The Crypto Conversation

NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) is one of the most exciting narratives in crypto in 2021. The collectible digital art world has exploded with some pieces selling for millions of dollars. The market is frothy and might be in bubble territory but over the next decade, NFTs have the potential to bring millions of people into crypto and help build out the metaverse.

Aditya Das

Aditya Das is a blockchain analyst and researcher at Brave New Coin. He joins Andy to discuss NFTs. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique, digital assets that can be owned, bought, sold, and traded on a blockchain. A non-fungible token is a type of cryptographic token that represents something unique. People often refer to them as "Provably rare digital assets."

If we are going to build a Ready Player One metaverse, it is important that it is built on a neutral platform where individuals can own their own items and not be at risk of censorship. If one central company gains control of the metaverse, it will become more powerful than any government and be a god on Earth.

Right now, NFTs mostly exist in the world of art, music, and gaming. But It's about to get a whole lot crazier, with NFTs poised to explode across the digital economy.

The NFT art scene has boomed in the last few months. Marketplaces like SuperRare, Rarible, and Nifty Gateway are seeing record volumes.

In January, a piece of artwork by Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist also known as Beeple, sold for $6.6 million at Nifty Gateway.

A digital art piece by Beeple called The First 5000 Days is being auctioned by Christie's. The current bid is USD 3,750,000, and the auction closes in 4 days.

People are finding new ways to tokenize anything digital. You can now buy tweets as NFTs and Jack Dorsey's original tweet is valued at USD 2.5 million.

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CME Group has launched its Ether Futures product offering. The new contract is cash-settled, and based on the CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate. Tim McCourt, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products, joins Andy to talk Ether Futures.

Tim McCourt

Andy and Tim discuss the CME Futures markets, the role of futures in global price discovery, and how market participants use Futures to hedge their positions. Tim says, "Based on increasing client demand for our Bitcoin futures and options markets, we see the addition of Ether futures as a valuable tool to trade and hedge this growing cryptocurrency. Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by both market capitalization and daily volume. The introduction of listed Ether futures will help create a forward curve so Ethereum market participants can better manage price risk." Tim McCourt serves as CME Group's Managing Director and Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products. He is responsible for leading the development and execution of the company's global Equity Index, Commodity Index, and Cryptocurrency product strategies. He serves on the CME Ventures Investment Committee and the S&P Dow Jones Indices U.S. Advisory Panel.

Andy asked Tim how CME Group thinks about open-source decentralized protocols such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Tim said, "When we look at cryptocurrencies we think it's interesting in the way they are pushing out the frontier of finance. CME Group is a two-century-old institution with an innovative history itself. We've introduced all sorts of innovative financial products across that 200-year history. So when we see new technologies that can help our clients engage with markets in new ways, we adapt and innovate, and look for new ways to serve the risk management needs of our customers. I think it's exciting and interesting and I look forward to seeing how this continues to evolve."

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Rekt Capital, a Forbes featured crypto technical analyst and trader returns for his third appearance on the Crypto Conversation. With Bitcoin and Ethereum continuing to hit new all-time highs, REKT and Andy discuss the current bull market.

Rekt Capital

Rekt Capital is an astute analyst who specializes in technical analysis and trading psychology. He has written several research articles analyzing the effect of the Bitcoin Halving, and the Crypto Money Flow Cycle to track the movement of capital from Bitcoin to mid-caps to small-caps and back.

Andy and REKT talk about the psychological toll that crypto volatility can have on traders, what new investors to crypto need to know, and the clever ways that Elon Musk and Michael Saylor influence the markets.

Want to get $20 OFF Rekt Capital's Technical Analysis course? Simply follow this link and use the discount code "cryptoconversation" in the Discount Code field.

The Bitcoin Halving with REKT Capital

What to expect from the 2021 Bull Cycle

The Dash Market Cycle

Bitcoin Corrections

REKT Capital Trading Course

Rekt Capital Newsletter

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Josh Olszewicz, lead analyst at Brave New Coin joins Andy to discuss the recent crypto correction and today's recovery. Is the correction over? Will the bull run continue? Is the NFT boom a sign of market froth?

Josh and Andy share their plans for creating more crypto content as a response to the growing audience demand that a bull market generates.

For crypto investors wanting to copy trade Josh, there's an easy solution via Techemy Capital's holistic ETH/BTC portfolio via Enzyme Finance.

After a swift run up in price, you should expect a swift correction. We've had two 30%+ corrections this year, however, this is normal in a bull market. Bitcoin continues to look strong with a series of bullish news events driving new buyers to Bitcoin.

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Techemy Capital has launched Decentralized Exchange-Traded Portfolios (ETPs) on Balancer, starting with a DeFi ETP. We're joined by Techemy Capital CEO Fran Strajnar, and Balancer CEO Fernando Martinelli who discuss why these ETPs are a potential game-changer, how to invest, and what this means for DeFi.

Fran Strajnar and Fernando Martinelli

"Digital asset investors and traders are seeking more advanced ways to gain exposure to popular DeFi assets," says Fran Strajnar, CEO at Techemy Capital. "BNC's DeFi Index and ETP provides this, all with industry-leading security, transparency, and speed. Rather than having to pick one DeFi winner and hope for the best, investors can now get exposure to the success of the entire sector."

Fernando says it is validating to see funds such as Techemy Capital be early adopters of Balancer. "We're about to launch Balancer V2 which will bring massive gains in cost efficiency for gas fees. It's an exciting time for crypto and for DeFi and brilliant to see Techemy Capital provide a use case for Balancer that we foresaw from day one."

The DeFi ETP is a physical representation of Brave New Coin's Blue-Chip DeFi Index ( a portfolio of 8 key assets). The DeFi ETP gives traders non-synthetic exposure to assets in the BNC DeFi Blue-Chip Index: Yearn Finance ($YFI), Compound Finance ($COMP), Aave Protocol ($AAVE), MakerDAO ($MKR), Synthetix ($SNX), Uniswap ($UNI), SushiSwap ($SUSHI) and Uma Project ($UMA).

Issued on Balancer Protocol, the new DeFi ETP mimics the constitution and weights of the BNC Blue-Chip DeFi Index. It is rebalanced in alignment with the index, providing traders an opportunity to get non-synthetic exposure to the assets that make up the index, and/or to speculate or arbitrage between the price parity of the index-powered perpetual swaps [offered by third parties such as BTSE] and the spot market for the ETP.

The DeFi ETP is non-custodial, transparent, on-chain, wholly collateralized, highly liquid, and instantly redeemable.

Techemy Capital

Balancer

Previous Techemy Capital podcast

Previous Balancer podcast

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Multichain Ventures is the parent company of The Tokes Platform. Multichain produces blockchain-focused products including cryptocurrency-based payment processing and supply chain visibility tools for the cannabis industry.

Michael Wagner and Pablo Quiroga

The Tokes Platform builds software solutions for the merchant adoption of cryptocurrency and the data provenance of supply chains in the legal cannabis industry. The platform was developed as a solution to the cash-only problem caused by federal prohibition resulting in banking restrictions. To solve this issue, Tokes created software for tokenized transactions encompassing consumer to business, business to business, and business to state transactions. Blockchain provides utility for more than payments, as ensuring the provenance and transparency of cannabis supply chain data from seed-to-sale is not only a preferred scenario for consumers but regulated by state agencies. Tokes produces supply chain visibility solutions on blockchain for integration with seed-to-sale software to ensure the accuracy and availability of cannabis data for regulators and business stakeholders.

Multichain recently secured a public sector contract with the State of Nevada to fulfill the requirements of Assembly Bill 466. The Bill creates a Pilot Program and legal framework within which legal cannabis entities and supporting businesses can eliminate the necessity of transacting exclusively in cash, through the implementation of blockchain-based services. Multichain's contributions to the B466 date back to 2018. Early discussions centered on a variety of potential alternative solutions to issues facing cannabis operators and how tokenized ecosystems might help solve these issues.

Multichain is working on Star Atlas, a space-themed metaverse of grand strategy, open world exploration, territorial conquest, and political domination. Underlying technology consists of the latest in hi-fidelity game development, Unreal Engine, stunning visuals, and a blockchain baselayer utilizing Solana. The metaverse represents an alternative world of economic and political strategy, with the ability to generate real-world wealth transcending video game assets.

Tokes Platform

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Star Atlas

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Sergey Nazarov is the co-founder of Chainlink where he is spearheading the smart contract oracle revolution. In this podcast, Sergey lays out his current thinking on DeFi (Decentralized Finance), how it improves on CeFi, the role of oracles in decentralized finance, and the fast and slow cases on what is needed for DeFi to go mainstream. Sergey says "decentralized finance is the thing that people want. They just don't know that they want it yet."

Sergey Nazarov

Sergey says the recent Robinhood r/Wallstreetbets phenomenon has injected new realizations into society's collective consciousness. People are waking up to the realization that in the legacy financial system - they don't have full control of their financial assets and trading accounts. And they have seen that the ability of the average person to participate in a system that they were told was fair can be taken away by those who hold the power.

Sergey says that in the financial world if enough people believe in something, it starts to occur. If enough people decide to buy GameStop stock, something happens. If enough people decide to shift from one platform to another, something significant happens.

Social media, digital platforms, and decentralized blockchain applications make fast collective action possible in new ways. DeFi is the system that people want. Sergey thinks it is only a matter of time before this becomes self-evident and people begin to move to DeFi applications at scale.

Sergey says the increasing mainstream adoption of DeFi will happen through the search for yield and the transparency and control of one's assets.

With fiat interest rates low and the returns of DeFi much higher, eventually, even the legacy financial system is likely to build interfaces that flow value into DeFi to capture yield. Everybody wants to at least maintain their wealth. And so any place where they can do that will become popular, and eventually, there will be a tipping point.

Sergey says there is a slow case and a fast case for how this evolves. "The slow case for DeFi is what we're experiencing now, as unbelievable as that sounds going from something like 20 billion to 40 billion in assets in DeFi over the last month."

This is the slow case as only about 2.6% of the crypto value that could be in DeFi, is in DeFi. The slow case will be accelerated by events such as Robinhood. "It's slow because there is friction to using DeFi, but it will slowly be accelerated through better and better user interfaces. Eventually, someone will figure out a way to just make it seamless for people to interact with DeFi, and the tipping point will be reached."

The fast case is a rapid succession of failures in the traditional financial system. This will create a fear of counterparty risk and a newfound cynicism about the solvency of traditional financial institutions. This would lead a majority of people to seek alternatives even if there is still some friction in the DeFi user experience.

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Enzyme Finance is an Ethereum-based protocol for decentralized on-chain asset management. Enzyme empowers anyone to set up, manage and invest in customized on-chain investment vehicles. Techemy Capital has launched the non-custodial Holistic ETH-BTC Portfolio on Enzyme. This actively traded portfolio provides exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum price action using Long/Short trading strategies designed and executed by Josh Olszewicz.

Mona El Isa and Josh Olszewicz

Traditionally, starting and managing investment funds has been complicated, and costly. Enzyme Finance has disrupted the old model by making it possible for anyone to set up their own on-chain fund that others can invest in. With a 5 minute set-up time and streamlined processes, Enzyme allows anyone to create or invest in an investment fund without asking for permission. This is a game-changer because historically there have been massive barriers to entry in the fund industry, both for fund managers and investors.

Each fund on Enzyme is transparent and on-chain and its past performance and trading history, asset allocation, and the ruleset which describes its operations are all public and available for anyone to inspect.

Josh Olszewicz is a trader at Techemy Capital. He says that Enzyme Finance is a game-changer. "Everyone is interested in trading now. They want exposure to markets. What I like about Enzyme is that everything is open and transparent. It's effectively like on-chain copy trading."

The next Techemy Capital product to be released on Enzyme is an actively managed DeFi portfolio.

Mona says "You can think of Enzyme Finance as a technology protocol that enables fund managers to customize the set-up of their own unique fund. Managers can pre-define all sorts of rules from fees, to the number of positions, types of assets, risk management, and so on. They can build and scale investment strategies from discretionary and robo to ETFs and market-making. The protocol takes care of investments and redemptions, NAV calculations, and enforces the rules that managers have in their funds. Everything is automated using smart contracts. Users can write as many rules as they want, so they can create uniquely individual funds."

Supporting links:

Enzyme Finance

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Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci is best known for his short-lived, but very entertaining tenure as the White House communications director under President Trump. Anthony has had a long career in investment banking and he is the founder of Skybridge Capital, a global investment fund that has just launched the Skybridge Bitcoin fund.

Why you should listen:

Anthony says investors have a Eureka moment when they begin to understand that Bitcoin is a monetary network. "Just like there is a retail network, Amazon, a social network, Facebook, like there is a search network, Google. Bitcoin is the monetary network, and that makes it potentially very valuable. Think about where Apple or Amazon or Google were ten years ago, maybe that is where Bitcoin is at today."

Key takeaway:

Anthony says that Bitcoin is the only thing in our society right now, where if the demand goes up, there's no increase in supply. "When people want Tesla shares, there's a sausage factory in the back of Tesla. They're printing out Tesla shares. Do people want dollars? They're printing out dollars. If oil prices are going up, we're drilling for oil everywhere to meet that demand and produce more oil, but that can't be done for Bitcoin. And so that's the Eureka moment."

Anthony says that President Trump was out of control. "He was a full-on liar. He added a trillion dollars to the deficit and his legacy will be that he made our country weaker, sicker, and poorer. He had malpractice on the pandemic and then on the way out the door, he tried to undermine our democracy."

Anthony says that Joe Biden, "whether you like him or not, what does he represent as a pillar of Democratic party politics? He represents centrism. He represents core bureaucratic competence. To me, this was a seismic change for good. Do I love the excess regulation? I don't. Do I love a ponderous government? I don't. But do I like competent people in positions? I do. And so I like Joe Biden."

Skybridge Bitcoin Fund

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Edmund Lowell is the CEO of KYC-chain and the Selfkey network - a blockchain startup developing digital identity solutions that empower individuals to take back ownership of their identity data.

Edmund Lowell

Everyone's data is concentrated in the hands of a few large institutions. They store information about your browsing history, shopping habits, location data, bank statements, medical history, and more. With the growing threat of data breaches, and the loss of privacy - our information is increasingly at risk. One of the reasons for this is because rather than the individual controlling their data, it is instead tech companies and government databases that store data. This is at risk of being hacked and leaked. For example, last year hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger was data hacked. The data consisted of a list of one million email addresses, as well as a list of 272,000 individual customers, containing emails, phone numbers, and physical addresses. Those customers have since been targeted with phishing attempts by scammers sending fraudulent emails claiming that their "cryptocurrency assets are at risk", prompting them to download a fake version of Ledger Live that would then ask for the user's seed phrase.

Current identity systems have failed to deliver the most basic requirements for a successful identity system: security, privacy, ownership, access, protection, interoperability, or linked data portability to identity owners.

SelfKey's mission is to empower individuals to own, control, and manage their personal data; and to help businesses protect personal data entrusted to them by users, and stay compliant with privacy regulators. SelfKey envisions a safer world where individuals are freer because their personal data and privacy is protected and under their control.

Selfkey

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