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, March 12th. And of course, as promised, today we are digging into Bitcoin above 70K.

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breakdown pod. Hello friends. Yesterday morning, as we discussed oh so briefly at the beginning of the show,

Bitcoin blew through the previous levels to reach 72,000. Unlike previous attempts, there was no

question. This was the new price. No quick rejection, no quick turnaround. And indeed,

Bitcoin held that range all the way through the night, passing along each time zone with little

movement. Now, we did lose a little bit earlier in the day, but at the time of recording, we're at

around 71,500, so barely off the high. Monday's move was accompanied by no major liquidation

cascade. Some leverage was wiped out,

but no more than any other random Monday in the past few months. Future's open interest is at all-time

highs with 35.8 billion in current positions. In previous cycles, open interest at these levels

would be a bright flashing warning sign. However, during this run-up, the CME has become the

dominant venue for futures trading, bringing

with it better capitalized participants and massively reduced leverage. In other words,

record high open interest simply doesn't mean the same thing it did in 2021. That said,

funding rates on crypto-native platforms are definitely creeping up. Longs are paying an annualized

rate of 21% to hold their positions. Historically, that's high, but nowhere near

the peak of 45% reached during the last bull market. The high funding rate means there's

...