Sam Lyman on the Digital Payments Race Between the US and China

**David Beckworth** (0:02)
Welcome to Macro Musings, where each week we pull back the curtain and take a closer look at the most important macroeconomic issues of the past, present and future. I am your host, David Beckworth, a senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. I'm glad you decided to join us.
Our guest today is Sam Lyman. Sam is the head of research at the Bitcoin Policy Institute. Formerly, he was a senior advisor and a speechwriter for Treasury Secretary Bessent. He joins us today to give us the lay of the land on the different visions for the digital payment space for the US versus China as well as some of the issues surrounding it.
Sam, welcome to the show.

**Sam Lyman** (0:47)
Thanks, David. It's great to be here.

**David Beckworth** (0:49)
It's great to have you on and I love having someone who paint the broad picture for us. It's going on from a national security, a state perspective as well as some of the more granular issues we'll get into as well.
Let's begin though with your work at Treasury. Tell us what it was like to work there and what did you do?

**Sam Lyman** (1:06)
Working at Treasury was a thrill. There was never a dull day as you could imagine between Liberation Day and the one big beautiful bill to implementation of new trade policies. It was one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my life. Secretary Bessent is an extremely talented operator. He runs the building sort of like a hedge fund given his career, and so there's a very high expectation of performance there.
What was interesting working with him, just a side note, is that other than being a financial genius, he's an incredibly good writer. I've been a speechwriter at different points throughout my career. What was most interesting about Secretary Bessent though, is that he's an incredible writer. He actually wanted to be a journalist early in his career, almost pursued that path until he found banking instead. But that was really rewarding to work with someone who not only had this incredible holistic view of macroeconomics, but also had a very good micro view into what makes for good writing as well. He appreciated the craft of writing in addition to the business of finance.

**David Beckworth** (2:04)
That's interesting. While you were there, then you used to write some of his speeches on stable coins when the genius was being passed through. Yeah.

**Sam Lyman** (2:11)
I helped him with speeches related to anything digital asset strategy that was taking place within Treasury.

**David Beckworth** (2:17)
Yeah. He had some great statements about stable coins. There were ones about this is going to extend dollar dominance to reach of the dollar. I imagine you're there behind the scene helping him write some of that, right?

**Sam Lyman** (2:28)
I try to help where I can as a speech writer.

**David Beckworth** (2:31)
Well, let's move then to where you are now. You're at the Bitcoin Policy Institute. You're the head of research there.
What are you doing there? What are the objectives of the institution and what are you doing with research there?

**Sam Lyman** (2:44)
The Bitcoin Policy Institute, as the name would entail, of course, is very focused on Bitcoin. But what's interesting about Bitcoin is it's, we see it as somewhat of a shelling point for the counter elite. I think people who are drawn to Bitcoin oftentimes are those who are very well versed in finance, economics, also politics and philosophy. They're drawn to Bitcoin because they see it as an alternative to the existing system.
So what's interesting about what we're building at the Bitcoin Policy Institute is not only is it a think tank focused on Bitcoin policy issues, but it's a think tank that's focused on open source technology across the spectrum.
Bitcoin is a sort of open source money. Similarly, stable coins are a permissionless form of money or an open source form of money. And so is AI. There's open source AI out there. So those are three things that we're principally focused on right now. Bitcoin, stable coins, and AI.
How we can make these technologies as universally available as possible, how we can keep them tools for freedom and for promoting liberties abroad, and how we can leverage technologies like Bitcoin, stable coins, and AI to increase global US dominance, how we can use them as tools, essentially, of national security, to advance our own strategic interests as a country.

**David Beckworth** (3:57)
Yeah. So it was interesting for me to see some of the publications come out on stable coins. You had an op-ed in The Washington Post about stable coins. Nick Batia, we recently had recorded a show with him. When he's talking about how you can use stable coins to get a better grip on Eurodollar markets. It was maybe a little surprising to be honest because I've been in some Bitcoin crowds communities and they don't like stable coins. They think it's an impure version. There's choke points.