Week 30 of Coffee with Captain marked the launch of the Ethereum ETF where we saw $1B in volume out of the gate! We also saw some market pullbacks later in the week. Typical market action for crypto. We also got our fix of gambling with Polymarket and IKB discussions. We even had one of the founders of IKB on the show. It wouldn’t be Coffee with Captain if we didn’t include some discussions over the Yuga ecosystem. We closed out with a preview of Project Dragon, the third-person shoot from the Otherside Metaverse.
In case you missed any of the shows, below is a small recap of each day with links to the podcast on Apple and Spotify. Links to other streaming platforms can be found on our buzzsprout page. Check out the timestamp if you want to catch the specific interviews.
Monday
Polymarket: Leading the Onchain Predictions Market
Polymarket has gotten a lot of attention recently with their political predictions market. In America, betting on political predictions is illegal, so major sportsbooks can’t get a piece of the pie. It begs the questions, will Polymarket continue to see this level of success beyond the current election cycle?
We also talked about how brands connect to customers. Most customer-to-brand relationships are transaction so transactional in nature. When a relationship moves from transactional to emotional, then we start to see true brand loyalty. Customers start to remember experiences and the wya brands make them feel. Complacency allows for other brands of the same type to create disruption. It’s also pivotal not to underestimate the value of brand evangelists. Brand advocates are still the best way to spread awareness among people.
Check this episode out on Apple and Spotify.
Tuesday
The Ethereum ETF Goes Live
The Ethereum ETF went live on Tuesday July 23rd and people are asking two questions. Is the ETH ETF already priced into $ETH or are we still early? If you’re waiting for the perfect moment to buy, then you’ll likely be waiting forever. Time in the market is greater than timing the market. For most, DCAing (dollar cost averaging) during the bear market would have far outpaced any potential gains made in between. It’s so easy to lose money by overtrading. DCAing isn’t the fastest path to stacking wealth, but it is very steady.
The problem with a platform like X is you only see screenshots of crazy PnLs, which makes you feel the need to gamble for massive returns on something like Solana memecoins. Most of the screenshots aren’t even real, but for clicks. The reality is 99% of people lose trading memecoins. Even the ones who win typically continue to bet their bags and end up losing their gains. If you’re lucky enough to hit a big bag, then it’s important to play defensively and maintain wealth.
Check this episode out on Apple and Spotify.
Wednesday
$1B ETH ETF Volume + Sports Betting Onchain with IKB
After the first day, there was $1B in volume and over $100M of net inflows from the ETH ETF despite Grayscale selling off a large portion. If it follows the Bitcoin ETF launch, then after about a couple weeks the price of ETH could see a move upwards. The question people are asking is “how will I position my allocation with BTC/ETH and Alt coins?” Plans will vary, but you should have some sort of plan.
Doodles dropped news that they’re trying to tokenize fandom. The Coffee Crew had a mixed reaction on the show, as did the X timeline and discord. The worry is that OG supporters won’t be taken care of in the future. Julian has always talked about disrupting the media industry and Doodles TV is an opportunity to do that. How can they capture market share? I think their IP can penetrate the global media market, but time will tell. Regardless, the Doodles’ vision is clear.
Later, the Coffee Crew are joined by Andy from IKB.gg (my affiliate link) to discuss onchain sports betting. Andy is a big fan of DFS and thinks it’s one of the best ways to engage with sports fans. Currently, their DFS games have no fees, which allows them to be competitive with other betting platforms. Having no rake means there are more winners, which means more payouts. It also keeps all the funds inside the ecosystem, which grows the pie for everyone. IKB being on Blast allows them to gain revenue from the native yield in the ecosystem.
Right now, the NFL, MLB and NBA are the only products offered with plans to offer UFC, PGA and NHL in the future. The game types they offer are Pick ’em, DFS (not every day) and Best Ball games. Currently, they don’t have the proper licenses to do “normal” sportsbook stuff and they’re not completely sure if they want to push for that due to regulations.
Check this episode out on Apple and Spotify.
Thursday
Crypto Markets Suffer Pullback
Crypto markets are experiencing some pullbacks due to sell pressure. If you’re new to the market, this is to be expected. If you’ve been in the market a long time, then you know this is just part of the process. With market moves comes the discussion of Bitcoin. Do we want the government to hold Bitcoin in their reserves? The decentralization maxis would say no because we shouldn’t want governments entangled in crypto. Realistically, that was always going to happen.
As the launch of L2s ramps up, there will be a need to move more towards mobile dApps for greater adoption. The vast majority of the world that has access to technology carries it around with them in their pocket. The younger generation also utilizes their phone much more frequently than a desktop. Speaking of L2s, Igloo had an $11M fundraising round to push forward their Abstract blockchain. There hasn’t been a lot of information released outside of a generic post created to incentivize builders to the chain. Are there enough builders in web3 for this? Maybe there are enough builders, but not enough participants. Adoption is continually increasing, but we need more users.
Check this episode out on Apple and Spotify.
Friday
Otherside Launches Project Dragon July 27th
Project Dragon is a third-person shooter inside Otherside’s metaverse that supports over 3000 players. Garga says that it could potentially be clunky (spoiler alert, it was), so don’t expect it to be play ready. Is it good or bad to release a clunky version of the game? I’m sure we’ll hear more about it on Monday’s Coffee with Captain. There are supposed to be monthly events/activations on ApeChain, which will be much better than the infrequent Otherside trips.
The development of Otherside was always set to take years because even AAA gaming studios take multiple years to develop a game. The messaging probably wasn’t clear in the beginning, which has created such unrest over time. The reality is they have been showing progress over time and seemingly on track for regular game development. What will make users choose this game over any other? That remains to be seen, but for the sake of web3 I hope they succeed.
Check this episode out on Apple and Spotify.
Wrap Up
That’s all for week 30 of Coffee with Captain. The Ethereum ETF has taken crypto a little all over the place, but we’ll see where it settles in a couple weeks. Crypto as a whole feels like gambling sometimes, so it’s only right we talked about Polymarket and IKB. I’ll be really interested to hear everyone’s experience with Project Dragon, especially anyone who played it outside of the Yuga ecosystem. If you missed week 29, make sure to check it out here.
Be sure to check out:
- The Everything Token: A Book on Web3 and NFTs
- Making Coffee: Our Official Coffee Partner
- Pepecoin: The Original Pepe
- ENS: Ethereum Naming Service