The Breakdown

There’s no denying that 2020 is off to a roaring start. From prices to volume to social media, sentiment is up up up.  But what’s driving it? On this special Valentine’s Day episode, @nlw reacts to listeners votes about which narratives are most driving the shift in energy, discussing:  The BTC halving Coronavirus and volatility Fed action Central bank digital currency intrigue Ethereum and DeFi Price reflexivity and Lindy effects  The episode finishes up with some hot takes on what is driving the markets and what we should be most concerned about and most excited for with Ikigai Asset Management’s Travis Kling.

To look at the US Government, it is the best of times and the worst of times for personal financial privacy.  On the one hand, in comments before the Senate Financial Services Committee, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says that FINCEN is planning more strict regulations around anti-money laundering and crypto.  At the same time, the CEO of DropBit was arrested on money laundering charges around a bitcoin mixing service he ran between 2014 and 2017.  In this new enforcement regime, one of the government’s major partners is Chainalysis, who have seen more than $10m in Federal agency contracts since 2015.  Yet privacy advocates are also surprisingly enthused by comments from Fed chair Jerome Powell, who suggested in testimony to Congress that any potential US digital dollar would need to be privacy preserving.

After Monday’s quick retrace, bitcoin and the rest of the market went green again. In this episode, @nlw breaks down the shifting sentiment, looking at: How a partnership between Hedara Hashgraph and Google Cloud pumped HBAR more than 50% - featuring commentary from Hedara CEO Mance Harmon  Why Figure is launching a TV campaign to educate people about blockchain CNBC Fast Money actively (and convincingly) promoting the narrative of bitcoin as a safe haven asset.

Last week, Blockstack announced a new proposal through which node operators would be rewarded in bitcoin. The concept behind Proof of Transfer is that, for the cryptoasset ecosystem to run, electricity should only have to be converted into digital scarcity once.  In this interview with @nlw, Blockstack CEO Muneeb Ali explains how, by tying the security of Blockstack’s Stacks blockchain to bitcoin, and allowing miners to be rewarded with BTC, Blockstack might be setting a new precedent for how the crypto ecosystem looks to bitcoin as a base layer.

Last week, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce proposed Rule 195 to give token projects a 3 year safe harbor. This proposed period would allow them to distribute tokens without fear of violating securities law so long as they achieve certain standards of decentralization in that time. Coinlist is a platform for compliant token sales. On this episode of The Breakdown, Coinlist CoFounder & President Andy Bromberg and @nlw discuss: The cost of regulatory clarity in the US, including projects leaving US shores Historic approaches to “compliant” token sales and what problems they still leave What Commissioner Hester Peirce’s proposed Rule 195 includes  The potential implications for the US crypto markets  The chances that Rule 195 comes to pass

The week's full episode run in one long-run, long-drive ready podcast. Monday | Deplatforming, Ethereum Marketing and Whether Brexit Matters for Crypto feat. Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier Tuesday | Are Uncensorable Web Domains Blockchain's Next Killer App? Feat Namebase CEO Tieshun Roquerre Wednesday | What All This VC and M&A Activity Tells Us About The State Of The Crypto Markets Thursday | The Federal Reserve Has Its 'Come to Satoshi' Moment Friday | Kraken's Dan Held on What's Different About Bitcoin At $10k This Time 

Bitcoin is on a 7 week upward trend. Having already smashed through its $9,000 Vegeta memes, it is now inching closer towards $10k.    On this episode, @nlw is joined by Kraken’s Dan Held to discuss how bitcoin has changed in a number of ways since the last time we were at the $10,000 price level last year. They look at: Narrative - Speculation around bitcoin as a safe haven and the role of the halvening continue to shape the conversation Infrastructure - The tools for how people can interact with bitcoin - from lending to derivatives - have never been broader  Audience - Institutions are no longer just around the corner but actively participating in the market  

That’s the way Meltem Demirors described Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard’s remarks at Stanford yesterday. For the first time, the Fed has said it is actively researching and experimenting with digital currencies and distributed ledger technologies. This is a change in tone from a Fed that, when asked previously, has more or less dismissed digital currencies.  On this episode, @nlw looks at Brainard’s speech, along with: the latest from Japanese lawmakers proposing a digital currency to counteract the influence of a forthcoming Chinese digital yuan; a Bank for International Settlements digital currency working group with six major central banks; and the potential implications of CBDCs on bitcoin. 

If venture investments and acquisitions provide a window into the sentiment in markets, boy did we get a big dose of information today.  Today we look at investments in the world’s best known developer of the Lightning Network; a new prominent corporate investor for a tokenized securities platform; and Square’s investment in a real-time payments company.  We also look at a set of acquisitions, including a ConsenSys acquisition poised to get them in the $3.8T municipal bond space; a Bakkt acquisition poised to get them ready for a consumer app that includes more than just cryptocurrencies; and an attempt by Bakkt-parent ICE to buy eBay for north of $30b. 

As claims of election tampering, fraud, and other dubious activities fly around the botched Democratic Caucus in Iowa, trust in our public institutions continues to crater.  The question of trust and censorship are at the heart of our episode today. Handshake is a new protocol for uncensorable web domains. The goal is to create a new blockchain-based Top Level Domain system that governments can’t censor or block.  To explain why Handshake (HNS) matters, @nlw is joined by Tieshun Roquerre, the CEO of Namebase, a next-generation domain registrar for HNS.  In this interview, they discuss:  What Handshake is  How a HNS domain is different from a standard web domain  Why uncensorable web domains are the next great blockchain killer app  How Roquerre became interested in the space How Namebase works