Hi, I’m Samantha Yap, and I like to identify as a journalist at heart. I’m a storyteller and I like to document things. This sets the premise for why I decided to create YAP Cast, presented by YAP Global, and kick it off with the series on the Story of Money.

I’m the founder of YAP Global, a PR agency that specialises in blockchain and cryptocurrency companies. I fell down the crypto rabbit hole in 2017 when my first crypto client’s enthusiasm for the promise of Bitcoin sparked my interest. I was also taught how to create my own $YAP coin (which had no value) with a counterparty token back in the day. Since that introduction, I‘ve been helping blockchain and cryptocurrency companies tell their stories ever since.

Translating crypto

For the past few years, I have been helping teams in the crypto sphere break down and translate their complex concepts to make them easy to understand for media. It’s been a tricky balance between understanding crypto projects well enough to shape their story in a compelling way for the press who will indirectly educate a wider audience.

I’ve written countless press releases, media pitches, and launched announcements, fundraises, proof of concepts, you name it. But as we’re deep in the decentralised finance (DeFi) and crypto space, we need to be wary of our unconscious biases as advocates of this space. It’s an ongoing process of continuously educating ourselves about how the financial world works now and staying up to speed on all the alternative solutions DeFi projects are building.

We need to be careful to not just contribute to an echo chamber, which is why I decided to embark on this journey to find out what the baseline story of money is to better understand what the crypto world is trying to re-engineer on the fly – ultimately where money is heading today. 

You may have heard about how Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are redefining the global financial system to be more decentralised and fair. But to even understand how this technology started to disrupt the current financial system we need to first understand what finance is in the first place.

Understanding the History of Money

I don’t have a background in finance, I studied journalism at university, so I’ve had to learn along the way. I took an introduction to digital currency MOOC (Mass Open Online Course) by the University of Nicosia back in 2018, which helped me understand the foundations of cryptocurrency. But with this first series for YAP Cast, I’ve been on a journey of really breaking down what money is. The short answer is there is no one absolute definition or point in history where we can narrow down to where money came from.

With that, I am taking off my PR professional hat and putting on my journalist hat back on. Join me as I set off on this journey of telling the story of money with the help of CEOs, Founders, Academics, and developers along the way.

I’m privileged to also work with Jeremy Wagstaff, a world-renowned journalist who spent 20 years reporting as a technology correspondent for Reuters and The Wall Street Journal.

We connected with the shared vision of bridging the communication gap between emerging technology and the mainstream world. Cryptocurrency is the next step to that as it’s rethinking the current financial system with the new one in mind.

Jeremy has written the scripts that formulate the audio journey at the start of each episode which touches on a historical event in the history of money followed by a conversation with esteemed experts on where money is heading today.

Special thanks to Polymath production team who has played a huge part in putting this series together and added colour to each episode.

We hope you enjoy the Story of Money by YAP Cast.

The first episode will drop on the 4th of August, 2021 here.

Follow YAP Cast on Twitter (@yapcast_)  and Instagram (@yapcast_)  for updates. 

For more details check out the YAP Cast website here.