and stop anytime, while retaining full control and responsibility for your account. No one else accesses your funds. It democratizes elite strategies via AI and enables 24/7 trading allowing profits in rising and falling markets. As traditional funds grapple with high costs, tokenization and A...

Wall Street’s new tokenization wave will stall without market readiness. A Swiss tokenized gold product failed because gold buyers rejected digital wrappers and crypto investors ignored gold. Infrastructure can fix custody and settlement, but adoption requires aligning blockchain’s 24/7 markets with legacy business hours, weekend pricing distortions, liquidity gaps, and always‑on compliance. Token...

Online gaming is mutating from entertainment into a self-organising digital economy. AI agents now design worlds, manage resources and shape narratives in real time, while Web3 anchors ownership, governance and value on chain. The impact is profound: games become laboratories for autonomous markets, digital labour and creator economies. For players, this blurs play and work; for platforms, it turn...

In 2026, the proliferation of autonomous AI agents marks a paradigm shift from “reactive” tools to “proactive” systems. Whilst AI excels at mechanics and volume, it falters in moral ambiguity and real-world certification. Lawyers serve as “human oracles” - indispensable interpreters who provide the authoritative “human stamp” on digital triggers, ethical dilemmas and subjective context. By bridgin...

Programmable privacy reshapes financial infrastructure by enabling institution-grade confidentiality on public or shared ledgers. Banks, asset managers and market venues can prove compliance (AML, KYC, solvency, reporting) without exposing trading strategies, customer data or collateral positions; this could accelerate tokenised markets, unlock institutional adoption and reduce operational risk. A...

When a seasoned lawyer loses his own business despite two decades of advising on major international transactions, something profound shifts. This episode features a former Legal Partner turned Entrepreneur who discovered that sophisticated founders face predictable blind spots—patterns that destroy innovative ventures regardless of legal counsel. The conversation begins with his book "Blind...

In 1696, England attempted the world’s first tokenised property system, turning land into state-mandated legal-tender bills to rescue a collapsing monetary system. The National Land Bank failed, but its blueprint echoes today’s blockchain revolution. As the UK pushes toward a projected $4trillion tokenised real-estate market, the same questions return: can fractionalised property create liquidity...

Public blockchains are moving from experimental rails to components of regulated financial infrastructure, but adoption remains constrained by legacy policy frameworks. Institutional tokenisation is gaining traction (Franklin Templeton, Apollo and others now issue blockchain-native funds) as forecasts suggest up to $5tn of tokenised assets by 2030. Yet regulatory models still draw rigid lines betw...

Tokenisation has long been judged through the DeFi lens of total value locked (TVL) but for real-world assets, equities, gold, treasuries (already supported by deep liquidity) TVL is a false signal. The real innovation is automation: the ability for on-chain smart contracts to execute real-world trades, route them through regulated brokers, confirm custody and mint legally enforceable tokens in se...