The Breakdown

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 Wall Street expects to win, including:  Energy Private prisons Student loans Health care  Infrastructure Dollar Bitcoin

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 builders in bitcoin and DeFi, and why recruiting corporate allies like Square will become more important than ever.

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 conversation, NLW and Wood discuss: Why she had conviction in Tesla before the market caught up  Why her fund offered the first bitcoin investment opportunities to Wall Street Why it doesn’t hire traditional Wall Street analysts  Why it gives away all research for free Why it shares the trades made in a completely open-source way ARK’s recent Bitcoin Investment Thesis white paper What the prospects are for innovation in 2021  Find our guest online: Twitter: @CathieDWood Web: ark-invest.com

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 the (potential) connection to Coinbase’s “apolitical” stance from last week to the notion of Square intentionally setting a framework others can follow.

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 could end up the reserve asset for DeFi Why regulation is the greatest threat to the space

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 actually happened, and looks at the reactions from the crypto industry including: Accusations of hypocrisy Skepticism of enforceability  Why it might actually be good for bitcoin 

Today on the Brief: Markets gain as Pres. Trump’s condition stabilizes SEC Chairman Clayton sees future where all stocks are tokenized Uniswap had more volume than Coinbase in September  Our main discussion: central bank coins and financial privacy.  The EU recently released a new research paper on a possible digital euro. Like many other official central bank reports, it assumes there is no possibility of an anonymous digital bank currency. NLW dissects arguments from people including JP Koning and CoinCenter’s Jerry Brito on why this shouldn’t be true. 

Today’s Long Reads Sunday selection is “How To Avoid Paying the Cruelest Tax: Inflation” from the Wall Street Journal. NLW argues the piece reflects a changing conversation in mainstream financial circles about the possibility of inflation on the other side of new Federal Reserve policy.

A recap of September, which NLW calls a transitional month between the post-lockdown excitement of the summer and the growing macro insecurity around second wave fears and election volatility.  Featuring some of the most interesting insights from our guests, including: Luke Gromen on the four options for countries that can’t pay their debts Tavi Costa on the Fed’s new “mandate” to keep asset prices high  Raoul Pal on why “monetary policy is over”  Sven Henrich on the ever-weakening economic cycle Corey Hoffstein on the fundamental supply-demand mismatch that exacerbates exogenous shocks Michael Saylor on why he moved his company’s cash reserves to bitcoin