When Libra was launched, the U.S. was kind of whatever. They wanted to have a discussion right

away, but they mostly wanted to yell at Mark Zuckerberg, or at least the generals that he sent,

for being Facebook. They didn't really even want to talk about the currency itself. A few months

later, after China had really responded, things had shifted in a major way. Zuckerberg came in wholeheartedly

talking about the need to do this because China would if they didn't. And in fact, China was while they

weren't. This is an issue that is going to get swept up into the larger conversation about the

U.S. versus China and the economy of the 21st century.

And it's going to become a major political issue in turn.

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 elliptic, and produced and distributed

by CoinDesk.

What's going on, guys?

It is Tuesday, October 13th, and today we are talking about the central Bank Digital Currency era and specifically the

just swirl of new reports and panels and press releases from the IMF, the G20, the Bank for

International Settlements. This thing is happening and it's happening fast. First, however, let's do the brief.

First up on the brief today, there is a slight shift backwards on the blue wave narrative. So

yesterday we heard how much the narrative on Wall Street had shifted around a blue wave of Democrat victories in the elections.

Basically, if Democrats win everything, Wall Street and markets think that that clears the way

for a major stimulus to happen, and markets want that stimulus. The new narrative wrinkle has to do with skepticism around whether

the Dems can capture the Senate. So Bloomberg today wrote a piece, investors turned skeptical

of U.S. Democrat Blue Wave victory, and some analysts are questioning really whether there

...