A powerful countdown to kick off the new year.This episode is sponsored by Nexo, Abra and FTX US.On “The Breakdown’s” first episode of the new year, NLW looks at the most important power shifts that he’s watching this year, including:Fed vs. stock market U.S. midterm electionsStablecoins vs. CBDCsChina and Russia vs. the dollarBitcoin vs. fiatIMF vs. El SalvadorBitcoin DeFi vs. other DeFiDeFi vs. KYCDAOs vs. other forms of capital formationNFT/Web 3 games vs. traditionalNFTs vs. record labelsWeb 3 vs. Web 2  -Nexo is a powerful, all-in-one crypto platform where you can securely store your crypto. Invest, borrow, exchange and earn up to 17% APR on Bitcoin and 20+ other top coins. Insured for $375M. Audited in real-time by Armanino. Rated excellent on Trustpilot. Get started today at nexo.io.-Abra is proud to sponsor The Breakdown. Join 1M+ users and Conquer Crypto with Abra, a simple and secure app where you can trade 110+ cryptocurrencies, get 0% interest loans using crypto as collateral, and earn interest with up to 14% APY on stablecoins and 8.15% APY on Bitcoin. Visit Abra.com to get started.-FTX US is the safe, regulated way to buy Bitcoin, ETH, SOL and other digital assets. Trade crypto with up to 85% lower fees than top competitors and trade ETH and SOL NFTs with no gas fees and subsidized gas on withdrawals. Sign up at FTX.US today.-“The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features Nathaniel Whittemore aka NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell, research by Scott Hill and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is Time by OBOY. Image credit: Donald Iain Smith/Getty Images, modified by CoinDesk.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.