The Crypto Conversation

After the approval of a long-awaited Bitcoin ETF U.S. investors finally have an easy means to invest in Bitcoin. What is the likelihood that a Bitcoin spot-based ETF will be approved next? Andy speaks to Brave New Coin analyst Aditya Das to assess the evolving Bitcoin ETF landscape in the U.S. Why you should listen: The launch of the first-ever Bitcoin ETF by ProShares in the United States was the trigger that pushed the price of Bitcoin to new all-time highs in October. On October 18th, the day of the ETF launch, 'Bitcoin ETF' was the sixth trending Google Search term in the United States just below searches for 'Kanye West'. Demand for the ETF has already exceeded expectations. Upon opening for trading, it broke the record for the largest day-1 ETF launch ever by natural volume. BITO assets under management (AUM) hit US$1.1 billion after its 2nd day of trading, making it the fastest ETF to get to $1b, breaking an 18-year-old record previously set by gold. Supporting links: The Bitcoin ETF Story Andy on Twitter Brave New Coin on Twitter Brave New Coin If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.

Battle Drones is a collection of 10,000 programmatically generated collectible artworks, hovering on the Solana blockchain. Each Battle Drone provides access to the Battle Drones ecosystem and play-to-earn game. A console Battle Drones game is coming in 2022. The artwork is inspired by the founders' PhD studies in the field of human drone interaction at the University of Auckland. Why you should listen: Battle Drones was inspired by the background of the founders. They are PhD students and engineers who have studied drone flight and human drone tactile interaction. Battle Drones 2D artwork will be developed into a Metaverse character when the PC and Console game is launched in 2022. To engage the community in the lead up to that point, Battle Drones will launch community challenges, including browser-based minigames. Once the 3D avatar is airdropped users can lend them to other people around the world for a fee to play within the Battle Drones metaverse. By doing this the community members will make their NFTs more valuable as they progress within the rankings. Supporting links: Battle Drones Andy on Twitter Brave New Coin on Twitter Brave New Coin If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.

Les Borsai is the Chief Strategy Officer at Wave Financial Group. Les began his career as a rave promoter in the Southern California underground scene of the late 1980s. Earlier this year Wave launched the world's first-ever traditional NFT fund. Why you should listen: Les held positions at Avalon Attractions (now Live Nation Entertainment|Live Nation), MCA Records, and Bill Silva Entertainment before starting the musician management company Modern Artist Management. His client list includes country singer Wynonna Judd. After being an early investor in cryptocurrency platform Ethereum, he served as an advisor to blockchain companies and in 2018 co-founded Wave Financial, a digital asset management firm. Wave Financial offers early-stage VC investment, asset management, treasury management, and strategic consulting in the blockchain ecosystem. It has a number of funds including Index funds, a Whisky fund, and an NFT fund. The NFT fund takes an analytical approach including analysis based on the rarity of traits, focusing on unique content and scarcity in properties as value drivers. Supporting links: Wave Financial Group Andy on Twitter Brave New Coin on Twitter Brave New Coin If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.

Michael Wagner is the CEO and co-founder of Star Atlas, a next-gen gaming metaverse emerging from the confluence of state-of-the-art blockchain, real-time graphics, multiplayer video game, and decentralized financial technologies. Why you should listen: Star Atlas - Star Atlas is a space-themed video game 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 player ability to generate real-world wealth transcending video game assets. Non-fungible tokens obtained and traded within Star Atlas creates an economy that replicates the tangibility of real-world assets and ownership. Supporting links: Star Atlas Andy on Twitter Brave New Coin on Twitter Brave New Coin If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.

ArrowHaven and OpalAbyss from the Witchz NFT project join Andy for a Crypto Conversation Halloween special. The 6666 Witchz pay homage to the Witches of North America and Europe and take inspiration from films, Wicca, mother nature, and the four elements of the universe. Why you should listen: 6666 unique digital art Witchz are conjuring at 00:00 UTC 24/10/21 for 77 Matic on Polygon. Witchz are airdropping 10% of the mint back to the Witchz Coven. Anyone holding a Witchz NFT and matching Elementz NFT will be eligible for the airdrop. The Witchz art was created by AmethystMoon. She began her artistic journey on the page with watercolour, pencil, and acrylics. The Witchz are generated from a vast array of detailed traits. 27,563 brushstrokes went into creating this collection. Supporting links: Witchz Andy on Twitter Brave New Coin on Twitter Brave New Coin If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.

