The Breakdown

Today’s guest is Lyn Alden. Lyn is the founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy and one of today’s best-known and most-respected macro analysts. In this conversation, she and NLW discuss: Anti-deflation vs. inflation Why money printing is nonpartisan  Why we’re headed for deeper MMT experiments How she increased her conviction around Bitcoin (her journey in memes) Why the beginnings of a new, post...

Today on the Brief: AstraZeneca and University of Oxford release third positive COVID-19 vaccine trial data Trump administration ratchets up pressure on China Another DCEP lottery trial coming Our main discussion: a narrative shift, growing attention and a bitcoin shortage. What happens when demand exceeds supply and supply is being gobbled up aggressively by new market actors? That’s the question...

On this week’s Long Reads Sunday, NLW reads Joe Nocera’s recent Op-Ed “Clayton’s Exit at SEC Opens Door to Protect Investors” from Bloomberg.  NLW expands upon the piece, discussing Clayton’s legacy in crypto and how a Biden economic team might impact the space.

On this edition of The Breakdown weekly recap, NLW discusses: Traditional markets: The tension between vaccine optimism and a growing national wave of economy-disrupting lockdowns Regulatory landscape: Crypto ally Brian Brooks nominated for full term at OCC while SEC Chair Jay Clayton steps down early  Bitcoin Miners: Sold out until Spring Celebrities and Financiers coming to the Bitcoin space  ht...

Earlier this week, investor Nic Carter published a piece called “Nine Bitcoin Charts Already at All-Time Highs” showing just how far bitcoin had come and how fundamentally bullish this quiet run-up was.  In this piece, NLW goes over those metrics that have achieved all-time highs, and adds one more that happened after Nic published his piece. The metrics include: Addresses with a balance of $10 or...

Today on the Brief: Markets fight to remain optimistic  Jobless claims rise for the first time in five weeks China borrows at negative rates for the first time  Our main discussion: a crypto ally as top bank regulator?  Brian Brooks was an executive at Coinbase when he was tapped by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to be the number two at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the nation’s...

Vijay Boyapati’s “The Bullish Case for Bitcoin” is one of the most influential articles in the history of the industry – even being assigned reading from MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor as he tried to convince his board on the merits of what would become its big bitcoin move.  In this conversation with NLW, Vijay discusses his recent thinking around four valuation frameworks that help us understand...

Today on the Brief: Tesla to join S&P 500 Airbnb files for IPO  The Mooch wants crypto  Our main discussion: HODL FOMO vs. Speculative FOMO. The 2017-2018 bull run was driven by ICO mania and a relentless get-richism that was nothing if not short-term. As bitcoin passes $17,000 and questions of looming all-time highs start to make their way into mainstream press, it is a very new set of actors and...

Today on the Brief:  Moderna trial success drives markets up New all-time high in negative-yielding debt Jay Clayton to leave SEC  Our main discussion: BTC $318,000 in December 2021? That’s the prediction of one Citibank exec in a report called “Bitcoin: 21st Century Gold” sent last week to institutional clients. In this episode, NLW breaks down the report, including the macro justification that s...

On this week’s edition of Long Reads Sunday, NLW reads former IMF chief and current Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff’s latest Op-Ed, “The Calm Before the Exchange Rate Storm” in Project Syndicate.

On this edition of the weekly recap, NLW looks at bitcoin’s surge past $16,000. Additionally, he explores some recent FUD from Ray Dalio, which NLW argues seems strangely locked in years-old narratives. 

Today on the Brief: Christine Lagarde’s digital euro hunch Deutsche Bank CBDC note COVID-19 resurgent    Our main discussion: PayPal is rolling out crypto to all its users and increasing transaction limits from $10,000 to $20,000. In this episode, NLW breaks down the community response to the news, including an interesting discussion of whether the company’s BitLicense requires PayPal to hold 1:1...

Robby Gutmann is the co-founder of Stone Ridge Holdings Group, a $10 billion alternative asset manager and co-founder and CEO of NYDIG, the group’s bitcoin subsidiary.  In this first-ever podcast conversation, Gutmann discusses:  Buying his first bitcoin from Craigslist in 2010 The personal and professional experiences that drove his team to bitcoin Why bitcoin fits the firm's founding principle o...

