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, March 21st, and today we are talking Ethereum, FUD, and FOMC

coverage. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it,

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Yesterday morning, reporting started to suggest that the Ethereum Foundation has become the subject of a government investigation. The news began with the revelation that the Ethereum

Foundation had removed the Warrant Canary from their website. It was removed in late February

but had gone unnoticed until now. A warrant canary is a way of warning users when legal

demands are made to a service which they can't otherwise disclose. The presence of the canary means that all is well. When the

canary is removed, it means that law enforcement are taking a look. It's a way of getting around

confidentiality requirements during investigations by removing a longstanding communication

that gives the all clear. In the Ethereum Foundation's case, their canary said,

The Ethereum Foundation has never been contacted by any agency anywhere in the world in a way

which requires that contact not be disclosed. Unusually, the GitHub commit from when the

canary was removed had some additional information, noting, this commit removes a section of

the footer as we have received a voluntary inquiry from a state authority that included

a requirement for confidentiality.

Now, this could mean a lot of different things, and speculation immediately ran wild.

As just one example, Ryan Sean Adams of Bankless posted,

You know I'm bullish but nightmare scenario. Imagine if instead of delivering an Ethereum ETF, Gensler delivers a lawsuit against the Ethereum Foundation claiming ethos of security.

...