As we prepare ourselves for the launch of Decentraland on 02/20/2020, we cover everything that's been happening in the crypto space. Bitcoin inches closer to its halvening which is contributing to this year's all time high. The Decentralized Finance community has reached a psychological milestone where $1 billion has been locked up in DeFi protocols. With RSK, Bitcoin is now interoperable with the Ethereum network enabling new functionality. Pretty soon we're going to start seeing NFTs used as collateral in a similar way a house is used as collateral. Brian Armstrong explains the similarities in maturity with messaging and crypto. Another exchanged gets hacked. Finally, we reveal our 2 new games powered by MetaZone.io!

Andrew Yang has been the figure that has motivated those of us disengaged from the political process. As the only candidate that has recognized cryptocurrency as an asset we should invest in, naturally we're inclined to invest in his candidacy. This is even without acknowledging his other rational policies that we believe to solve other systemic issues such as his freedom dividend. We also discovered Jack Mallers' Strike app that allows you to use your traditional bank account to facilitate Bitcoin Lightning transactions by scanning a QR invoices. We also evaluate the price of Bitcoin as we try to figure out whether or now we've seen the beginning of a bull cycle. Finally, we discuss adding a gaming mechanic to the world of Decentraland where players collect resources to craft more valuable items. We ask the community a question, is it more interesting to mint brand new NFT's through a proof of work mechanism or would a standard token sale suffice?

After returning from a long trip from Mexico, we summarize some of what transpired over the last week. We discuss events occurring around the world such as the virus called Coronavirus that's infected over 6,000 people. We reflect on Kobe Bryant's death and figure out why so many people felt this loss so deeply. Andrew Yang being the only candidate with a cryptocurrency policy won an Iowa Youth Straw Poll and why it might indicate his potential to win the presidential nominee. Bitcoin has been rising since the start of 2020, could we be in a bull market right before the halvening occurs?  We're a week removed from our interview with Ben Kelly. He's one of the more knowledgable about the Axie Inifinity NFTs and we debrief on our conversation and reflect on the whole NFT ecosystem emerging. Finally, Decentraland is launching February 20, 2020. The Block Runner has 2 more games in development as we get ready for the launch.

William and Iman interview the man they call Elon Stark because of his talented skills for developing automation techniques to solve problems in the gaming industry. Ben Kelly started his career collecting and competing in the world of Magic the Gathering to going from a few hundred Axie Infinity NFT's to nearly 10,000 using his team's proprietary breeding engine. Ben describes how he first heard of Bitcoin and how he got involved in crypto. He also explains what makes an Axie Infinity NFT so valuable and how he optimized Axie Infinity genetic identity to breed more powerful and more rare Axies. Finally, we explain our own NFT idea to Ben so he can give us his thoughts on how viable it could be.

We've been discussing Non Fungible Tokens lately in our search to predict the next asset class to be the next speculative craze. NFT's in short seem to be slowly growing over time in volume. We look into the assets on Opensea to discuss the viability of these assets, why they become valuable and why they may become the catalyst to mass speculation. We also break down the differences in the current NFT standards for Ethereum for ERC721, ERC1155, and ERC998. Each created for a specific purpose to satisfy a particular game mechanic or style. NBA player, Spender Dinwiddie tokenized his NBA contract to receive funds up and pay his investors a 5% bonus on their investment. We discuss how this might be a common occurrence in the future. Finally, we discuss an idea we've been tossing around that could help bring a larger audience to Decentraland and at the same time create a valuable resource to the NFT economy.