The Breakdown

One of the most powerful aspects of bitcoin is its mythology.  In this episode, NLW explores the 12th anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper and the choices that went into its release date.  Whether it was something to do with the Reformation or an allusion to the longstanding pagan tradition of Samhain, the one thing that’s clear is the choice adds all the more mystique to bitcoin’s incredible or...

Today on the Brief: FTX launches equities trading  Avanti gets Wyoming bank charter France locks down and ECB intimates new stimulus Our main discussion: GDP growth report  The Department of Commerce released its Q3 GDP numbers. Touted as record growth, this is actually a much more complicated story. In this episode, NLW breaks down what the numbers tell us and what they don’t, and why we should b...

Today on the Brief: Section 230 hearing with social media CEOs in Washington D.C. Bitwise now has more than $100 million AUM Trump website defaced with Monero request Our main discussion: Markets go risk-off.  With rising fear of COVID-19 lockdowns, everything from stocks to oil to gold and, yes, even bitcoin is down on the day. The important question is whether this is a short-term volatility phe...

Today on the Brief: Stocks down; bitcoin up Consumer confidence shaky as baking supplies demand grows 3,400% Bank for International Settlements and Swiss central bank to test CBDC this year Our main discussion: JPM Coin.  Initially announced in February 2019, JPMorgan’s JPM Coin is being launched for commercial use. In this episode, NLW looks at: The history of private currencies in the U.S. Why L...

Today on the Brief: Turkey’s real inflation rate 3x official number Hot new DeFi protocol Harvest Financial hacked Bitcoin whales hit largest number since 2016 Our main conversation is about the rise of a new wave of COVID-19 and the economic fallout we’re still trying to address. NLW discusses why we’re starting this next wave more emotionally drained, politically divided and economically fragile...

For this week’s Long Reads Sunday, NLW reads two selections from CoinDesk’s op-ed section: CBDCs Are Evolution, not Revolution - Benoit Coeure  The US Risks Getting Left Behind on CBDCs - JP Schnapper-Casteras & Misha Guttentag

On this week’s Breakdown weekly recap, NLW looks at: The initial price action that started the week Debates about whether BTC was thriving at the expense of alts and DeFi The PayPal news News of more public companies putting treasury reserves into BTC Paul Tudor Jones’ optimistic take on the human ingenuity driving bitcoin’s success

Today on the Brief: DOJ crypto enforcement a “disaster” for privacy Ant’s blockchain tools pre-IPO Better news around jobless claims  Our main discussion: fiat failures, 2020 edition.  In this episode, NLW looks at a raft of geographies in which bitcoin has recently reached all-time highs, priced in the local currency. The story, he says, is about fiats floundering more than mispriced local bitcoi...

Matt Stoller works with the American Economic Liberties Project and is the author of “Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy” as well as the popular Substack newsletter “BIG.” In this conversation, he and NLW discuss the history of American antitrust sentiment and politics including: The origins of antitrust sentiment  How the “Watergate Babies” generation of Democrats turn...

Huge news broke this morning as PayPal announced it would be offering buying, selling and eventually merchant payments for bitcoin and other cryptos across its network.  In this late-breaking Breakdown episode, NLW explores: The specifics of the news Why the scale, precedent and normalization are hugely bullish What some skeptics are saying Why it’s significant PayPal is focused on the coming cent...

Today on the Brief: DOJ files biggest antitrust case in two decades against Google  Goldman Sachs’ 1MDB settlement  LINE’s new CBDC platform  Our main discussion: bulls vs. bears as bitcoin passes $12K Someone recently tweeted, “Bitcoin price has never been this high with such bearish sentiment.”  On this episode, NLW looks at the bullish case (growth in open interest on CME backed by strong macro...

Today on the Brief: Chinese citizens less than impressed with DCEP trial Is Filecoin the “Titanic” of ICOs? Mnuchin, Pelosi go one more round on stimulus Our main discussion: A new Bretton Woods moment? In a recent speech, the International Monetary Fund argued that the time to fundamentally re-evaluate the global economic order is here. Goldbugs see the potential to return to the gold standard, b...

On this week’s Long Reads Sunday, NLW reads: “Capital Allocation & Risk Asset Ramifications in a 0% Interest Rate World” The piece examines how different asset classes – from stocks to bonds to bitcoin and beyond – fare in the context of a world where the Federal Reserve is determined to keep interest rates at or near zero for years to come.

