Everyone talks about the promise of tokenization. But in most emerging markets, the basic infrastructure doesn’t exist yet. There are no compliant issuance platforms, no secondary markets and no institutional-grade custody.

This week Lauren sits down with Nik, co-founder of VS1 Finance, an institutional real-world asset tokenization platform built on the XRP Ledger. VS1 serves the Caucasus, Middle East and Central Asia, and holds the region’s only regulator-approved tokenization license through the National Bank of Georgia’s sandbox. Nik and his team come from Scotiabank, Schroders, the World Bank, PwC and the National Bank of Georgia. Now they are building the capital markets rails the region never had.

Recording from Tbilisi on a Friday night covers:

• Why tokenization isn’t crypto, and why that distinction matters to traditional institutions
• How tokenized corporate bonds and debt funds work under the hood, using XRPL Multi-Purpose Tokens, built-in KYC, freeze and clawback
• Why VS1 chose the XRP Ledger: native compliance features, atomic settlement and no smart contract risk
• Building trust in markets where credibility takes time to earn
• The big unlock ahead: letting investors borrow stablecoins against their tokenized bonds through XRPL lending, without selling a position that pays them interest
• His advice for students and researchers who want to build in emerging markets

VS1 graduated from the UDAX FGV accelerator in Brazil this spring, has since been approved for an XRPL Grant, and will pitch on the Demo Day stage at SWELL in New York next week.

Follow VS1 Finance to keep up with their upcoming issuances.

Can we have financial privacy AND stop financial crime? Stanford's Darrell Duffie thinks there's a third path and it might be the most important work happening in finance right now.

In this special UBRI Leadership Session, Ripple SVP Eric van Miltenburg sits down with Professor Darrell Duffie of Stanford's Graduate School of Business, U.S. Senate witness, and architect of the course The Future of Money and Payments for a conversation that moves from the theoretical to the genuinely urgent.

Duffie's "compliance by design" framework poses a radical question: what if privacy weren't a switch that governments could flip, but a cryptographic guarantee baked into the payment system itself? It's a question that cuts to the heart of every CBDC debate, every stablecoin regulation, and every fintech pitch deck claiming to serve the unbanked.

In this episode:

• Why the U.S. CBDC is dead and why that might be shortsighted
• How tokenized U.S. Treasuries went from zero to $10B and what clearing banks do next
• Why China's eCNY flopped even with government muscle behind it
• The surprising reason Europe may actually pull off a digital euro
• What Afghanistan's Hesab Pay reveals about stablecoins and financial inclusion
• Why agentic payments; AI making purchases on your behalf may be the real disruption no one's talking about
• And yes: why in 100 years, no one will carry "grubby bits of paper" in their pockets

Whether you're a regulator, a builder, a banker, or just someone who tapped your phone to buy coffee this morning this conversation will change how you think about who controls your money and why it matters.

One documentary. A 4.9-star rating. A kidney community of millions waiting to see it. And nine major studios; Amazon, Apple, HBO Max, Hulu, Disney, Paramount+, Peacock, Showtime, and Stars that all said no.

So Donald stopped asking for permission.

In this episode, Lauren Weymouth sits down with filmmaker Donald Griswold to unpack how he's using Stuff.io, a blockchain platform backed by Mark Cuban and Snoop Dogg, to distribute Abundant directly to the kidney community, bypass the $50M Hollywood P&A machine, and prove that true digital ownership changes everything for independent artists. One in nine Americans is affected by kidney disease. This film could reach every one of them and no traditional streamer could make that happen. Because on a streaming platform, you have a license. On blockchain, you own it. And as Donald says "you can't give it, if you don't own it."

If you're a filmmaker, a creator, or a founder who's been told your project is too niche, this episode is your proof of concept. This isn't just a film launch. It's a manifesto.