The Breakdown

An appropriate post-July 4th episode of the Breakdown's #LongReadsSunday featuring Human Rights Foundation CSO Alex Gladstein's "Why Bitcoin Matters For Freedom" Read the original on Time Follow Alex on Twitter 

Financial education and financial literacy are at crisis levels in this country. Financial advisers spend billions on advertising but a fraction of that on education. The resources that are available tend to be inaccessible and not designed for the people who need them most. Financial media remains a boring, exclusionary acronym game.  The net result of all of this is a population of Americans who don’t have the mental tools to understand, make sense of and make good decisions around their finances.  In this passionate conversation with NLW, financial adviser Tyrone Ross argues that all hope is not lost. According to Tyrone: Financial literacy is a cross-cutting crisis not limited to any one demographic Even the resources that do exist aren’t designed for the way their intended targets consume media  Despite all the bad things happening, this moment is also providing an inflection point where change is possible  Find our guest online:Website: tyroneross.io Twitter: @TR401

OKCoin and BitMEX recently came together to provide a $150,000 grant to Bitcoin Core developer Amiti Uttarwar.  In this conversation, Amiti and OKCoin CEO Hong Fang discuss: Why OKCoin believes it is essential for companies in the space to support Bitcoin Core development How OKCoin and BitMEX came together around this grant Why Amiti is focused on the P2P layer Why Amiti believes Bitcoin should be private by default  Why Bitcoin Core will better serve more populations if more populations are represented in who is building it    Find our guests online: Hong Fang Website: https://www.okcoin.com/Twitter: @hfangca Amiti Uttarwar Twitter: @amizi   

Even before the COVID-19 crisis, Reddit’s WallStreetBets channel was featured on the cover of Bloomberg BusinessWeek as an emerging market force.  Since then, between the surge in signups for Robinhood and the wave of followers of Davey Day Trader Global Global, these day traders have taken an even bigger place in the conversation about the stock market.  While many finance professionals (and, most certainly, traditional financial media) have treated the movement with skepticism, paternalism or outright derision, Slow Ventures’ Jill Carlson has a very different view.  To Jill, this group represents a new wave of investors who are unwilling to wait for permission to play a game that has been largely closed off to most.  In this conversation, Jill talks about why the Robinhood revolution is very, very real, and what opportunities for entrepreneurship and investing she sees in terms of financial education, new exchange tools and more.  Find our guest online:Website: jill-carlson.com Twitter: @jillruthcarlson

Satoshi Nakamoto is often recognized for his technical genius in solving the double spend problem. He is also widely revered for his willingness to walk away from the protocol to make it stronger, something no other entrepreneur who has created anything on the scale of Bitcoin has ever done.  What people discuss less often is Satoshi’s marketing instincts. In this illuminating conversation, serial bitcoin entrepreneur Dan Held argues:  Satoshi had strong instincts about how price would drive bitcoin adoption The bitcoin white paper document was a marketing pitch aimed specifically at the cypherpunks  The competition between bitcoin narratives is something that gives the protocol strength The competition to shape bitcoin's narrative is truly free and open to all

What would you do if you were approaching your 40s, burned out and realizing the type of financial success you had been pursuing wasn’t actually serving your true goal of freedom?  If you were George Gammon, the answer would be to change everything and start globetrotting in search of new opportunities.  George Gammon is the host of the rapidly growing George Gammon YouTube channel and Rebel Capitalist podcast. He is rapidly building one of the most rapid macro and investing fanbases around. In this Free Ideas Festival conversation, he and NLW discuss: The pursuit of personal freedom Producing a home-flipping TV show in Colombia  Why inflation is at the heart of people’s economic discontent  How crony capitalism is driving young people to Communism  Building a rapidly growing podcast and YouTube empire

June 2020 will go down in the history books as an extremely chaotic and confusing period.  In this “Best of the Month” retrospective, we look at some of the best guest conversations from The Breakdown, including: Human Rights Foundation CSO Alex Gladstein on the importance of cash for privacy DigiChina Editor-in-Chief Graham Webster on China’s decade-long turn away from liberalism  Alhambra Investments lead researcher Jeff Snider on why the Federal Reserve’s power is a myth Popular Front founder Jake Hanrahan on the media’s veneer of objectivity Castle Island Ventures’ Nic Carter on why people should have rights to their social media profiles The Crypto Dog on mining bitcoin in 2011 Independent macro analyst Jesse Felder on the Fed’s role in increasing inequality  BlockTower Capital’s Ari Paul on how people lose faith in central banks “Think For Yourself” author Dr. Vikram Mansharamani on the recipe for inflation Independent oil and trading expert Tracy Shuchart on how easy money enabled the shale revolution  Adamant Capital’s Tuur Demeester on historical analogies for seething discontent

The latest Long Read is "Crypto Dollars and the Evolution of Eurodollar Banking" by Avi Felman and Max Bronstein.  This piece covers: The Dollar Milkshake Theory Why the demand for the US dollar remains so high  Why demand for dollars is increasing rather than decreasing  What "eurodollars" are What the shadow banking system is How eurodollars and shadow banking contribute to USD demand How stablecoins and cryptodollarization could create demand for crypto 

As states shutter economic activity because of preventable COVID-19 outbreaks, it’s deja vu all over again.  This is a movie we’ve seen before: Rise in what could have been preventable COVID-19 cases A call for shutdowns (plus voluntary closures) Rampant politicization of health and economic issues rather than common sense approaches Persistent jobless claims plus new layoffs  Wall Street nerves turning into new Federal Reserve and Treasury action Rinse, repeat, economy!

Today on the Brief: A consumer spending rebound A new crypto regulatory regime in Europe A bitcoin warning from a famed investor Our main discussion:  Tuur Demeester is the managing partner of Adamant Capital, a bitcoin investment firm that earlier this year published “The Bitcoin Reformation.”  In this conversation, he and NLW discuss: The four preconditions for a reformation, and how they apply today How hyperinflation contributed to the French Revolution Why inflation is becoming a more significant threat today How bitcoin memes function like unifying doctrines from past revolutions Why millennials could be the Greatest Generation 2.0  Find our guest online: Twitter: @TuurDemeester On the web: Adamant Capital