CoinDesk Podcast Network

The founder and lead market strategist at NorthmanTrader explains how the Fed has boxed itself in and why our fundamental economic capacity fails to grow.

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

Sven Henrich is the outspoken founder and lead market strategist at NorthmanTrader. Well known for his appearances on CNBC, CNN Business and MarketWatch, Sven is also the host of the Straight Talk podcast. 

In this conversation, he and NLW discuss:

Find our guest online:

Twitter: NorthmanTrader

Website: northmantrader.com

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In August, the volume of personally owned stock sold by corporate executives reached its highest level since 2015, followed by a 10% decline in the S&P500 in September. 

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

Today on the Brief:

Our main discussion: Did corporate insiders perfectly time the market top? 

August saw the largest volume of insider selling since 2015, with more than 1000 corporate officers offloading $6.7B in stock. Subsequently, the market has seen a 10% decline since the S&P500 all time high of Sept. 2. What’s more, according to new statistics, insider selling is happening at the fastest pace since 2012. 

The question is: What do these executives know that the rest of the market doesn’t?

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How the Fed and the rise of passive investing and volatility strategies have combined to make market movements faster and more severe.

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

Corey Hoffstein is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Newfound Research LLC, a quantitative research and investment fund. He is also the host of the “Flirting with Models” podcast. 

His most recent research is “Liquidity Cascades: The Coordinated Risk of Uncoordinated Market Participants.” 

In it, he examines three popular narratives about what is driving radical swings in markets, including:

He finds that, individually, none could explain the radical market shifts we’ve seen. However, when combined, they create a market incentive loop that is causing markets to move and react to exogenous shocks more quickly and aggressively than ever before. 

Find our guest online:

Twitter: @choffstein 

Website: Newfound Research

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Bitcoin mining can help big energy companies produce more efficiently, increasing American energy independence in the process. 

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

Today on the Brief:

Our main discussion features Marty Bent. 

Marty is the author of one of the best known daily bitcoin newsletters, as well as the host of “Tales From The Crypt” podcast. He also is one of the leaders of Great American Mining, a new project using bitcoin mining to make big energy more efficient and profitable. 

In this discussion, we talk about how bitcoin and big energy are unlikely allies, how that alliance can bring more bitcoin mining back to America, and how it is working to reduce America’s energy dependence.

Find our guest online:

Twitter: @MartyBent

Twitter: @GAMdotAI

Website: gam.ai

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The massive leak of suspicious activity reports shows how banks let the government know about likely money laundering, then go right on providing services.

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

Today on the Brief:

Our main discussion: The FinCEN Files 

The FinCEN Files are a leaked cache of suspicious activity reports filed by banks with the U.S .Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. The more than 2,000 files, representing $2 trillion in transactions, were leaked to BuzzFeed News more than a year ago. BuzzFeed, in turn, shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who then helped distribute them to 108 publications in 88 countries. 

This episode provides an overview of the leaks and explains why they show that, despite lots of PR bluster, banks are happy to file their reports and then keep on banking likely money launderers.

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This week’s “Long Reads Sunday” reading is from macro analyst Lyn Alden and focuses on the inflation vs. deflation debate in historical context.

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

On this week’s “Long Reads Sunday,” NLW reads macro analyst Lyn Alden’s latest: “A Century of Fiscal and Monetary Policy: Inflation vs Deflation”

The article looks at:

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This week Kraken Financial became the first crypto company to receive a banking charter under Wyoming's Special Purpose Depository Institution statute. On this Speaking of Bitcoin episode, Join CEO David Kinitsky for a look at what it all means and how it'll work with hosts Adam B. Levine, Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Stephanie Murphy.

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

In the early days of Bitcoin, there were no rules, or at least none that people understood. The first batch of companies were focused entirely on functionality; Simply making things possible that before crypto had been impossible.

In the aftermath of the collapse of first MTGox and then later TheDAO, it became obvious that rules did apply, or at least would moving forward. But what wasn't very clear was how they'd apply as different regulatory bodies claimed authority in confusing and often conflicting ways.

