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 Thursday, May 16th, and today we are talking the latest

Crypto crackdown arrests. 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 of the show notes

or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod.

Hello friends. Well, we have a set of topics today, some shorter than others, and we have to kick off with a follow-up from yesterday, specifically talking about CPI. Consumer price inflation

softened slightly in April, giving a glimmer of hope that the U.S. economy will avoid heading

into another inflationary pulse.

Headline CPI rose by 0.3% for the month, coming in below estimates for the first time since January.

On a 12-month basis, headline CPI inflation came in at 3.4%, in line with expectations.

That's a slight drop from the 3.5% reading from March. Shelter and gasoline accounted for 70 percent of the increase,

while core inflation, which strips out food and energy, also fell slightly. Core inflation was down

to 3.6 percent compared to 3.8 percent in March. The month-over-month rise in core inflation

was the smallest so far this year, and the annualized figure was the lowest since April

2021. While this data only shows a marginal decline in inflation, even a marginal decline

is significantly better than the string of hot prints we've had over the recent months. In fact,

this is the first month-on-month decline in CPI since October. Importantly, the Fed has signaled

that they don't need to see inflation all the way back down before they begin cutting rates.

They're simply looking for solid confirmation that inflation is falling sustainably. FOMC rate projections showed that committee members were comfortable delivering

the first few rate cuts as soon as progress on inflation is evident. March projections had

...