2026-03-11
19 分钟So Nico, I want to ask you to pull up your phone and if you could go to your banking app Okay.
Well I bank with Starling.
Let me get my phone out and login Okay,
once you're logged in tell me what are the last three things that you bought?
So my last three things are my tube fair to get into the office this morning The coffee that I bought this morning and then also yesterday my Spotify bill went out of my bank account as well Sounds like a typical weekday routine there.
Yep, pretty much.
Well, so Niku,
the reason I just ask you to do this is because as the FT's digital markets correspondent,
you've been covering how these kinds of purchases using your phone might actually one day involve cryptocurrency.
Yes, absolutely.
I mean, when I was buying my coffee or tapping my phone on the tube,
I wasn't thinking about what's actually happening in that transaction once I tap my phone to pay.
And I doubt you do at any point either.
But crypto companies are looking to change that, the plumbing,
the technical stuff that happens once you pay, how you pay and what you pay with.
Right now, we pay in US dollars or British pounds or whatever other currency you use.
Crypto companies think we should be using stablecoins instead.
Now stablecoins are essentially a type of digital cash that's pegged one to one with sovereign currencies like the dollar or the euro.
And crypto fans say that stablecoins are better than the money we use at the moment
because they're faster and cheaper.