As law, if not order, came to the industry, much of crypto's first wave of US based exchanges were crushed as they struggled to get legal, a challenging task with different rules and unique compliance burdens for each state and territory they'd operate in. New York famously introduced the Bitlicense, which in the five years since it's introduction has approved just 25 companies to operate in the U.S. financial hub.

On today's show Kraken Financial CEO David Kinitsky joins the discussion of just how much things have changed as Kraken becomes the first crypto company to receive a banking charter under Wyoming's Special Purpose Depository Institution statute. And more importantly, what happens next.

Credits

This episode was edited by Adam B. Levine, with music provided by Jared Rubens.

Episode Art by Doran Erickson on Unsplash

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The highly-anticipated launch of Ethereum 2.0 is expected to have little to no impact on users and decentralized applications (dapps) currently operating on Ethereum. But in the years after its launch, Ethereum developer Danny Ryan expects the upgrade to radically improve network performance and security. 

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

There will be what Ryan calls a “precise point of transition,” where at one block the Ethereum blockchain is progressed and secured through the activity of mining and at the next block it is secured through validating. These two systems of block creation and transaction validation are called proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS), respectively. 

The Ethereum 2.0 upgrade is the technology and multi-year roadmap intended to transition the world’s second largest blockchain by market capitalization from PoW to PoS. 

See also: Ethereum 2.0: How It Works and Why It Matters

There are several security concerns that still need to be addressed by Ethereum developers to ensure that at this point of transition, there is no possibility for 51 percent attacks, block reorganizations, and other edge cases jeopardizing user funds and network data. 

To this end, Liz Steininger, CEO of blockchain security company Least Authority, recommends additional audits of Ethereum 2.0 code in preparation for what developers are calling Phase 1.5 of the upgrade roadmap. However, even with multiple audits on top of the ones already completed for the launch of Ethereum 2.0, Steininger foresees inevitable “hiccups and bumps in the road.”

See also: Quantstamp Audit Greenlights Ethereum 2.0 Client Prysm for Launch

“[Flaws in code] isn’t necessarily a failure but it’s a learning opportunity for everybody in the industry to see how these things work at such a large scale,” said Steininger. “If we can overcome the bumps in the road that are undoubtedly going to happen during this large transition then I think that shows a kind of resiliency to the greater world of what blockchain and cryptocurrency and the development space is capable of.” 

Ryan has high hopes that after the “hot swap” from Eth 1.0 to Eth 2.0, users and dapp developers will begin to see noticeable improvements to transaction efficiency and throughput on the merged network immediately. 

“We want to increase the layer one capacity of the [Ethereum] system by approximately 100x. The benefits we hope to bring to developers is more capacity, cheaper transactions and a better environment for users to interact with and build dapps on,” said Ryan. 

For more information about Ethereum 2.0, you can download the free research report featuring additional developer commentary about the upgrade on the CoinDesk Research Hub.

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Kraken became the first crypto exchange to win a U.S. banking license this week. Here’s why that matters. 

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

On this edition of The Breakdown weekly recap, NLW looks at:

This week on The Breakdown:

Monday | The Business of Geopolitical Competition 

Tuesday | The Decade of the Living Dead: How Zombie Companies Are Robbing Tomorrow’s Economy

Wednesday | Governments vs. Networks: The Battle for the Soul of Finance

Thursday | Monetary Policy Is Finished and Macro Debates Are Boring, Feat. Raoul Pal

Friday | ‘I Didn’t Buy It to Sell It. Ever.’ MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor on His $425M Bitcoin Bet

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The CEO of publicly traded MicroStrategy (MSTR) shares why he started to feel like he was “sitting on a 500-lb block of ice” and how he came to bitcoin as a solution.

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

MicroStrategy made waves when it announced in early August it was moving $500,000,000 in treasury reserves out of cash. At least $250 million were to be moved into bitcoin. 

Earlier this week, the company announced its final bitcoin purchases totaled $425 million. 

In this conversation with NLW, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor explains:

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