The Breakdown
The Breakdown dives into the deepest topics in crypto, blockchain, and the macro forces shaping markets and power structures. Each episode breaks down complex ideas into clear, grounded analysis — separating signal from noise across crypto, finance, and geopolitics.
Hosted by David Canellis, The Breakdown features explainers, interviews, and conversations with the people building, regulating, and challenging the financial system.
A Blockworks podcast.
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1851
Bitcoin, Property Rights, and Why the Old West ...
Today on the Brief: A record week for peer-to-peer exchanges in the developing world A digital dollar gets discussed in Congress Previewing the Federal Reserve’s FOMC guidance Our main topic: A brainstorm on digital property rights...
33 min
1852
What the Stock Market’s ‘Robinhood Rally’ Means...
Today on the Brief: Saudi Arabia injects $13 billion in bank liquidity via blockchain. China’s state TV CCTV says Binance is still allowing crypto trading in China. MakerDAO community greenlights real world collateral. Our main topic: The...
32 min
1853
Why War Reporting Is the Right Mental Model for...
On today’s episode of The Breakdown, we introduce the Breakdown Brief - a look at three key topics in bitcoin and crypto. Today, the Brief covers: Brave browsers auto adding ref links to Binance.us The disconnect between Wall Street and...
77 min
1854
The Revolution Will Be Retweeted: The Breakdown...
The Breakdown Weekly Recap looks at the key themes that shaped the week. On this week’s episode, NLW discusses: The modern significance of Tiananmen Square, and why this week’s U.S. protests show why the tools of surveillance need to be applied...
8 min
1855
Everything You Need To Know About The US & Chin...
The U.S.-China relationship has an outsized impact on global economics and politics. As that relationship comes even more into focus in the wake of COVID-19 and a return of trade tensions, this episode provides a historical primer. Graham...
87 min
1856
The Mirage of the Money Printer: Why the Fed Is...
The conventional wisdom is that central banks are the most important economic actors in the world. Markets hang on their every word. Yet, what if that power has less to do with actual monetary policy and more to do with how the performance of...
64 min
1857
5 Numbers That Tell the Story of Markets Right Now
Every day that protests continue and the stock market goes up, more people ask what the disconnect between markets and the real economy is. In this episode of The Breakdown, NLW peels back the story of today’s economy by looking at five numbers: ...
14 min
1858
Bitcoin, Cellphones and the Citizen Tools of An...
Alex Gladstein is the chief strategy officer of the Human Rights Foundation. He is a powerful voice for the role of bitcoin in combating authoritarianism around the globe. In today's episode, he and NLW discuss: What the protests tell us...
45 min
1859
The Power and Peril of the 'Bitcoin Fixes This'...
Cities around the country have been engulfed in protest in the wake of the murder of 46-year-old black man George Floyd. There is an intense battle for the narrative around the protests. Are they legitimate outcries against institutional racism and...
25 min
1860
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | May 30 2020
The week's episodes in one convenient file. Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
238 min
1861
The Battle for the Future of Money, feat. Lawre...
As the economic dimension of the COVID-19 crisis comes into clearer view, what have we learned about the battle for the future of money? Does the dollar reign supreme? Are within-the-system competitors like the euro or China’s digital yuan gaining...
48 min
1862
The Geopolitical Implications of a Too-Strong D...
You know the meme: Money printer go brrr. It means inflation right? Not necessarily, says Brent Johnson. Since 2016-2017, Johnson has been arguing the big economic issue of our time isn’t inflation of the U.S. dollar due to excess money...
64 min
1863
Why Innovation Matters (and How Not to Screw It...
Twenty-one different people can reasonably claim to have invented the light bulb, but Thomas Edison is the one we know about. Was it just good PR? According to Matt Ridley, it was because Edison was the progenitor of an “innovation factory” that...
47 min
1864
Deglobalization and Other Narrative Violations,...
The battle to control narratives is the battle to shape how people understand the world around them. But the traditional gatekeepers of narratives - the media - have never had more competition to shape what is perceived as truth. In this...
54 min
1865
Dollar Dilemmas & Central Banks Gone Wild: The ...
Highlights from some of the most interesting conversations on The Breakdown from the last two months. 4/1 - Peter Zeihan on why the world we’ve known for 30 years is changing forever 4/6 - Emerson Spartz on a moment of punctuated...
32 min
1866
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | May 23 2020
The complete week's shows in one convenient episode Monday | Economic Freedom in the World After Capital, feat. Albert Wenger Tuesday | Lessons from the Financial History of Pandemics, feat. Jamie Catherwood Wednesday | Why a Strong Dollar Is Bad for...
238 min
1867
In The Shadow of Satoshi's Ghost: Why Bitcoin M...
On Wednesday, a batch of coins mined just a month after bitcoin’s birth were moved. It was the first time since August 2017 that any bitcoin from early 2009 had been transferred, and the action set Bitcoin Twitter on fire. While a number of bitcoin...
30 min
1868
‘Dismantle the Euro to Save Europe’ Feat. Tuoma...
The European Union and the euro are part of the most ambitious political and economic experiment of the 21st century. The COVID-19 crisis, however, has exacerbated growing questions of political will and political legitimacy and led some to wonder if...
45 min
1869
Why a Strong Dollar Is Bad for the US and Bad f...
The dollar has a unique role in the world due to its reserve currency status. For many years that status has created incredible opportunities for the U.S. Increasingly, however, some are wondering if the global standard has outlived its usefulness -...
59 min
1870
Lessons from the Financial History of Pandemics...
Jamie Catherwood works at O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, a quantitative long-equity investment firm. More importantly, however, he is the finance history guy on Twitter. His “Financial History: Sunday Reads” curation pieces and longer form...
35 min
1871
Economic Freedom in the World After Capital, fe...
Albert Wenger is a partner at Union Square Ventures as well as a prolific thinker and writer. His “World After Capital” is an evolving digital book project that looks at a set of megatrend shifts as the world moves between economic paradigms from...
62 min
1872
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | May 16 2020
The complete week's shows in one convenient file Monday | The Great Monetary Inflation: Paul Tudor Jones' Complete Case For Bitcoin Tuesday | How We Future Now - Live With Kathleen Breitman, Caitlin Long and More Wednesday | A Coming Reckoning:...
246 min
1873
The Great Inflation Escape: Where Bitcoin Fits ...
Niall Ferguson has called this moment an “age of experimentation” when it comes to currencies. One of the unique features of this moment is the experiments are not limited to the traditional actors. It is not just nation-states trying to elevate...
47 min
1874
Surveying The Carnage: Movies, Sports, and Educ...
This is the second in a series of episodes on how the economic crisis is challenging and transforming different industries. NLW looks at: Movies Direct releases are already making more than box office counterparts AMC is on the verge of...
32 min
1875
A Coming Reckoning: Why The Fed Can't Outspend ...
Two powerful and diametrically opposed forces are shaping the economy. On the one hand is inflationary economic policy, which keeps the price of assets like real estate and stocks rising ever higher, but at the expense of savings as the value of...
68 min