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 Wednesday, September 25th, and today we are talking about an

extraordinarily contentious SEC hearing. Before we get into that, 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. All right, friends, a quick note as we get into this show. I think it is safe to say at this point

that all of us in crypto are desperately, desperately sick of dealing with the SEC and talking about

Gary Gensler. Not to say my agony is worse, but as someone who covers this industry every single day,

let's just say I feel the pain of this being the thing that we have to talk about very acutely.

And indeed, this is what's so pernicious and frustrating and just ultimately awful about the

SEC strategy over the past few years.

It is one big, massive, annoying distraction

from building, from creating, from getting people interacting with these tools, with these new

platforms, with these assets. Clearly, as you'll see from this, we have rounded a corner in

terms of the fed-upness spilling over from just us to a much wider set of people. There is light on the horizon that we

may not have to burn Gensler and effigy for much longer. However, for the time being, the type of

hearing that we're going to cover today remains the big event. And so cover it, we shall.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler came under fire during an oversight hearing before the House

Financial Services Committee yesterday. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle erred out their frustration

with the way his agency has handled crypto policy over the past three years. These annual hearings

are routine, but have become increasingly hostile as Gensler's term has worn on. For the first time

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