The Breakdown Podcast
1) Government Shutdown Hits as Politics Markets and AI Collide
As of midnight, the U.S. government has officially shut down after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach a last-minute deal. In today’s Breakdown, NLW explores the political brinkmanship behind th...Show More
2) SEC & CFTC Call a Truce on Crypto Regulation
After years of turf wars, the SEC and CFTC are finally signaling a new era of collaboration. At their first joint roundtable in 14 years, agency heads emphasized coordination over consolidation, while...Show More
3) Kraken’s $15B Secret Raise and the Race to IPO
Fortune revealed that Kraken quietly raised $500 million at a $15 billion valuation—its first significant raise in over a decade—as the exchange eyes a 2026 IPO. Bloomberg followed up with reports of ...Show More
4) Friday Five: Tether’s $500B Play, SEC Opens the Door, and Vanguard Bows to Crypto
In this week’s Friday Five, we dive into Tether’s jaw-dropping $500B valuation bid, the SEC’s surprise innovation exemption, bipartisan momentum on a market structure bill, Ethereum’s latest Wall Stre...Show More
5) Agentic Payments and the Next Internet Economy
Coinbase and Cloudflare are pushing forward with X402, a new crypto-powered payments protocol for AI agents. Could agent-to-agent transactions reshape e-commerce and the web itself? Meanwhile, Tom Lee...Show More
6) Tether’s Half-Trillion Dollar Valuation
Tether is reportedly courting outside investors for the first time—at a staggering $500 billion valuation. In today’s Breakdown, NLW digs into Bloomberg’s report on Tether’s $15–20 billion fundraise, ...Show More
7) Bitcoin’s September Shakeout: $1.7B in Liquidations Sets Stage for Q4
Bitcoin’s September rally finally stumbled, with a 3.5% drop triggering $1.7B in long liquidations—the biggest of the year. While traders were caught offside, on-chain data shows holders aren’t sellin...Show More
8) Senate Democrats Push for Bipartisan Role in Crypto Market Structure Bill
On today’s Breakdown, NLW looks at the latest twists in the crypto market structure bill. A group of 12 Senate Democrats is pushing for true bipartisan authorship, raising the stakes as time runs shor...Show More
9) The Five Most Important Stories in Crypto This Week
In this week’s Friday Five, NLW digs into why Bitcoin’s September performance is surprising markets, what the Fed’s anticlimactic rate cut means for the economy, and how new SEC approvals are reshapin...Show More
10) Fed Cuts Rates Amid Rising Labor Market Risks
The Federal Reserve delivered its first rate cut since last November, reducing the target range to 4–4.25% as weakening labor data outweighed inflation concerns. Chair Powell framed the move as a “ris...Show More