There are so many examples now of countries whose currencies have failed where the population

intuitively gets the idea of having an asset that's not backed by nothing, or at least not

backed by scarcity the way Bitcoin is.

That is, I think, the narrative that we're going to see evolve dramatically in the coming

year as the institutions really push this idea of Bitcoin being a better

gold. And I'm pretty excited about that because that's going to create competition to this

government-driven monopolistic idea that that's the only money that exists and it's just obviously

not true. Welcome back to thedown 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 crypto.com and nexo.io and produced and distributed by CoinDesk.

What's going on, guys? It is Saturday, December 26th, and today on the breakdowns end of year

extravaganza, I am joined by Bill Barthet, the founder and CEO of Abra, a mobile crypto bank.

Bill has some of the absolutely most interesting life experiences of anyone

in this space and brings a ton of real world perspective to his thinking about Bitcoin and the

markets. This was a great conversation. I know you're going to enjoy it. Let's dive in.

All right, Bill, welcome to The Breakdown. This is a long time coming. I'm really excited to have you on the show.

Oh, thanks for having me. I'm excited.

All right. So let's start easy and as big as it gets. What is the most important economic story of 2020?

I think that the most important story is actually a kind of a tale of two narratives.

On the one hand, we've got this now very clear tale of two economies because of COVID,

where it's like digital versus everything else. And if you're not in a digital business,

you are suffering. If you are in a physical business, if you're in retail, travel, anything related to either of those, you're clearly suffering.

...