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.

What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, January 7th. And as Bitcoin climbs back above 100K, Michael Barr has stepped down as vice-fed chair for supervision.

Before we get into what that means and why it's important, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation.

Come join us on the breakers discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit.ly slash

breakdown pod. Well, friends, Bitcoin likes that we are back in business, surging above

100K as traders returned to their desks for the new year. With a fresh new quarter starting in earnest

on Monday, traders pushed Bitcoin back above 100K for the first time

in almost three weeks. Of course, not a lot can be drawn from a single trading day, but a 4%

gain was one of the strongest daily movements since November. It suggests one of the first

thoughts for professional money managers was to ensure they made their Bitcoin allocation for

the quarter. The solid price action raised a lot of eyebrows. Jonah Van Borg, Commodities trader and host of

1000X, wrote, I think it's significant that BTC is performing to start the year. Large inflows heralded

astounding price appreciation in early 2024 and early 2023. The January allocation pattern is

continuing in 2025, and so too should the price action. Trading analyst Yelle was getting impatient,

tweeting,

same thing, different cycle, break 100K and we can get this show on the road.

Speaking of cycles, CoinDesk analyst James Van Stratton pointed out that Bitcoin now has

better post-having performance than it did in 2016.

However, at the same point during that cycle, Bitcoin had barely moved above 1,000,

and would go on to pull a further 20x before the top.

I think it's fairly safe to say that that's probably not how this cycle will play out,

...