**Welcome back to episode 279 of The Block Runner Podcast. As always, we have your host William talking with your cohost I-man as we discuss cryptocurrency developments while we make this new technology relatable to you. You can watch the full episode on YouTube AND stay up to date by subscribing to our newsletter at TheBlockRunner.com.
Here are some of the topics they discuss today:**
First up, revisit Bitcoin DeFi through the lens of this cycle’s emerging “industry cook”: digital-asset treasury companies.
Next, Do we really need native Bitcoin primitives, or will off-chain/custodial routes—UTXO time-locks and loan products be enough to make BTC productive?
and Finally, we pressure-test trench metas like Pokémon “phygital” and map where the music could stop.
Alright, let’s listen in!
When we first started The Block Runner podcast, it was at the very bottom of the most recent bear cycle for Bitcoin. If you listen to the earliest episodes we identify how the $3k price would be the low for this cycle. On today's podcast, we usher in the next stage of Bitcoin breaking the previous all time high and reaching as high as $23,500! We know that 2019 was the year for institutional accumulation and now they're beginning to discuss their investment into the first cryptocurrency. The non-linear regression curve has been a pretty accurate representation as to the trajectory of Bitcoin. Coinbase has filed for an IPO likely tapping into a larger source of funding, coming in at a perfect time at the beginning of this hype cycle. Finally, Microstrategy drops their cash reserves into Bitcoin because the US dollar is a liability.
Episode 96 covers a number of developments this week. In the metaverse, Corona Zombies shows a way to earn NFTs by participating in contracts. Beeple unleashes an all new record for the NFT space by launching physical representation of his Everyday art. Over 3 days, Beeple sold NFTs and their physical representation for $3.5 million over 3 days. Even Iman took part and purchased a an infected Pikachu art from Beeple! Finally the CEO of Nexus Mutual, which provides insurance for your staked crypto, got hacked and lost $8 million.
We take a step back to gain perspective on the DeFi space. There's an all time high in locked liquidity at $14 billion and we correlate the last DeFi bull run with the all time high GAS prices. Yearn Finance leads the DeFi race at the moment and the founder Andre Cronje has created an ecosystem to keep an eye on. One of those ecosystem projects is called Keep3r Network is one protocol gaining traction. Finally we end with a discussion on Steve Wozniak's splash in the cryptocurrency space with Efforce token.
We return to discuss some of the latest developments happening within Decentraland. This time Decentral Games releases their own Token called $DG. This token will serve as a governance token to decide on where to spend funds decided by the community. The token will also be used to incentivize players to gamble in their casino. This is the first sign of true sustainability within the metaverse and just the first sign of an activity that most projects will adopt. We also discuss Bitcoin logic where in 10 years we can see the price of Bitcoin go as high as $1M.
On this episode William and Iman speak with Daniel Kim from NFTBank.ai to discuss an NFT portfolio app that will help you evaluate your NFTs. We get the origin story on how NFTBank came to be as well as the most optimal way to use the app. We get into the details as to what kind of data is needed to valuate NFTs. Being able to collect and value a portfolio for NFTs is a large missing piece to on-boarding additional users to the space. Most NFTs are hard to evaluate, we get a hard look as to what increases value of NFTs.