On this edition of The Breakdown weekly recap, NLW looks at: Growth in the institutional investment space in crypto A new 10,000 BTC treasury announcement  Reports from the Bank for International Settlements, G20, WEF, IMF and more around central bank digital currencies A National Security Council report labeling distributed ledger technology key for national security

Today’s Breakdown is a conversation with Andre Anjos – aka RAC, a Grammy Award-winning recording artist and music entrepreneur. He and NLW discuss: Starting the “Remix Artist Collective” as a business Evolving from remixing to performing artist The challenges and trade-offs of working with major labels  How the music industry beat back technology innovation where other industries failed How NFTs,...

Today on the Brief: Initial jobless claims rise to highest level since August BTC as a DeFi reserve asset Twitter reactions as Filecoin goes live Our main discussion focuses on the convergence of the crypto and public markets. NLW looks at: Narratives of bitcoin’s correlations to stocks Growing overlap of retail and institutional traders SPACs and public crypto companies  Bitcoin treasuries  Geopo...

Today on the Brief:  Bitcoin hashrate at all-time highs Record number of large companies lose money during the pandemic JPMorgan releases research note on bitcoin Our main discussion: Stone Ridge Holdings Group discloses $114 million in bitcoin treasury assets.  NLW digs into what Stone Ridge is, why it spun off New York Digital Investments Group (NYDIG) and how the company has quietly built itsel...

Today on the Brief: Is the “blue wave” Democrat victory narrative in the presidential election starting to shake up Wall Street?  Johnson & Johnson pause COVID-19 vaccine trial  1000 Satoshi-era bitcoins are on the move  Our main discussion: The world’s central banks are moving quickly on digital currencies. NLW looks at a slew of recent news showing how much of a priority CBDCs are becoming: A re...

Today on the Brief: Market rally to highest point in six weeks BTC and ETH up in part on Grayscale ETH trust becoming an SEC reporting company (Grayscale, like CoinDesk, is a unit of DCG.) CBDCs (and CBDC skepticism) on the rise Our main discussion: How markets are trading the U.S. presidential election in November.  A look at what different stock and other market preferences suggests about who Wa...

Today on Long Reads Sunday, a reading of Lyn Alden’s piece for CoinDesk: “Bitcoin Correlations Depend on What Phase It Is In” In it, Lyn argues that bitcoin’s correlation patterns are, in part, reliant on where bitcoin finds itself in its own cycles of expansion or consolidation.

On this week’s Breakdown weekly recap, NLW looks at a cross-section of regulatory news, including: CFTC and DOJ action against BitMEX and its leadership The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority’s ban of crypto derivative products for retail investors The DOJ’s new cryptocurrency enforcement framework  NLW discusses why these might reflect a new moment in crypto history, what it means for current build...

Forbes called her “the newest superstar investor,” and it’s not hard to see why.  Cathie Wood is radically disrupting the way money is allocated. Fighting the rise of passive – what she calls the “greatest misallocation of resources in history” – Wood’s funds are actively managed exchange-traded funds that give investors exposure to public companies in key areas of innovation.  In this conversatio...

A special breaking edition of The Breakdown follows the market’s reaction to Square’s surprise $50 million bitcoin investment.  NLW breaks down the foundations for the investment, including: 2020’s alignment between the bitcoin narrative and structural economic realities An increase in bitcoin’s perceived resilience The precedent set by MicroStrategy He also discusses the market’s reaction, from t...

Today on the Brief: Stimulus talk shutdown spooks markets House recommends antitrust actions but likely to get nowhere CBDC trial results from China Our main discussion is with trader and entrepreneur Qiao Wang. In this conversation, NLW and Qiao discuss: Bitcoin’s resilience in the face of a barrage of bad news Why DeFi is a natural next step from the foundation bitcoin has built  How bitcoin cou...

Today on the Brief: John McAfee arrested in Spain BTC addresses added spikes to two-year high A new election-market narrative emerges Our main discussion: The U.K. has banned crypto derivatives.  Just days after the U.S. announced significant action involving BitMEX, the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority has made its own move to stop crypto derivatives.  In this episode, NLW breaks down what actu...