BREAKDOWN: Visa Buys a Punk as Bitcoin Returns to $50K
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 23 August 2021
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Is it a marketing stunt or the beginning of a wave of institutional interest in NFTs?
This episode is sponsored by NYDIG.
Late Sunday evening, bitcoin pushed above $50,000 for the first time in three months. Overall BTC is up 46% in the last 30 days. NLW explores arguments that this move has been spot driven and connected to institutions and whales. He also looks at the potential implications of the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole meeting later this week.
In the second part of the show, he looks at the news that has Crypto Twitter on fire: Visa bought a CryptoPunk. The purchase, executed for around $150,000, is being maligned by some as a marketing stunt, while others see it as heralding a new era of institutional purchases of non-fungible tokens. NLW looks at both sides and ultimately argues that neither is exactly correct. Instead, it seems to be about inserting Visa’s business into a new digital market.
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NYDIG, the institutional-grade platform for Bitcoin, is making it possible for thousands of banks who have trusted relationships with hundreds of millions of customers, to offer Bitcoin. Learn more at NYDIG.com/NLW.
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“The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is “Only in Time” by Abloom. Image credit: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images Entertainment, modified by CoinDesk.
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Transcript
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| 0:49.7 | Visa wants to be in the middle of transactions across a long tale of businesses, and it |
| 0:54.0 | seems to me that part of what they're transactions across a long tail of businesses, and it seems |
| 0:54.4 | to me that part of what they're seeing is a new category of digital commerce that they want |
| 0:58.6 | to be in the middle of. In other words, it's less about treasury reserves and stores of value, |
| 1:03.8 | and more about figuring out how to make money in a new economic market category. |
| 1:09.5 | Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. |
| 1:13.5 | It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big-picture power shifts remaking our world. |
| 1:20.7 | The breakdown is sponsored by Nidig and produced and distributed by CoinDesk. |
| 1:27.1 | What's going on, guys? It is Monday, August 23rd, and it is an exciting little Monday morning we got here. |
| 1:34.7 | First up, as I discussed on Saturday's weekly recap, Bitcoin had just made a nice little |
| 1:39.9 | punch-up heading into the weekend. Last night, on Sunday, Bitcoin lifted its head above 50,000, |
| 1:46.0 | where it remained until about an hour ago at the time of this recording. Some have called this |
... |
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