Luke Ryan is the founder of the Titan Tiki Tribe - an NFT collection taking Māori culture to the metaverse. The Titan Tiki team has an indigenous Māori background, deep respect for the protocols of Māori, and is proud to show the wairua (energy) of the Titan Tiki Tribe. Bill Takarei is a respected Kaumatua (Māori elder) and spiritual guide to the Titan Tiki, ensuring Māori culture is represented according to custom. Why you should listen: The Titan Tiki Tribe is a unique NFT collection of 1000 Tiki. The collection includes rarity traits such as Pounamu Mere and Taiaha Weapons, traditional Korowai cloaks, Paua eyes, and Pukana forked tongues. Tiki come as Green Navigators, Blue Priests, Gold Chiefs, or Brown Gatherers. The Titan Tiki mission is to preserve and protect Māori culture while expressing it to the world via the new digital medium of the Metaverse. Supporting links: Tiki Quest Titan Tiki on OpenSea Andy on Twitter Brave New Coin on Twitter Brave New Coin If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.

Andy Pickering is here with a weekly crypto market update where we look through the volatile world of Crypto Twitter to tease out the most important narratives and data points. Bitcoin is poised for further upside as the first two futures-based Bitcoin ETFs prepare to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange. On Tuesday the ProShares ETF goes live with the Valkyrie ETF due to begin trading later this week. Will Bitcoin hit a new all-time high? Or is this a sell-the-news event? Either way, this is set to be a historic week for Bitcoin. Supporting links: Andy on Twitter Brave New Coin on Twitter Brave New Coin If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.

Ethan Lou is a Canadian journalist and the author of a new book called Once a Bitcoin Miner: Scandal and Turmoil in the Cryptocurrency Wild West. The book explains how Ethan had gone to North Korea and met the Ethereum Foundation's Virgil Griffith — the man later arrested for allegedly trying to help the totalitarian state break sanctions through blockchain. Griffith pleaded guilty last Monday, and this book grants an exclusive insider's look into those seven nights in Pyongyang. Why you should listen: As well as covering Ethan's adventures in North Korea, and stories from the early days of bitcoin, Ethan takes stock of a world that is sometimes hostile. Ethan's millennial generation sees itself as inheriting a collapsing world, weighed by dread and meaninglessness. Stylistically evoking the western genre, this book presents Bitcoin and its insular community, bursting with wealth, as representing a new form of the frontier myth. The book is an example of the sort of gonzo, adventure journalism for which Ethan has been known. Field Notes from a Pandemic, an accidental journey around the world at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, was named among the CBC's best domestic nonfiction of the year and shortlisted for Kobo's emerging writer award. Supporting links: Ethan Lou Andy on Twitter Brave New Coin on Twitter Brave New Coin If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.

John Light is head of product at Sovryn, a decentralized Bitcoin trading and lending platform. Sovryn is one of the first platforms to bring decentralized finance products to the Bitcoin protocol. Why you should listen: Bitcoin was the first and original cryptocurrency, but it is slow, and limited in functionality. Competitors such as Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain(BSC) and Solana have now become the primary destination for developers looking to build dapps and DeF ecosystems. Bitcoin remains the biggest and most decentralized cryptocurrency and the hardest form of money. Now developers are bringing DeFi to Bitcoin. Sovryn is built on the Rootstock (RSK) platform, a Bitcoin sidechain compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine that can support the smart contracts protocol. RSK is the most permissionless and censorship-resistant Bitcoin sidechain: RSK is permissionless and its consensus mechanism is merge-mined PoW with about 50% of Bitcoin's hashpower currently mining RSK. This means that RSK is mined by more hashpower than any other chain, except Bitcoin itself. Supporting links: Sovryn Andy on Twitter Brave New Coin on Twitter Brave New Coin If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.

Josh Olszewicz is the lead analyst at Brave New Coin. Josh joins Andy to discuss Bitcoin's bullish start to Q4 and the likelihood that the bull trend will continue. Josh says he is targeting $100K Bitcoin before the end of the year. Why you should listen: "If we can hold $50K, I like six figures easily by the end of the year. Definitely. Maybe $120k, $130k, $140k, but definitely six figures by the end of the year." Yes indeed, Josh is bullish. How bullish? Josh says, "If we get an ETF approved that will be massive for price. We have seasonality on our side. And the on-chain metrics are bullish with continuous upticks in active address and transaction counts since the end of July. What else do you need? When you line up the fundamentals and the technicals and the on-chain stuff Bitcoin looks amazing to me." Listen to the show to hear what would need to happen for the bull thesis to falter, plus Josh and Andy chat hash rate, NFTs, altcoins, the funds Josh trades for Techemy Capital, and why they're watching Netflix at 2x speed. Supporting links: Techemy Capital Andy on Twitter Brave New Coin on Twitter Brave New Coin If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to the Crypto Conversation and give us a 5-star rating and a positive review in whatever podcast app you are using.