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.
Subscribe to The Breakdown newsletter: https://the-breakdown.carrd.co/
1876
The $20,000 Human IPO & 5 Other Stories That Ha...
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,...
21 min
1877
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | April 11 2020
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...
233 min
1878
Quantitative Tightening and 5 Key Questions for...
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...
16 min
1879
Rebuilding the Resilience Economy feat. Anthony...
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,...
53 min
1880
The Questions We're Not Allowed to Ask, Feat. H...
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...
67 min
1881
Exit Plans, Premature Rallies and Frontline Her...
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...
36 min
1882
How Covid-19's Second Order Effects Could Make ...
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...
56 min
1883
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | April 4 2020
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 |...
177 min
1884
Will DeFi Even Matter In A Post-Corona World? F...
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...
35 min
1885
5 Reasons For Cautious Optimism In Crypto
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,...
23 min
1886
How Coronavirus Is Accelerating the End of Glob...
“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...
50 min
1887
‘If You’re Not Radicalized, You’re Not Paying A...
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 ...
42 min
1888
Bitcoin, Stablecoins, DeFi and Privacy: How COV...
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...
21 min
1889
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | March 28 2020
The full week's episode, in one convenient file. Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | From Corporate Socialism to Dying for the Dow: 7 Themes That Defined the Week
206 min
1890
Corporate Socialism to Dying for the Dow: 7 The...
In this episode of The Breakdown, @NLW reflects on the themes that defined an absolutely wild week in global markets and society. Those themes include: Unlimited QE - broad new powers (corporate bond buying anyone?) and an unlimited checkbook...
21 min
1891
How BlackRock Ended Up on Both Sides of the Bai...
The Senate passed $2T in Stimulus. That includes a one time $1,200 check to impacted individuals and….you guessed it, billions and billions for corporate relief. Included in that are hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate bond buying programs....
64 min
1892
How the U.S.' $2 Trillion Stimulus Will Expose ...
CoinDesk’s Chief Content Officer Michael Casey and Head of Research Noelle Acheson join for a lively debate about the new $2 trillion stimulus package and era of “unlimited” QE, including: Whether (and on what time scale) fiscal and monetary...
33 min
1893
Cronyism, Zombie Companies and the True Cost of...
Mark Yusko is the founder of Morgan Creek Capital Management. In this wide-ranging conversation, he and @NLW discuss: Why bitcoin has fallen with stocks over the last few weeks Why price and value are not the same thing Why stocks have been...
63 min
1894
Unlimited QE and Why Markets Can’t Price In COV...
Last October, Ikigai Asset Management’s Travis Kling predicted that Central Banks would have to “juice QE to infinity” in order to save markets from recession. Yesterday on 60 Minutes, Fed President Neel Kashkari said “there is an infinite...
17 min
1895
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | March 21 2020
Featuring CoinShares CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti and SwanBitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten
188 min
1896
State Power & Authoritarianism After Coronaviru...
Peter McCormack is the host of What Bitcoin Did and the Defiance podcast. He recently returned from travel to a number of countries in South America including Venezuela and Colombia as well as the Turkey-Greece border. In this off-the-cuff and...
71 min
1897
Is the COVID19 Fiscal & Monetary Response An Ov...
In his daily Coronavirus press briefing today, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said “our main scramble now is ventilators.” The state anticipates that within 45 days, it could need 37,000 ventilators. It currently has 3000. Bruce Fenton was...
40 min
1898
Gov't Stimulus Goes BIG and Why Bitcoin Is the ...
President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced a significant slate of upcoming stimulus measures, including deferred taxes and direct payments to Americans (although those details remain to be seen). On this episode of The...
41 min
1899
Can $700B in Quantitative Easing Calm The Marke...
Over the weekend, the Fed decided it couldn’t wait for Wednesday’s planned meeting to act, cutting interest rates to nearly 0%. It also announced $700 billion of direct capital injection through the purchase of Treasury securities and...
24 min
1900
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | March 14 2020
The entire week's shows in one convenient file: Monday | What the Market Crash Means for Bitcoin, Feat. Delphi's Kevin Kelly Tuesday | Crypto Fundraising and the Nothing-Is-Safe Haven Wednesday | Ben Hunt on the Clash of Narratives in the Age of...
200 min