The Future of Debt

Global debt is now larger than the entire world economy. Yet at the very same time, apps are handing out credit lines in minutes, and countries are erasing old IOUs in exchange for protecting oceans. In this episode, we’ll step inside that tension: more debt, but also smarter debt.

Global debt is swelling, but the plumbing underneath it is changing even faster. Bonds are no longer just dense PDFs bought by a handful of big institutions; they’re starting to appear as tokens on blockchains, traded in minutes instead of days. Algorithms are scanning thousands of data points—your phone bill, your delivery history, your energy use—to decide who gets to borrow and at what price. Governments are experimenting with deals where they cut fossil subsidies or protect coral reefs in exchange for cheaper financing. And regulators are racing to catch up, trying to decide who is allowed to issue what, to whom, and on which digital rails. In this episode, we’ll explore how these shifts could open doors for millions who’ve been locked out of credit—and why they might also create new fault lines we don’t yet see.

The stakes are high: over 60% of low‑income countries are already in or near debt distress, and households everywhere are juggling rising borrowing costs with stagnant wages. At the same time, entirely new forms of IOUs are emerging. Some debts are tied to carbon emissions or social outcomes; others live as programmable tokens that can change their own terms when conditions shift. A few even disappear faster if you hit climate or education targets. In this episode, we’ll look at how these experiments could rewrite who gets relief, who gets punished, and who gets left out.