Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

The breakdown is sponsored by Nidig and produced and distributed by CoinDesk.

What's going on, guys? It is Saturday, July 3rd. It's a holiday weekend, a sadly rainy one for those of us on the East Coast, but a holiday weekend nonetheless.

So let's keep this weekly recap brief. Let's start with the regulatory landscape.

On Wednesday, the show was all about what seems to be

potentially a shifting tone among regulators around digital assets in the U.S. There were two things

we talked about specifically. The first were comments by Bill Foster, a co-chair of the Congressional

Blockchain Caucus, that many of his colleagues were ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater

when it came to crypto.

The reason? Ransomware.

His answer, cryptographic backdoors, is available to certain judges and authorities.

Truly, there is nothing authorities love more than backdoors.

This is, of course, a non-starter.

The one thing that makes blockchain's trustworthy is their immutability.

Compromise on that, and we might as well just pack it up. Of course, just packing it up is likely

what a fair few in Congress want. On Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing

titled America on Fire. Will the crypto frenzy lead to financial independence and early

retirement or financial ruin? I gave you the rundown of some of the themes thatzy lead to financial independence and early retirement or financial ruin?

I gave you the rundown of some of the themes that were likely to be on display.

One of the most interesting was questions of were there new systemic risks, created by

crypto market volatility, as more hedge funds and other traditional financial actors got involved.

...