The Breakdown

The entire week's shows in one convenient episode  Monday | Off Tuesday | The $20,000 Human IPO & 5 Other Stories That Have Nothing to Do With COVID-19 Wednesday | What the Economy Will Look Like 6 Months From Now, Feat. Ryan Selkis Thursday | Libra vs. China's DCEP? The Battle for the Future of Money Heats Up Friday | Why Money Is Losing Its Meaning, feat. Jared Dillian

Bitcoiners are particularly sensitive to Fed intervention in markets, but the degree to which the Fed is willing to print to backstop basically all risk is drawing the attention of even normal market participants.  On this episode of The Breakdown, NLW is joined by Jared Dillian, market analyst, contrarian, and editor of The Daily Dirt Nap. They discuss: What ‘safe haven’ means in today’s climate How Jared became a bitcoin believer after being a skeptic  Why in an MMT world, taxation policy will be driven by ideology not practicality  Why money is losing its meaning 

This week saw the latest salvos in the battle for the future of money.  Libra announced that it would be moving away from a single currency that was backed by a basket of national currency to a model of numerous individual fiat-pegged currencies. While the original model was akin to a disruptive implementation of John Maynard Keynes original concept for a global basket currency (which he called a “bancor”), this model seems more to position Libra to help existing central banks digitize their currencies.  China meanwhile steamed forward with its digital currency and blockchain plans. Screenshots of an app from the Agricultural Bank of China show how the DCEP digital currency is currently being tested, giving us insight into functionality, geographies and players involved.  China also announced the 71 members of its National Blockchain Council, as well as went live with their Blockchain Service Network. The BSN in particular has potential significance on a world scale as China tries to build and control a key piece of global digital infrastructure.

As week (one million, it seems) of the COVID-19 lockdown plods on, many are wondering what the economy will look like on the other side. Ryan Selkis is the CEO and founder of Messari. He was one of the earliest voices in crypto to sound the alarm on the potential impact of COVID-19 not only on the health system but on the economy.  In this episode of The Breakdown, Ryan joins @NLW to discuss: Why the markets right now represent an economic and psychological relief rally What it takes to reopen the economy  Why voluntary, privacy preserving contact tracing is part of the solution Why crypto has performed largely as Ryan expected    

Even as the market tries to make sense of everything happen (or ignores it, depending on your perspective), crypto keeps on plugging along.  Today on The Breakdown @NLW looks at 5 recent crypto stories that are representative of larger trends, including: Coinbase Custody enabling staking for Polkadot DOTs A Telegram-focused exchange shutting down due to regulatory compliance costs A $20k Human IPO on Ethereum  Shapeshift acquires Portis & other crypto M&A A G20 report on the threat of Stablecoins 

The full week's episodes in one convenient file: Monday | How Covid-19's Second Order Effects Could Make Humanity Stronger, feat. Emerson Spartz Tuesday | Exit Plans, Premature Rallies and Frontline Heroes feat. Ben Hunt Wednesday | The Questions We're Not Allowed to Ask, Feat. Hidden Forces' Demetri Kofinas Thursday | Rebuilding the Resilience Economy, Feat. Anthony Pompliano  Friday | Quantitative Tightening and 5 Key Questions for Our Changing World  

As we wrap up another crazy week - 6.6m more jobless claims, $2.3T more in stimulus - this episode offers a few key themes and questions for bitcoiners and the crypto-minded to think about over the long Easter weekend: Crypto-dollarization: why money is pouring into USD stablecoins and how it could create a future onramp to bitcoin ‘Quantitative Tightening’: why a new brand for the bitcoin halving could help us better capture a unique narrative moment What it takes to get the economy back to work: beyong the political hemming and hawking, how can we force the real, nuanced conversation of turning the economy back on? What it takes to rebuild as a Resilience Economy - and how can bottoms-up networks get started now?  Moments of transition are moments of leverage: what opportunities can each of us take advantage of? 

As host of the Pomp Podcast, author of the daily Off The Chain newsletter, and founder partner at Morgan Creek Digital Assets, Anthony Pompliano is one of the best known media personalities and investors in the crypto industry.  In this episode, he and @NLW discuss:  The Fed’s just announced $2.3 trillion stimulus package - including the authorization to buy junk bonds Why media and trust have desiccated to their lowest levels ever  The lack of a plan to restart the economy  Why Bitcoin was sold in last months larger market sell off Why smart institutional investors are looking to bitcoin as a hedge when the deflationary environment turns inflationary  Why companies have to be allowed to fail to increase resilience  Why the best way to build a resilience economy is to put money in the hands of entrepreneurs and small businesses 

Demetri Kofinas is the host of Hidden Forces, a popular podcast that examines markets through the lens of large patterns of change.    On this episode, Demetri and @NLW discuss: How the politicization of the Coronavirus crisis has undermined smart action How media incentivizes extreme opinions regardless of underlying expertise  What conversations are we not having around Coronavirus - in particular in terms of second order effects Why we’ve barely begun to discuss the plan for turning the economy back on

Epsilon Theory’s Ben Hunt joins for a follow up to our pre-lockdown Covid-19 conversation in early March. In the month since, the markets finally started to take Covid-19 seriously, elected officials stopped calling it just the flu, and big chunks of the world economy shut down.  Now, as markets rally on early evidence the curve may be flattening, the question is: is this premature?  In this episode, Ben & NLW discuss: How the markets have moved from “denial” to “bargaining”  Why this rally has all the hallmarks of a type of bear market rally we’ve seen over the last month Why the predictability of corporate bailouts doesn’t make them any less detestable Why we should be buoyed by an explosion of ground-up, grassroots citizen action How Frontline Heroes is creating a p2p PPE purchasing network that gets essential gear into the hands of health professionals without causing additional price pressure for state-led negotiations