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, BitStamp, and nexo.io, and produced and distributed by CoinDesk.

What's going on, guys? It is Sunday, August 2nd, and that means it's time for Long

Reads Sunday. For this Long Read, I've chosen a recent post by Meltem DeMirers, and really,

I think the theme here is asking an important

question which can get lost really easily, especially in the swirl of excitement around

price action, like we've had this past week. And that question is simply, what is the future

that we're trying to build Bitcoin for? How do we want the future that

we are building this whole new system to enable to be different from the one that we live in now?

How do we design in such a way that we avoid the traps and the capture that happened in the

system, the things that made us want to build this different alternative

in the first place. Some of these questions seem obvious, but they're actually incredibly

difficult, especially as more capital flows into the space, as more power aligns with the space.

Those things can be good, but you also have to understand, we have to understand, that with that power and with that

new capital comes the possibility of capture and co-optation and basically a continuation of

exactly the same power structure that we have now. It's a great little post and I hope you

enjoy it. Unintended Architecture. What we desire is what we build is what we

become. Recently, I've been taking little moments to explore a different side of New York, the city I've

called home for the last six years. When you see a city empty of people, you begin to understand the

importance of architecture. You get to see the bones of the city, and you begin to understand

what gives the flow of people shape, rhythm, and energy. You see, what we imagine becomes what we

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