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

The Wizard of Oz, written in 1900, can now be taken as being an antecedent to the story of US stablecoins. Not the yellow brick road but the road to US stablecoins: from redeemable gold to redeemable digital currencies. The evolution of the US dollar, from Civil War, era redeemable banknotes to fiat currency and now to USD stablecoins, reveals a recurring quest for trust in ‘money’. The Wizard of...

Europe has entered its first post-MiCA implementation phase whilst Washington pushes to finalise the CLARITY Act as part of a broader bid to strengthen US leadership in digital assets. With the regulatory foundations solidifying, the more pressing question is how institutions should rethink their stablecoin strategy. Click here to read the full article

MiCAR gave Europe a common regulatory framework for crypto-assets but implementation has exposed continuing challenges around licensing, token classification, whitepapers, legacy assets and regulatory consistency. The European Commission’s 2026 review reflects this evolving landscape whilst gaps remain around DeFi, staking, lending, tokenised deposits and cross-border harmonisation. MiCAR’s signif...

How lawyers, investigators and blockchain forensic firms helped recover 1.5m USDC within nine working days from being instructed through to recovery, and how the most “nuclear” of legal tools can be used to secure fast and substantial results. Click here to read the full article

Humans tolerate cut-off times, logins, reconciliation delays and T+1 settlement. Agentic AI does not naturally operate that way. It works continuously - searching, negotiating, contracting, monitoring collateral and initiating transactions around the clock. This makes programmable, API-accessible, machine-readable money considerably more valuable, faster and cheaper. For example, an AI agent can e...

The global race to tokenise wholesale financial markets has begun. Foreign exchange, government bonds, derivatives, repo and private assets are moving towards programmable, always-on financial infrastructure measured in trillions of dollars. The UK starts from a position of exceptional strength, yet leadership is far from guaranteed. This paper explores why legal certainty, digital money, trusted...

Artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving into an autonomous economic actor capable of negotiating contracts, allocating capital and initiating payments. But as AI gains greater capability, the defining challenge is no longer intelligence - it is authority. This article introduces  guided autonomous AI,  arguing that every significant AI system should operate within a “ schedule of authority”  t...

The next wave of dollarization may not be driven by people, banks or governments. It will be driven by Agentic AI agents. As AI systems increasingly manage payments, trade, treasury functions and investment decisions, they are likely to favour stable, yield-bearing Agentic USD over local currencies and traditional banking rails. This shift could accelerate global demand for digital dollars, challe...

The rise of Agentic Dollars marks a new phase in the evolution of money, where stablecoins, artificial intelligence and programmable finance begin challenging the traditional power of central banks. As AI agents increasingly transact in digital dollars, monetary sovereignty, policy effectiveness and national economic independence may come under pressure. This article examines how programmable mone...

As stablecoins, CBDCs, tokenisation and AI-driven commerce move from theory to reality, businesses face a rapidly changing regulatory landscape. Whilst the US embraces private digital money through stablecoins and China doubles down on state-controlled digital currency, the UK and Europe are pursuing their own paths. The winners may not be those with the best technology but those operating in juri...

The traditional financial system, for all its complexities, has historically provided central banks and state treasuries with a relatively clear picture of economic activity. Commercial banks, payment processors and regulated financial institutions act as intermediaries, generating data trails that enable comprehensive oversight, facilitate monetary policy transmission and ensure tax compliance. H...

The regulation of stablecoins has emerged as one of the most pressing issues in UK financial law and policy, and the time for decisive action is now. Designed to maintain stable value by reference to fiat currency or other assets, stablecoins sit at the intersection of payments, banking, financial markets and digital innovation. Their rapid growth, combined with the UK’s ambition to establish itse...

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...