Now in its second year, the event will bring together economists, macro traders, regulators, policymakers, and entrepreneurs to address one of the most urgent questions in global finance: how to stabilize and future-proof the world’s monetary systems.
The 2025 edition centers on two critical themes. The first, dubbed Plan A, asks how the U.S. might fix the fiat system by paying down national debt and preserving the dollar.
The second, Plan B, explores what should happen if the dollar is devalued — specifically, which alternative currency could emerge as a viable replacement.
This year’s event will feature a growing roster of speakers, including Larry White, Professor of Economics at George Mason University and author of Better Money: Gold, Fiat, or Bitcoin?, as well as Eric Balchunas, Senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg and co-host of Trillions and ETF IQ.
Joining them are Quinn Thompson, Chief Investment Officer at Lekker Capital and host of Forward Guidance, and Michael Selig, Chief Counsel of the SEC Crypto Task Force. Further speakers will be announced in the weeks ahead.
“Until the simultaneous selloff of US equities and US bonds this April, concerns about reduction in US dollar demand had been pretty niche,” said Nevin Freeman, president of Confusion Capital, which hosts Monetarium. “That was a wakeup call that’s bringing more mainstream attention to the question of how the US can handle its sovereign debt and preserve the dollar’s reserve status.”
Confusion Capital is an investment firm known for backing frontier monetary technologies. The firm is closely aligned with Reserve, a decentralized protocol aiming to build a new kind of asset-backed currency that preserves long-term purchasing power while avoiding the volatility of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Reserve envisions a monetary system that is politically neutral, accessible, and governed in a decentralized way. In short, Reserve aims to offer money that doesn’t inflate like USD, but isn’t volatile like Bitcoin.
As part of this vision, Reserve also enables the creation and trading of Decentralized Token Folios (DTFs) — like ETFs on-chain, index-style products that package a basket of crypto tokens into a single tradable asset.
These DTFs are entirely decentralized and backed 1:1 by underlying crypto assets, offering a transparent and self-custodied alternative to traditional ETFs. Users can mint, trade, redeem, or stake DTFs directly on Reserve, including flagship indices like the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index and the MarketVector™ Digital Assets 25 Index.