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 Nidig and produced and distributed by CoinDesk.

What's going on, guys? It is Sunday, September 19th, and that means it's time for Long

Reads Sunday. Today, I am super excited and frankly kind of surprised that it's the first time

that I'm reading a piece by J.P. Koenig. J.P. Koen. J.P. Coning is a monetary economist. He's a

monetary historian. He's got a great Twitter feed. He's one of those people who is often

skeptical, but never just partisan and out there trying to win silly Twitter points. In other

words, when he writes something, you have to at least take it as thoughtful, as considered,

as serious, and not really with some hidden agenda.

JP has been writing for CoinDesk for a while now, and he recently wrote a piece called

Are Central Bankers Ready for Payments Theater?

The TLDR on the piece is this.

If the Fed and other banks adopt a CBDC, they will inevitably

become involved in disputes about what is and isn't acceptable economic activity.

So let's again read, Are Central Bankers Ready for Payments Theater by J.P. Coning?

It's 2026, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has just sat down in front of the U.S. Senate

banking committee. Powell has spent the last few days preparing to be grilled by lawmakers about why

the Fed recently raised interest rates. But the questioning quickly takes a different tack.

Why is Fed Send being used by dangerous white supremacists for funding, asked Senator Elizabeth Warren

of Massachusetts. She's referring to the Fed's central bank digital currency, Fed Send, unveiled in

2024. What sort of controls do you have in place to prevent this? The next question

...