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 produced and distributed by CoinDes.

What's going on, guys? It is Thursday, June 3rd, and today we are talking about why Chinese

state media is indicating that China has not, in fact, banned crypto. First, however,

let's start with a quick update on ransomware.

Since I dropped that episode yesterday, I've had numerous people send me articles and media accounts blaming the ransomware epidemic on Bitcoin or crypto in general.

NPR called it the oxygen behind the surge.

So unfortunately, my very easy prediction of ransomware being the next Bitcoin fud seems coming to

pass. But I also wanted to share an interesting take I saw from a couple folks that was really

well put by Andy Edstrom, author of Why Buy Bitcoin. He tweeted, Bill Gates becomes multi-billionaire

by shipping insecure software. U.S. government pays hackers for zero-day exploits and keeps them

instead of telling software companies to patch them. Equifax loses 100 million plus identities and

stock reaches all-time high. What will solve this other than ransomware? Basically, the idea that I

think that Andy's going for is that ransomware is the natural market byproduct of insecure software. By the same token,

however, it creates the financial incentive for that software to be improved. In a world of

ransomware, the cost to buying or building insecure software go way up, which presumably gives

the advantage to less exploitable software. Yesterday, we also talked about the impact that

insurers play in this, potentially making companies more willing to pay ransoms because they know

they'll be covered. However, insurance companies seem to be making moves so that might not be the case,

or at least it won't be that easy. The Financial Times ran a story called Cyber Insurers

recoil as ransomware attacks skyrocket.

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