This conversation with Yanis Varoufakis was recorded in July 2023. However, it reads like it was made for today.
As inflation lingers, market volatility grows, and central banks face mounting pressure, Varoufakis’ warnings feel more urgent than ever. He argues the 2008 financial crisis never truly ended, only “morphed,” and that our current economic systems are still built on unstable ground.
In his usual direct style, Varoufakis calls crypto “macroeconomically insignificant” and instead points to central bank digital currencies as the real financial disruptor. He also introduces “cloud capital,” a term that now feels eerily familiar in an era shaped by data-driven influence and algorithmic control.
Far from a dated debate, this interview is a sharp lens on the systemic risks and technological shifts reshaping finance in 2025 and beyond.
In this exclusive interview with The Champions Speakers Agency, economist and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis delivers a stark warning to investors: “Crypto is macroeconomically insignificant.“
Drawing on his experience negotiating with the IMF and EU during Greece’s sovereign debt crisis, Varoufakis critiques the lingering effects of 2008 and explains why central bank digital currencies—not crypto—will lead the next financial revolution.
He also introduces his concept of “cloud capital” as the new engine of global capitalism. For those navigating systemic risk and financial innovation, his insights cut through the noise with rare clarity.
Q: Global crises often expose fractures between nations. What institutional or economic changes are needed to help countries respond to future crises with greater unity?
Yanis Varoufakis: “Thank you. We have a central bank without the state to have its back, and we have 19, 20, 21 now states without the central bank, which is really of their own. In the case of the United States with China, what you find is that there is a structural macroeconomic imbalance which underpins that relationship.
“In other words, the United States has a chronic, systematic, designed trade deficit with China. It is essential for China to be having the net exports, which were necessary for China to grow. So, both the United States and China depend on a fallacy, on an error of design.
“And therefore, any negotiations between the U.S. Treasury Secretary and the Chinese authorities have to be found with this understanding—that there’s always going to be a conflict which emanates, springs out of a terrible institutional design.
“So, you know, if you really want to paper over these differences, you can, but then they will appear in other forms very, very soon. And true leadership means redesigning the institutional design.”
Q: In your view, are we heading toward another financial crisis—or have we never really left the last one behind?
Yanis Varoufakis: “The problem with the question is that there is an erroneous axiom embedded in it. When we ask, “Is there going to be another financial crisis?” we are assuming—and that is a big assumption, and actually a very wrong assumption—that the previous financial crisis, the one that started in 2008, has gone away. It never went away.
“It was dealt with with—you know, the medical equivalent would be cortisone injected into a cancer patient. The patient looks quite recovered and, you know, sort of brisk and healthy, but the tumour is doing its evil deeds under the surface, under the skin.
“The financial crisis of 2008 never went away. Quantitative easing simply papered over it and injected huge quantities of monetary cortisone into the patient. And what we’ve been having since 2008 is the same crisis metamorphosising, changing its colours, changing its shape, and reappearing in a variety of forms.
“The most recent one is inflation, coupled with financial sector instability. Central banks are knocking themselves, you know, over the head with blunt instruments, screaming at the prospect of, you know, finding an interest rate which simultaneously does not destroy the financial sector and stems inflation.
“And such an interest rate simply doesn’t exist. So the financial crisis is getting worse, but it completely changes its colours. It’s a bit like a virus that metastasises—the virus that mutates.”
Q: What practical steps can organisations take today to build resilience and avoid collapse during future downturns?
Yanis Varoufakis: “Organisations need to understand that financial collapse is to capitalist firms what hell is to Christianity: extremely unpleasant but necessary for the system to work. So, if your organisation is going to survive a tsunami of collapses at some point, then you need to do something very special.
“Like, for instance, you know, Goldman Sachs managed to survive 2008 when everybody else was collapsing around it. Unfortunately, they used rather immoral and unethical means in order to survive.
“What your organisation needs to do is to find sources of resilience in technologies and products of the future that are essentially crisis-proof. This is not easy. This is why if you are the CEO of such an organisation, you deserve a very large payout.”
Q: Many investors still believe blockchain and crypto will disrupt finance as we know it. What’s your assessment of their long-term impact?
Yanis Varoufakis: “Don’t buy the hype. Crypto is macroeconomically insignificant. There is going to be—already is—happening a development that is going to change our lives, but it’s not going to be Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) or any of the crypto brothers’ and sisters’ fantasies.
“It is central bank digital currencies. I do not believe they will be using blockchain. They don’t need to use blockchain. But that will be a revolution because it will mean disintermediation. It will mean that we will cut out the middleman between the central bank and your business and citizens and consumers.
“And that’s something I’m very much looking forward to, because it’s going to be a genuine revolution. It will be a very pleasant one. But it won’t come from the so-called sphere of the crypto craze that has dulled many senses and has stupefied many good people.”
Q: For companies looking to stay competitive in the age of digital finance, what role will “cloud capital” play—and what does that term mean in practical terms?
Yanis Varoufakis: “Make sure you understand the concept of what I call “cloud capital.” That, you know, capitalism is no longer what it used to be. Capital, which was the source of profit and, therefore, the motive power of capitalism since the first Industrial Revolution, has mutated. It has transformed itself.
“Once upon a time, the capital was what produced means of production—like steam engines, industrial robots—things we manufacture so that they can help us manufacture other stuff. Today, cloud capital lives up in the cloud. It’s not really the cloud—it’s optic fibres on the bottom of the oceans, it is cell towers, it is server farms and so on.
“That kind of capital, which I call “cloud capital,” has a completely different way of making its owners rich. It allows for the modification of our behaviour to be automated—not to rely on Don Draper, if you remember Mad Men, the advertisers, the marketers—but to automate the job of Don Draper, of the marketeers.
“Any business which does not possess large quantities of cloud capital—even if they are just car companies, or if they are pharmaceuticals—they are going to find it very hard to navigate this new kind of capitalism, which is more kind of techno-feudalism, I call it. So, whatever your business is, invest in cloud capital.”
This exclusive interview with Yanis Varoufakis was conducted by Mark Matthews of The Motivational Speakers Agency.
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