‘I believe bitcoin is the best form of money’

‘I believe bitcoin is the best form of money’

Ask most financial podcasters how they got into investing and they will probably cite an interest in business or an enthusiastic parent who encouraged them to look at the stock market.

For Peter McCormack, early inspiration came in the form of “a bag of weed”.

“The reason I got into bitcoin was back in 2013, one of my friends came round and said he’d found this new website called Silk Road,” he reveals in an interview with the FT’s Money Clinic podcast.

“To buy your weed, you had to have this thing called bitcoin. So I bought some.”

Fast forward to today, and the podcast McCormack founded in 2017 — What Bitcoin Did — is one of the best-known financial shows on both sides of the Atlantic.

Over the past five years, the 42-year-old former advertising executive from Bedfordshire has travelled around the world interviewing bitcoin commentators ranging from investors and tech specialists to macroeconomists and executives working in the fast-growing crypto industry.

Last month, he was in El Salvador to document the country’s journey towards making bitcoin legal tender, interviewing president Nayib Bukele.

McCormack says: “Six or seven years ago, my life collapsed. I got divorced, my company went bust, my mum died and I was