The Breakdown - Announcing The Breakdown Network and Bitcoin Builders

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

The Breakdown is expanding to become The Breakdown Network. The first spinoff show will be called Bitcoin Builders and is all about the entrepreneurial and creative energy flowing into bitcoin. Learn more about the changes and what you can expect.    Sound credit:  “Shattuck Hall” by Garvanza licensed via Track Club

Hello, friends. Well, today, in addition to our regular episode, I have a big announcement. This is something that I've been working on for months and that I'm so excited to share with you. TLDR. One, I'm today announcing the launch of the Breakdown Network, an entire network of podcasts and other content dedicated to exploring big picture power ships. The tagline for the network is Change Explained. Number two, the first spinoff show is called Bitcoin Builders. It's a show all about this Cambrian explosion of creativity and entrepreneurship around Bitcoin, Lightning, and Freedom Tech. The first two Bitcoin Builders shows are available today.

Number three, as part of this change, the breakdown's great partnership with CoinDisc will be coming to an end. That means you'll need to subscribe to the breakdown-only feed to get this show going forward. Okay, so that's the high-level news, but let's take a step back and talk about how we got here. And let's start with what I always say the breakdown is about, the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What does that mean? Well, all around us, the fundamental structures and assumptions on which our economies and societies rest are changing. The examples of it are everywhere. Take de-globalization and the return of history. At the end of the Cold War, one of the most prominent theories of the world was the idea of the end of history, that human societal evolution had culminated and reached its apotheosis. in Western liberal democracies and market economies. With no more Soviet Union as enemy, America was free to export these ideas everywhere. This way of thinking contributed to the attempt

to bring China into the U.S.-led global economic order, which, while certainly making stuff cheaper, also hollowed out the middle class in the U.S. and set up many of the core American political challenges we face today. Over the last few years, accelerated by the COVID period, it has become clear that history is still very much in the making, and the world is now retreating from the peak of globalization in ways that are shifting geopolitics and economic networks. Speaking of economics, another big-picture power shift we're living through is the transition for more than a decade of cheap money and near zero interest rates to the fastest rate hiking cycle in 40 years. Those years of cheap money shaped a huge amount of the world around us,

and now we're learning what simply doesn't exist without it. Now, of course, there is an open question of whether with the forever rising debt-to-GDP ratio the U.S. can actually afford to leave rates high for long. But in any circumstance, these shifting macro sands are causing massive upheaval. One need look no further than last month's bank crisis as an example. And then, of course, there is the reorganization of human society in the context of the internet and social media. We all live through the shift and participate in it day in and day out, and yet it feels radically out of our control to shape or even question. It is a relentless quest for efficiency and optimization used in service of deepened engagement whatever the social costs might be.

And hey, there might be some good in there too. Certainly once we were optimistic about what social media might do to expand who could find and claim their voice. Still, it's clear that there is no longer any such thing as consensus reality, which means we all live in a never-ending clash of narratives vying to shape our understanding of the world. Now, within these big-picture power shifts, fascinating changes are occurring. Somehow, in the chaos and turmoil of the modern economy, there has emerged a total alternative financial system, anchored by an asset with no leader, no company, no sovereign

backer. I don't think it should be any surprise that chronicling the rise of this system has been at the very heart of my first explorations into big-picture power shifts. The breakdown will continue to look at these shifts through the lens of Bitcoin, crypto, and macroeconomics. However, there's something specific within that frame that right now needs even more space to explore. The narrative around Bitcoin as COVID hit was the Paul Tudor Jones store of value in the face of the great monetary inflation idea. And in that use, Bitcoin was what it was, right? And yet quietly, there has been an absolute explosion of building on Bitcoin. Lightning has unleashed incredible creativity, and over the last few months, entrepreneurial energy has been matched by artistic energy as ordinal inscriptions

have popped onto the scene as well. Surrounding this, aligned freedom tech like Noster is helping people visualize an entire alternative operating system for a digital age that isn't controlled by governments or technological feudal lords. Bitcoin has always been a central theme of the breakdown, but important news in the Bitcoin ecosystem often gets overshadowed by larger macro, geopolitical, or even crypto, big picture power shift themes. I wanted to make a dedicated show to follow along the adoption story for Bitcoin as it progresses on a more granular scale, and frankly with just more space to explore. That's why the first breakdown spinoff is Bitcoin Builders. It's a show all about the fun, energetic, optimistic, irreverent side of Bitcoin.

The first sponsor of the show is In Wolf's Clothing, the first startup accelerator focused on lightning, which is just a perfect example of the exact phenomenon that made me want to start the show in the first place. The first couple episodes are out now, so please check them out. They feature a news show covering the battle over Bitcoin mining and state legislatures around the country, as well as the shutdown of peer-to-peer Bitcoin platforms, and an interview show with Gridless CEO Eric Hursman, talking about his work building out electrical mini-grids with integrated Bitcoin mining infrastructure across Africa. But the transformative changes I'm

interested in aren't just happening in Bitcoin or even crypto more broadly. One can hardly be alive in 2023 and not have felt the sea change with AI. In all of my time watching and creating content around technology, there has never been so crisp an inflection point moment, so clear an instance of what Stephen Jay Gould called punctuated equilibrium as what has happened with AI over the last few months. The discourse on AI is sort of shocking in its variety. On one end of the spectrum, you have experts telling us that we are single-digit years away from a human extinction event, arguing that AI is more powerful and more devastating than nuclear weapons. On the other end of the spectrum, you have maybe the most profound embodiment of Arthur C. Clarke's invocation

that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic that we've ever seen. Thousands of people around the world are feeling their creativity and economic possibility set expand before their very eyes. And then, of course, in the middle, you have those thinking about how AI is likely to be the most deflationary event in modern history, totally sideswiping entire categories of jobs, including an especially white-collar jobs, and wondering how we're going to handle that. Even folks totally focused on crypto are recognizing that it may be that the ultimate alternative truth systems we've been working on all these years, predicated on cryptography and

math, might be much more important than we ever knew as a countermeasure against a world in which AI is so advanced that we must assume the things we see to be created rather than real. I'm not sure exactly what form it's going to take yet, but there will certainly be some version of an AI breakdown coming soon. I've got the podcast feed live if you search for the AI breakdown so you can subscribe for whenever it comes. And this is the part of the story that explains primarily why the breakdown's partnership with CoinDesk is evolving. CoinDesk has been a tremendous partner for the breakdown. They've helped it grow and reach new audiences,

and in the process, they've started their own network of shows that continues to expand. I've been loving Gen C lately, for example, and I'm incredibly excited to see what they do next. I will admit, I'll probably skip the SBF season of Crypto Crooks, maybe a little too raw on that one. In all seriousness, the short of it is that I just have a feeling that it's time for the breakdown to spread its wings, and given how much of that might point us in directions outside of crypto, like the AI content I know we're going to build, it was the right time to move in that direction. Practically, that means that if you want to continue to listen to the

breakdown after Sunday, April 23rd, and you listen on the CoinDesk Podcast Network feed, you're going to need to subscribe to the Breakdown-only feed, which you can find by searching breakdown or Breakdown MLW wherever you listen to podcasts. Again, Sunday, April 23rd is the last day the breakdown will be on the CoinDesk Podcast Network feed. All right, friends, that is the news. I am so excited for this chance to get even deeper into these power shifts that are shaping our world with all of you. I appreciate each and every one of you who have been on this journey with me, and I'm truly excited for what's next to come. Until next time, peace.