So many of the supposed champions of economic reform don't actually take the time to understand

true systemic alternatives.

Instead, their mechanism for change is just more regulation of the existing institutions that

have shown themselves time and time again to be the problem.

It's like wanting a system run by criminals with better handcuffs rather than a system

just not run by criminals in better handcuffs rather than a system just not run by

criminals in the first place. 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 Nexo.io and Casper and produced and distributed by CoinDesk.

What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, March 3rd, and today we're talking about Elizabeth Warren

and whether you're really surprised that she doesn't get Bitcoin. First up, however, let's do the brief. First on the brief

today, some big crypto M&A news. PayPal is reportedly in the process of buying Curve, which is a

crypto custody technology platform. An Israeli outlet is reporting the purchase price at 200 to 300 million,

while a Coin desk source

says it's closer to $500 million. The rumor is that PayPal tried to buy BitGo for $750 million

in cash last year and got rebuffed. So why is this interesting? Well, one of the things we've

discussed is that as all of these mainstream financial firms,

both fintechs like PayPal, as well as traditional services like banks, get into the business

of actually offering crypto services, they're not going to have the time or know how to build

things out themselves. What they do have is capital to throw around through acquisitions.

If this deal is $500 million,

it will be the biggest acquisition in crypto yet. But I also have no doubt that before 2021 is done, it will be massively outstripped. I would be shocked if we didn't see at least

...