Yele Bademosi is CEO at Bundle social payments app and the founder of investment firm microtraction. Akin Sawyerr is involved across the industry and leads operations at BarnBridge.  Over the course of October 2020, the world’s attention became firmly fixed on a growing movement in Nigeria. With the hashtag #EndSARS, the movement was, on the one hand, about addressing police brutality. On the othe...

Today on the Brief:  Was Monday’s stock rally overdone?  Lebanon to launch digital currency 3 reasons BTC has rallied 60%+ in two months Our main discussion: Stan Druckenmiller, Bitcoin Bull.  A few months ago, Stan Druckenmiller told CNBC that he could imagine inflation of 5%–10%. Yesterday, he returned to the network to discuss why bitcoin had captured his attention as a potential hedge.

Today on the Brief:  GRIN gets 51% attacked Crypto trading volume down 25.8% in October  How the market is receiving Joe Biden Our main discussion: The stock market soars on promising Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine trials.  The S&P 500 and DJIA hit new all-time highs after Pfizer announced its experimental vaccine had prevented COVID-19 in 90% of patients. Travel stocks soared, work from home stocks suff...

Today’s Long Reads Sunday is a reading of Andy Mukherjee’s piece: “Why Emerging Markets Are Wary of a Modern Monetary Fix”. The argument is that while Western governments debate just how far we can take the idea of money printing without paying a dubious price, for emerging-market governments there simply isn’t the same capacity to print their way out of problems.

Hany Rashwan is the CEO of Amun/21Shares, the creator of a variety of publicly traded crypto products with over $100 million assets under management.  In this conversation, he and NLW discuss: How he was introduced to bitcoin by Tim Draper in 2012 How the Egyptian revolution and challenges that followed influenced his thinking  How a 48% overnight devaluation of the Egyptian pound created the “aha...

Emil Kalinowski is the host of “Making Sense/Eurodollar University” collaborations with Jeff Snider.  In this illuminating conversation, he and NLW discuss: How the global monetary order changed over the last 50 years The exact moment the world demonstrated it had too little money Why bitcoin and MMT are competing to shape the next generation of monetary thinking  Why a big crash is coming, but we...

As the U.S. election picture starts to become more clear, bitcoin has smashed through $15,000 – its highest price since 2017’s record-breaking run. Alongside the price action has come a wave of mainstream media coverage.  In this special he-was-supposed-to-be-on-vacation episode, NLW breaks down Twitter’s response and shares interpretations, including: “Quietest bull run ever” Stimulus on the way...

Jim Epstein is the executive editor of Reason TV and podcasts, and the producer of the recent documentary “Cypherpunks Write Code.”  In this conversation, he gives NLW a behind the scenes look on the interviews and conversations that went into the documentary, including how the cypherpunks started, schisms in the movement, and how the movement lives on today.  Watch “Cypherpunks Write Code” Part 1...

Jacob Goldstein is one of the hosts of NPR’s Planet Money. He is also the author of the new book, “Money: A True Story of a Made Up Thing.”  In this conversation, he and NLW discuss: How China invented paper money and then forgot about it for centuries Why the invention of the lightbulb was a pivotal money history moment  How money market funds set the stage for the Great Financial Crisis  Where b...

Today on the Brief: The digital euro is closer than ever Checking in on European COVID-19 lockdowns Economic events this week that aren’t the election Our main discussion: Which U.S. election outcome is better for bitcoin?  Poll: https://twitter.com/nlw/status/1320884275110137863 After a surprisingly close Twitter poll with more than 1,600 respondents answering the question “Is Trump or Biden bett...

On this week’s Long Reads Sunday, NLW diverts from our normal opinion and long-form essay to pursue Grayscale’s recent investor reports. In its survey of investors, Grayscale found more interest in bitcoin investing than ever before, with a significant amount of the growth in interest being driven by economic and monetary policy following the coronavirus pandemic. scribd.com/document/481729535/Gra...

On this week’s weekly recap, NLW looks at: Bitcoin’s resilience in the face of a week where many investors went risk off, causing a drop in stocks and gold JPMorgan’s dramatic three-year attitude shift around bitcoin and crypto  Iran stockpiling bitcoin to be able to pay for imports A new round of COVID-19 lockdowns and the stimulus that will follow