The Breakdown

Today is Super Tuesday - the biggest day of the US primary election season. Increasingly, prediction markets and pollsters suggest it’s a two person race between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders (although Mike Bloomberg has insisted he’s staying in). 

In this episode, NLW breaks down each candidate in the context of their positions vis a vis cryptocurrency, as well as looking at the possible role of three other fallen contenders in the rest of the campaign. 

As Bernie leads the Twitter poll, the question arises: do people think Bernie will be good for bitcoin because he shares the same values of prioritizing the little guy over big banks, or because they think his programs will demand so much QE it will send bitcoin to the moon? 

Listen and find out.

When everyone wrote their 2020 crypto prediction pieces, China featured prominently in everything from the exchange business to enterprise blockchain to the potential impact of a forthcoming digital yuan. 

Coronavirus erased those issues from focus. On this episode of The Breakdown, @NLW is joined by Matthew Graham, CEO of Sino Global Capital. For the past 7 years, Matthew has lived in China and for the past several years, his exclusive focus has been on crypto and blockchain. 

In this episode, they discuss:

• What Chinese crypto and blockchain investors were focused on before Coronavirus
• The shift in the crypto and blockchain narrative in China post-Libra 
• What living through the Coronavirus has actually been live (and how it differs from the media narrative in the US) 
• Why enterprise blockchain is poised to be one of the most dominant focuses for China-centric investors this year 

When everyone wrote their 2020 crypto prediction pieces, China featured prominently in everything from the exchange business to enterprise blockchain to the potential impact of a forthcoming digital yuan. 

Coronavirus erased those issues from focus. On this episode of The Breakdown, @NLW is joined by Matthew Graham, CEO of Sino Global Capital. For the past 7 years, Matthew has lived in China and for the past several years, his exclusive focus has been on crypto and blockchain. 

In this episode, they discuss:

• What Chinese crypto and blockchain investors were focused on before Coronavirus
• The shift in the crypto and blockchain narrative in China post-Libra 
• What living through the Coronavirus has actually been live (and how it differs from the media narrative in the US) 
• Why enterprise blockchain is poised to be one of the most dominant focuses for China-centric investors this year 

The full week's episode run in one long-run, long-chill, long-sleep episode:

• Monday | Caitlin Long on Coronavirus, Crypto Custody and Building a Bank
• Tuesday | 6 Explanations for Crypto’s Coronavirus Focus
• Wednesday | Is Bitcoin A Safe Haven or ‘Schmuck Insurance’?
• Thursday | A 101 Guide To Ethereum’s ProgPoW Controversy
• Friday | Understanding This Week’s Market Whiplash, Featuring Scott Melker

After weeks of not reacting to Coronavirus, the markets took a profound turn for the worse this week, leading ultimately to the fastest correction - i.e. loss of 10% - in recorded history. 

In this episode of The Breakdown, @NLW is joined by crypto trader, DJ, and broad market thinker Scott Melker to discuss:

• What the crypto markets demonstrated this week
• What recent price action suggests about the bitcoin as a safe haven narrative
• Why it’s insane that just two weeks ago, despite tens (or hundreds) of millions of people being quarantined in the supply chain capital of the world, stock markets were printing all time highs
• How we went from those ATHs to the fastest correction (10% drop) in recorded history
• What the correction suggests for the fundamentals of our economy 
• Why central bankers have fewer options than ever to fight economic turmoil

Last Friday on Ethereum’s core developer call, the devs agreed to push forward a controversial anti-ASICs consensus algorithm switch known as ProgPoW. 

The broader Ethereum community was not pleased, and has spent the last week debating both ProgPoW itself as well as the way decisions in the community get made. 

In this 101-guide to the controversy, @nlw breaks down:

• What is ProgPoW
• The history of the debate
• Arguments for and against
• Who falls on what side and why 
• The implications of ProgPoW for DeFi