CoinDesk Podcast Network

Alex Rodriguez joins the Consensus Main Stage for a candid conversation on life after baseball, building a championship organization, and the lessons that shaped him. From buying the Minnesota Timberwolves during COVID to applying AI and real-time technology to the fan experience, A-Rod breaks down what it actually takes to turn around a franchise. He also opens up about growing up without a father, the mentors who changed the trajectory of his life, and why showing up with full attention is still the most underrated competitive advantage.

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Timecodes:

00:00 - Alex Rodriguez at Consensus Miami 2026

01:06 - The 2004 Red Sox-Yankees Series and Baseball's Big Moment 

04:00 - Buying the Minnesota Timberwolves and the NBA's Global Growth 

06:56 - Building the Timberwolves from the Ground Up 

09:39 - The Jump App and Applying Tech to the Fan Experience 

12:18 - Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert, and Building a Championship Team 

15:41 - Family, Faith, and the Importance of Being Present 

19:50 - The Power of Mentors: Buffett, Magic Johnson, and Giving Back 

23:50 - NBA Playoffs Predictions and Parity in Pro Sports

Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and prominent AI investor, joins the Consensus mainstage for a wide-ranging conversation on where crypto, AI, and identity are headed. Hoffman argues that as agents outnumber people on the internet, crypto becomes the only viable solution for trust, provenance, and identity at scale. From his 2014 Bitcoin purchase to his recent CryptoPunk buy, Hoffman explains why the age of AI has brought him back to crypto with fresh conviction.

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Timecodes:

00:00 - Reid Hoffman at Consensus Miami 2026

01:11 - What Reid Is Focused on Today

04:13 - Deepfakes, Provenance, and Crypto as Identity Infrastructure

09:00 - Stablecoins, the GENIUS Act, and Keeping Crypto Bipartisan

10:51 - The Cognitive Industrial Revolution and Working with AI

13:28 - AI in the Workforce: Superpowers, Not Layoffs

15:32 - Where Reid Is Investing: NFTs, DAOs, and Agent Identity

Erik Reppel, Head of Engineering at Coinbase Developer Platform, joins the Consensus mainstage to make the case for internet-native payments. The internet was built for humans, but AI agents are taking over and they don't click ads. x402 is an open standard that finally gives the web a native payment layer, built on a forgotten HTTP status code that's been sitting unused since 1994. Created by Reppel and now backed by Visa, Stripe, Cloudflare, Microsoft, and others under the Linux Foundation, it lets any agent pay for any content or API with two lines of code and a stablecoin transaction that costs less than a cent.

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Timecodes:

00:00 - Erik from x402 at Consensus Miami 2026

00:48 - The Internet Was Designed for Humans, Not Agents 

03:53 - AI Is About to Break the Internet's Economic Model 

05:03 - Defining What an Agent Actually Is 

08:59 - Open Protocols vs Walled Gardens 

12:21 - x402: An Open Standard for Internet Native Payments 

15:02 - Why Now Is the Right Time for Agentic Payments

Kevin O'Leary joins the mainstage at Consensus wearing a $5.2 million Michael Jordan card around his neck and explains why collectibles have become his best-performing asset class, including a 3am bidding war that cost him nearly $13 million. He then breaks down why 97% of institutional crypto interest is concentrated in just BTC and ETH, why altcoins got slaughtered, and what it will actually take for blockchain to get adopted by the S&P 500. Plus, why he thinks power infrastructure and data centers are a better bet than picking crypto winners.

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Timecodes:

00:00 - Kevin O'Leary at Consensus Miami 2026

01:16 - Sports Cards as an Asset Class

03:25 - Tokenization, the Clarity Act, and Why Altcoins Got Slaughtered

05:21 - The S&P 500 Blockchain Thesis: One Chain Will Win

07:53 - Why Power Is More Valuable Than Bitcoin

09:34 - The US vs China AI Race

Senator Angela Alsobrooks joins hosts Rebecca Rettig and Renato Mariotti to discuss the three outstanding issues she needs resolved before voting Clarity off the Senate floor. Plus, insights into Jamie Dimon's criticism over stablecoin yield. And, former Congressman George Santos named person of the week for the Kalshi insider trading investigation.

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Timecodes:

00:00 Sen. Alsobrooks on Ethics

00:26 Welcome to The Policy Protocol

00:56 CFTC Greenlights Perps in 24 Hours

02:33 OFAC Sanctions Iran's Nobitex

05:56 Offshore Exchanges Coming Onshore

07:05 Senator Angela Alsobrooks Joins

07:45 Defending the Yield Compromise Against Jamie Dimon

10:21 What's Needed for an Ethics Compromise

12:17 How ClarityHelps Underbanked Constituents

15:03 Why More Democrats Aren't on Board

16:25 What It Takes to Get Clarity Across the Line

17:13 Sen. Alsobrooks's Approach

18:33 Why Clarity Is the World's Only DeFi Legislation

21:27 Senator Lummis Pushes Back on Jamie Dimon

22:31 George Santos Named Person of the Week