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 20th, and today we are talking about market structure

fallout. Before we get into that, however, if you're 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 get a bit.ly

slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, conflict is ripping through Washington as the dust settles on the market structure bill. When we left off last week, Coinbase had scuttled the markup hearing for the bill by withdrawing support the night before. Brian Armstrong disavowed the bill in a tweet, listing multiple issues that made the bill an on-starter in their view. The lingering sentiment was that no

bill is better than a bad bill. On Friday night, Eleanor Territ, a host of Crypto in America,

tweeted, Scoop, the White House is considering pulling its support for the crypto market structure

bill entirely if Coinbase does not come back to the table with a yield agreement that satisfies

the banks and gets everyone to a deal. A source close to the Trump administration tells me. The White House is said to be furious with Coinbase's unilateral action on Wednesday, which it apparently was not notified of in advance, calling it a rugpole against the White House and the rest of the industry. The White House does not believe that one company speaks for the entire industry, the source continued. This is President

Trump's bill at the end of the day, not Brian Armstrong's, the source said. This wasn't the first

we'd heard from the White House. On Wednesday shortly after the hearing was postponed,

Crypto-Zar David Sachs tweeted, passage of market structure legislation remains as close as it's ever

been. The crypto industry should use this pause to resolve any remaining differences. Now is the time to set the rules of the road and secure the future of this industry. Which many interpreted as Sachs telling the industry to get on the same page and come up with a bill that could pass. Brian Armstrong disagreed with the characterization of the reporting stating, The White House has been super constructive here. They did ask us to see if we can go figure out a deal with the banks, which we're currently working on.

He mentioned they're cooking up a proposal that will help community banks, which have been painted as the major losers if stablecoins are allowed to pay yield.

Beyond stablecoin yield, however, major conflict is rising on other issues. On Friday, ranking members of the Senate Judiciary Committee from both parties rejected language around Defi developers.

In a letter to Senate banking leaders, they wrote that the bill, as drafted, would, quote,

create a significant enforcement gap for decentralized digital asset platforms.

Keep in mind, the industry views this language as being likely to kill Defi for imposing

KYC requirements on hosted wallets and defy front ends.

The letter stated, such a gap risks attracting illicit actors like wallets and DFI front ends. The letter stated,

...