📙 Part 2: Describe something you would like to learn about

This episode's vocabulary

Decentralised (adj.) - used to describe organizations or their activities which are not controlled from one central place, but happen in many different places.

To bang on about (something) (idiom) - to talk about (something) repeatedly or for a long time.

To be better off - to have more money than you had in the past or more money than most other people.

Fine (adj.) - very exact and delicate, or needing to be done, treated, or considered very careful.

To loan (verb) - an act of borrowing or lending something.

Interest (noun) - money that you earn from keeping your money in an account in a bank or other financial organization.

Intermediary (noun) - someone who carries messages between people who are unwilling or unable to meet.

Cryptocurrency (noun) - a digital currency produced by a public network, rather than any government, that uses cryptography to make sure payments are sent and received safely.

Digital currency (noun) - a form of digital cash bought from a particular company in order to pay for goods and services on the Internet.

Gist (noun) - the most important pieces of information about something, or general information without details.

To gain (verb) - to get something that is useful, that gives you an advantage, or that is in some way positive, especially over a period of time.

Mastery (noun) - if someone has a mastery of something, they are extremely skilled at it.

To get the hang of something (idiom) - to become familiar with something.

Tangentially (adverb) - in a way that is different from or not directly connected with something that you were talking about or doing before.

Questions and Answers

M: Give us your story. Rory-story.

R: I'm on something of a mission to discover more about decentralised finance, actually. I have a few friends who are really into it and won't stop banging on about it. Plus, it's in the news a lot for having made a lot of people at least a little bit better off. I'm not sure about the fine details, so some of the vocabulary might not be exact, but I hope you get the point. Basically, the idea behind it is that instead of having all your money held by a bank to loan out and then pay you interest on your behalf, you take control of your money and loan it out to people and charge interest through intermediary platforms using cryptocurrency. Which is a little bit like digital currency. Because you can manage everything via the Internet, you have access to a greater pool of people looking for money. Put the amount out there and then charge fees for it or charge fees for using it. Obviously, it's a complex set of systems and algorithms managing everything, so I'm oversimplifying a lot, but I think that's about the gist of it. When it comes to the process or at least the learning process behind it, I've downloaded a few audiobooks on the subject to listen to and I'm thinking of experimenting with a few platforms online that my friend is going to help me set up. So, there's like this balance of theory and practice that I have in mind. I don't have a set schedule of classes to gain mastery through. However, like I said, I have a friend who can help me out with it, so I'm not sure I need to pay any experts to train me just yet or pay for any expert training. I think it won't be too difficult to get the hang of the basics, but I'm under no illusions about complete mastery of it and then becoming a crypto millionaire or something like that. I think that requires a degree of skill and focus I just don't have at the moment. Maybe in a few years when I have complete mastery of it. But at the moment I'd be happy just to make a few extra bucks on the site, to be honest. If I don't get to grips with it completely, then I won't be too upset, since there are more important things in life than money. But I think I'll have missed out on an opportunity to live a little more comfortably, if I don't at least try.

M: And have you talked to your friends about this?

R: Most of them only tangentially. But my friend Vanya is a real pro at it. I always encourage others to talk to him about this sort of thing.