The Breakdown

Latest Episodes:

Rebuilding the Resilience Economy feat. Anthony Pompliano Apr 09, 2020

Show notes

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

The Questions We're Not Allowed to Ask, Feat. Hidden Forces' Demetri Kofinas Apr 08, 2020

Show notes

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

Exit Plans, Premature Rallies and Frontline Heroes feat. Ben Hunt Apr 07, 2020

Show notes

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

How Covid-19's Second Order Effects Could Make Humanity Stronger, feat. Emerson Spartz Apr 06, 2020

Show notes

Second order effects are things that happen as unexpected outcomes of something else happening. These effects can create surprising causal chains.

Take this for example: A pandemic makes everyone need to work from home leads to an increase in video calling leads to Walmart reporting that people are buying more shirts, but not pants.

Emerson Spartz is one of the world’s foremost thinkers on virality and the internet. He founded Mugglenet - the world’s biggest Harry Potter fan site - as a middle school drop out, and would later found and raise tens of millions for Dose.

In the past weeks, Emerson started an open crowdsourced document on the Coronavirus’ second order effects that has, itself, gone viral, especially among venture capitals and other investor circles trying to understand what the world looks like on the other side of this.

Emerson brings a surprisingly optimistic perspective on where this could lead a generation of people who are now more fully plugged in to the internet than ever before.

The Breakdown Weekly Recap | April 4 2020 Apr 04, 2020

Show notes

The full week's episode, in one convenient file.

Monday | Bitcoin, Stablecoins, DeFi and Privacy: How COVID-19 is Changing Key Crypto Narratives
Tuesday | ‘If You’re Not Radicalized, You’re Not Paying Attention’ Feat. Nic Carter
Wednesday | How Coronavirus Is Accelerating the End of Globalism, Feat. Peter Zeihan
Thursday | 5 Reasons For Cautious Optimism In Crypto
Friday | Will DeFi Even Matter In A Post-Corona World? Feat. Matt Luongo

Will DeFi Even Matter In A Post-Corona World? Feat. Matt Luongo Apr 03, 2020

Show notes

Matt Luongo got his start in bitcoin in 2013. In 2016, he watched a pivotal moment where the sound money, digital gold narrative subsumed the payments use case for bitcoin. While he agreed, ultimately, with the important of bitcoin as a new reserve asset, he still wanted to build and found his way to Ethereum.

Now his company is launching tBTC, a trust-minimized bridge between bitcoin and ethereum. Among other uses, it is a new solution to enabling bitcoin to be used as collateral in DeFi applications.

In this conversation, Matt and @NLW discuss these narrative shifts, as well as what the role and narrative for DeFi might be in a post-Covid crisis world.

5 Reasons For Cautious Optimism In Crypto Apr 02, 2020

Show notes

The economic outlook is grim. The jobless claims keep piling up and even the most intransigent states are shutting down business. There isn’t - yet - a realistic plan - for returning to any sort of economic normalcy.

Yet in this bleak view, there are a handful of crypto indicators that suggest for cautious optimism. In this episode, @NLW discusses:

The crypto community’s volatility resilience
A significant uptick in Stablecoin issuance
Proof that bitcoiners have been buying the dip
Evidence that new audiences are finding their way to bitcoin (and perhaps with a sound money narrative in mind)
Binance’s acquisition of CMC and the power of M&A signals

How Coronavirus Is Accelerating the End of Globalism, Feat. Peter Zeihan Apr 01, 2020

Show notes

“Some countries just aren’t going to emerge from the Coronavirus.”

Peter Zeihan is one of the world’s foremost geopolitical experts. In his new book “Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World,” Zeihan argues that we’re at the end of the largest expansionary period in human history. As America withdraws from global leadership, a totally new (and for most parts of the world, more painful) ‘normal’ will emerge.

On this episode of The Breakdown, Zeihan joins @NLW to discuss why the Coronavirus crisis is rapidly accelerating the end of the era of globalization.

How the American-led global order used the dollar as the tool to keep the world together
Why geopolitics and demography are coinciding to end the era of globalization
Why Covid-19 will spark a massive return of American manufacturing
Why, when it comes to the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency “Never before has the “exorbitant privilege” of being the world’s reserve currency felt more exorbitant or more like a privilege.
Why the crisis could spell the end for the Euro
Why China isn’t nearly as well positioned in the post globalization era as many assume
Why the best positioned countries in the coming era are the US, Japan, Argentina, France and Turkey

‘If You’re Not Radicalized, You’re Not Paying Attention’ Feat. Nic Carter Mar 31, 2020

Show notes

In this wide-ranging discussion, Castle Island Ventures founding partner and Coin Metrics co-founder Nic Carter joins @NLW to discuss:

Why corporations weren’t adequately prepared for any serious economic trouble, much less a global pandemic
Why government backstopping the corporations leads to inappropriate risk-taking
How stock buybacks became a boogeyman of the current crisis
Why the crisis is actually four crises in one: health, economic, financial, and geopolitical
How Covid-19 could accelerate the US’ withdrawal from the world and China stepping into the void
Why the response to the handling of Covid-19 could lead some to authoritarianism
How stablecoins are allowing global market exposure to the world’s most in-demand currency: the USD
Why stablecoins and central bank digital currencies look the same but are functionally opposite
Why a ‘naive safe haven’ narrative was never correct for bitcoin
Why bitcoin was designed for exactly this type of moment.

Bitcoin, Stablecoins, DeFi and Privacy: How COVID-19 is Changing Key Crypto Narratives Mar 30, 2020

Show notes

On January 28th, Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal tweeted “Notable overlap on here between the most alarmist people tweeting about the virus and those who are obsessed with the size of the Fed balance sheet.”

There is no doubt that the bitcoin and crypto community broadly were far earlier in recognizing the potential significance of the Covid-19 crisis than most professional communities. Today, America preps for at least another month of lockdown and social distancing. The markets continue their chaotic swing as investors are simply unable to price in such a once in a lifetime event.

A question for the crypto community becomes: how is this impacting narratives about our own industry?

In this episode, @NLW looks at the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on narratives around:

Bitcoin
Stablecoins
Digital Dollars and Central Bank Digital Currencies
DeFi
Privacy

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected