The Breakdown

Today on the Brief:

• Coinbase’s monster Q1 numbers
• 150 million evaporate from the global middle class
• Jamie Dimon’s shareholder letter comments on crypto

Our main discussion: Bloomberg’s latest crypto outlook is out. In this episode, NLW looks at seven aspects of the report:

• Bitcoin as digital reserve asset in a low-yield world
• Price support at $50,000
• Price possibilities of $400,000 in 2021
• Gold replacement happening more quickly than anticipated
• Growth in publicly traded companies with crypto exposure 
• Exchange outflows
• The supremacy of USD digital currencies

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On today’s episode, NLW provides a whistle stop tour of some of the most interesting and illuminating numbers from crypto and traditional markets, including:

• The pop in Jurassic Park altcoins
• Archegos fallout
• US vaccine distribution
• Outflows from Turkey
• SPAC performance before and after mergers 
• Decline in price and volume of NFTs
• Coinbase valuation
• Stablecoin transaction volume 
• And more!

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Today on the Brief:

• The 88th anniversary of Executive Order 6102
• Former SEC Jay Clayton on bitcoin regulations 
• GBTC intends to become an ETF

Our main discussion: 

NLW breaks down the potential implications of the Coinbase IPO. He looks at the bullish arguments of mainstream presence, the potential to send people down a bitcoin rabbit hole and the provisioning of easy on-ramps versus the argument that it will give people a chance to get crypto industry exposure without actually holding bitcoin or other crypto assets. 

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On this week’s “Long Reads Sunday,” NLW reads CoinDesk journalist Brady Dale’s “Don’t Follow the Suits, Follow the Weirdos.” NLW argues this topic is even more important in the context of bitcoin institutionalization.

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On this edition of “The Breakdown” Weekly Recap, NLW looks at a set of mainstream moments including:

• “SNL” doing a song about NFTs
• Visa accepting USDC on Ethereum as a native settlement currency
• PayPal opening crypto checkout to 29 million merchants 
• Goldman Sachs opening bitcoin investment programs 
• Chipotle’s “bitcoin and burritos” promotion 

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This episode is a replay of NLW’s conversation with Cathie Wood from October 2020. In it, they discuss:

 

• Why she had conviction in Tesla before the market caught up 
• Why her fund offered the first bitcoin investment opportunities to Wall Street
• Why it doesn’t hire traditional Wall Street analysts 
• Why it gives away all research for free
• Why it shares the trades made in a completely open-source way
• ARK’s recent Bitcoin Investment Thesis white paper
• What the prospects are for innovation in 2021 

Find our guest online:

• Twitter: @CathieDWood

Web: ark-invest.com

 

This episode is a replay of NLW’s conversation with Cathie Wood from October 2020. In it, they discuss:

 

• Why she had conviction in Tesla before the market caught up 
• Why her fund offered the first bitcoin investment opportunities to Wall Street
• Why it doesn’t hire traditional Wall Street analysts 
• Why it gives away all research for free
• Why it shares the trades made in a completely open-source way
• ARK’s recent Bitcoin Investment Thesis white paper
• What the prospects are for innovation in 2021 

Find our guest online:

• Twitter: @CathieDWood

Web: ark-invest.com

The financial world has been rocked by the Archegos scandal. A family office managing at least $10 billion and betting with $50 billion-$80 billion on leverage that was completely undone, literally overnight. 

In this episode, NLW breaks down:

• Bill Hwang’s origins in Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management
• Hwang’s conviction for insider trading
• How Hwang leveraged his fund’s performance to get off prime broker blacklists
• Why Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others decided to margin call Archegos last week
• What the whole affair says about markets today

-- Earn up to 12% APY on Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD, EUR, GBP, Stablecoins & more. Get started at nexo.io -- Enjoying this content?   SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast Apple:  https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1438693620?at=1000lSDb Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/538vuul1PuorUDwgkC8JWF?si=ddSvD-HST2e_E7wgxcjtfQ Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ubHdjcnlwdG8ubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M=   Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW   The Breakdown is produced and distributed by CoinDesk.com

As the old saying goes: “First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win.” 

Ten months ago, Goldman Sachs declared that “cryptocurrencies including bitcoin are not an asset class.” Today, CNBC broke the news Goldman is planning to release a full suite of bitcoin and crypto investment products. 

On this episode, NLW breaks down the larger macro context that got us from then to now and explains why, if you’re a wealthy client of Goldman, you might have some big questions to ask. 

-- Earn up to 12% APY on Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD, EUR, GBP, Stablecoins & more. Get started at nexo.io -- Enjoying this content?   SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast Apple:  https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1438693620?at=1000lSDb Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/538vuul1PuorUDwgkC8JWF?si=ddSvD-HST2e_E7wgxcjtfQ Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ubHdjcnlwdG8ubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M=   Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW   The Breakdown is produced and distributed by CoinDesk.com

Today on the Brief:

• BTC micro futures coming to CME
• Michael Jordan is now an NFT investor
• Bitcoin doesn’t care about Treasury yields

Our main discussion: PayPal has begun rolling out its crypto checkout tools to millions of merchants. NLW breaks down:

• Why payments for day-to-day items have been historically deprioritized for Bitcoin and Ethereum 
• Why the PayPal checkout tools are unlikely to shift the primary use case from store of value style functions to medium of exchange
• Why the liquidity and utility PayPal crypto checkout creates still adds significant value to these crypto assets

-- Earn up to 12% APY on Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD, EUR, GBP, Stablecoins & more. Get started at nexo.io -- Enjoying this content?   SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast Apple:  https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1438693620?at=1000lSDb Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/538vuul1PuorUDwgkC8JWF?si=ddSvD-HST2e_E7wgxcjtfQ Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ubHdjcnlwdG8ubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M=   Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW   The Breakdown is produced and distributed by CoinDesk.com

Today’s episode of “The Breakdown” is an extended brief with five different topics:

• NFTs make it to “SNL”
• “Green” bitcoin mining
• Square’s CFO thinks all companies should hold bitcoin in their treasuries
• Crypto M&A doubles in 2020
• Visa announces USDC as settlement currency 

Ultimately, he argues that while non-fungible tokens are showing up in pop culture, the Visa deal reinforces the notion that this crypto bull market is being driven by large-scale institutional engagement.

-- Earn up to 12% APY on Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD, EUR, GBP, Stablecoins & more. Get started at nexo.io -- Enjoying this content?   SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast Apple:  https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1438693620?at=1000lSDb Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/538vuul1PuorUDwgkC8JWF?si=ddSvD-HST2e_E7wgxcjtfQ Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ubHdjcnlwdG8ubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M=   Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW   The Breakdown is produced and distributed by CoinDesk.com