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 leveled, and produced and distributed by CoinDesk. What's going on, guys? It is Saturday,

December 12th, and that means it's time for the weekly recap. And this week, we just have to talk

about Bitcoin banking and the race around Bitcoin banking that is heating up significantly.

First, though, let's talk about Michael Saylor, the absolute madman and his team at Micro Strategy.

The beginning of the week, they announced that they would be offering $400 million in convertible

debt with an intention to buy more Bitcoin with it. A couple days later, they announced that they

were increasing that offering to $550 million, and yesterday they announced that they had closed

with $650 million. For those keeping track at home, that means they will have on their books

more than a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin.

If you listen to my episode with SEC Commissioner Hester Purse earlier this week,

this is the de facto ETF that Hester and I discussed.

Citibank may have downgraded micro-strategy stock because they didn't like this move,

but it seems like the

market does, given that they were able to raise 250 million more than they even thought they

would. But anyways, what I really want to talk about and what I think was the big overarching

story of this week was Bitcoin banking and crypto banking and a race that is heating up. So let's go through news

from this week about banks getting into crypto. First, there was standard chartered bank, a bank

that has about 720 billion in assets. It is London-based. They have reportedly gathered a group

of four exchanges and five of the largest OTC traders for a new

digital asset trading platform that is, of course, tailored to the institutional market.

...