The Breakdown

Libra, the Euro, China's DCEP. 

Do any of these currencies have a chance at displacing the dollar in the global order? Or is it possible - as Niall Ferguson suggestions on this episode - that we're poised to shift back to a multipollar, multi-currency world?

The second in our four-part documentary micro-series on the battle for the future of money. 

Also featuring Michael Casey, Matthew Graham, Katherine Wu, Peter Zeihan, Luke Gromen and more. 

Music by DJ J-Scrilla "Faith In My Money (Money Printer Go Brrr)" from the new “Sound Money” album.

The bitcoin halving is just a few days away and the growing excitement is palpable. On this episode of The Breakdown, NLW argues that the excitement is also legitimate, and looks at nine reasons why bitcoin has never been stronger going into one of its every-four-year issuance reductions:

• Price
• Hash rate
• Mining competition
• Accessibility and Services 
• Infrastructure
• Institutional awareness and participation
• Narrative relevance
• Perceived and real resilience 
• Lindy effects 

Oh, and let’s not forget. Paul Tudor Jones just disclosed that he is invested in bitcoin and sees it as a hedge against ‘great monetary inflation’

The second order effects of the COVID-19 crisis are here, and they’re painful. In this episode, NLW looks at how COVID is impacting three industries:

• Travel and tourism
• • 100m lost jobs expected globally 
  • $2.7 in lost GDP 
  • Airbnb lays of 25% of employees 
• Music & Concerts
• • From a record $12.2B concert year to a loss of $9B
  • Expectations of concert prohibition lasting up to two years
  • Industry organizing to be included in relief 
• Real Estate
• • Commercial real estate expecting 2.5% default rate for 5+ years 
  • Negotiations around sales-based payment instead of traditional rent 
  • Residential sees cratering demand but home prices remain up year over year

Around the world, an estimated 1.7 billion people remain unbanked and lacking access to high quality financial services. 

Some projects see cryptocurrency as an answer. In this episode of The Breakdown, NLW speaks with Celo co-founder Marek Olszewski about:

• How Celo was designed differently to address financial inclusion as a primary use case 
• The problems with centralized approaches to mobile money like m-pesa 
• Why true financial inclusions solutions must be permissionless 
• Why technology design isn’t enough and projects that seek to gain adoption require ground up go to market strategies
• The impact of Libra’s launch on the “bank the unbanked” narrative 
• How the COVID-19 crisis has changed the narrative around and demand for stabelcoins globally

One month after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008, Warren Buffett wrote an Op-Ed saying that he was buying stocks. Yet during the Coronavirus crisis, he is sitting firmly on the sidelines. 

On Saturday night, the “Oracle of Omaha” spoke for 4.5 hours in the first ever virtual version of the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting - an event which some have called the “Woodstock of Capitalism.”

On this episode, NLW examines some of the key topics of the presentation, including: 

• Why Berkshire sold their entire $6.5B stake in the airline industry
• Why they were sitting on $137B in cash 
• Why they haven’t made any investments 
• How the Fed gave companies better terms than they were willing to

It was hard not to watch the presentation and conclude that Buffett feels that there are simply too many unknowns in the world going forward to feel comfortable doing much in the market right now.