I think that CBDCs are going to have an important relationship with private cryptocurrencies

and Bitcoin specifically.

I believe they're likely to drive adoption both by virtue of easier on and off-ramps,

in other words, infrastructure, but also because those surveillance properties create more

of a raise on debt for things like Bitcoin that are outside the purview and control of

any one government.

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 Crypto.com, Nexo.io, and Lovell, and produced and distributed by CoinDes.

What's going on, guys? It is Monday, December 7th, and today we are talking about why China's

latest digital currency trial is its most important yet. First up, however, let's do the brief.

First on the brief today, COVID versus stimulus. So we have

been watching the stock rally and wondering if we would see some sort of short-term turnaround.

That was the entire theme of Friday's episode. Basically, we've been excited about the idea of

vaccines as well as the prospect of stimulus. The problem with vaccines is that even

though we're seeing such positive trials, we're moving to an approval stage, there's still a lot of

now before then. There's still a lot of time before they've rolled out to the entire population

of people that need them rather than just the first-line health care workers, for example.

Markets faltered today on news that U.S. hospitalizations had hit a new all-time high,

101,487, with ICU patients topping 20,000 for the first time.

Sunday had 175,000 new cases, which, while lower than last week's peaks above 200,000 new

cases per day, is still prompting governments to enact a new wave of shutdowns. On Sunday, California

...