Alright. Hey, guys. Good morning!
We are back with another Saturday morning edition of Meta Money
here with none other than Ben Armstrong of BitBoy Crypto.
What are we going to talk about? Metaverse?
- I think that's usually what we talk about. - Yes.
- It's a good move. - And I think it's a good place to start.
- Good place to start. - Good place to end.
- Maybe a good place to live one day. - I like that.
- No. No, no. - Are you sure?
- We like the real world. - No.
Alright. The hot one on the scene.
A lot of rumors going around about ApeCoin, the Yuga Labs metaverse, the Otherside.
Do you think this thing's going to break into the top 10?
Well, I think that it's a very kind of interesting question.
Because, you know, we were talking a little bit before we went on air here about,
you know, ApeCoin is not just a metaverse coin.
While, you know, it may eventually turn into that maybe,
but right now ApeCoin has got other functions.
You can buy the merch with it.
- It's a coin to certainly speculate. Yes. - When it's available.
And it's a coin to certainly speculate on, you know?
Based upon, you know, everything that Yuga Labs is doing, you know?
I think ApeCoin is not just representative of Bored Apes.
It's also representative of Meebits and of CryptoPunks as well in a lot of ways
as Yuga Labs bought the IP for-- the IP rights for, you know, those other two NFT projects.
So the question I think has to be separate.
I think the question is,
can the Otherside be a top metaverse?
And then, also, can ApeCoin break into the top 10?
And I think without question, ApeCoin can break into the top 10.
There's so much backing. Such a big community.
If you just take the Bored Ape community alone and say,
"Look at what this community has done with this NFT project,"
In just a short amount of time.
- Very short amount of time. - Yeah.
You can apply that to the coin and see--
I mean, for me, I'm just trying to figure out, like, where is my entry back into this thing?
- Right. - But are they not hand in hand?
Like, if they do create this metaverse, and it's not in the top or it's not that great,
- does that hold it back from being in the top 10? - I don't see it not being great.
There's too much money in the ecosystem.
Yuga is like they got too much money to prop this thing up and to make it exactly what
I think with the APE holders and the community wants it to be.
But there's rumors that they're going to, like, partner with Sandbox, which is a big thing.
But that might mean that maybe they're not putting a lot of effort into building their own,
and they just want to, like, make good partnerships? Maybe?
Well, I think that they're still going to have to do their own
because from what I understand, the Otherside is not going to be a voxel.
- You know? So, - Right.
you know, there certainly hopefully can be some interoperability.
But what I really think about here is not "Can it be successful?"
because I definitely believe the Otherside, you know, will eventually be successful.
The question is,
when?
Yeah.
Look at Sandbox.
Sandbox, the easiest metaverse to build in,
bar none,
extremely easy to build in,
still takes massive amounts of computer power to build in.
Right.
And we started building in Sandbox two years ago.
That's how long we've been building our digital city inside The Sandbox.
And we don't even have half of our land built on, okay?
- And we just have a 12x12 and a 3x3. - Right.
So when you take all that into consideration,
that, like, we haven't even filled our land there,
and we have been working around the clock for two years,
Right.
then you take into consideration the massive amount of computer power it takes to do all this stuff,
and then you take into consideration the fact
that Sandbox is probably not fully launching where all the lands are playable until 2023.
- That's crazy. - Even longer.
Possibly even longer.
I've been told from the team, 2023 is the target. Early 2023.
But definitely we look at the ETH Merge, you know?
- We know a lot of stuff in crypto gets delayed. - Yeah.
You look at Cardano, hardforks.
Everything usually takes longer than you expect it to.
But the real question here is,
with as much viability as Sandbox has,
it has taken them this long and they're starting off the ground,
how long is this going to take that they just launched the idea of
- a few months ago? - That's a good point.
I mean, they recently put out their trailer. I think about, you know, a month ago now.
And obviously it's a trailer.
There's no gameplay. There's no, you know.
- But it's cool. - Yeah.
But, you know, I go with what you're saying there
that, you know, who knows what this thing's going to look like,
how long it's going to take.
Maybe they just partnership, you know, with the big guys that are already, you know,
- have something that-- - It just has that viral feel to it, you know?
- Like, like, it's-- - Yeah.
- The virality of a meme coin that's not a meme coin. - Yes.
So, like, it has the potential to, I mean,
SHIB is at 15.
We see APE at 33.
What? SAND, you said, at 41?
So, like, these are all over the place.
If SHIB is at 15, ApeCoin can get into the top 10, right?
- Yeah. - I mean, that's-- but--
- Alright. Real qui-- - Let's--
Can we talk about something real quick?
I just want to get your thoughts and opinions on this.
Yeah?
- Obviously, Shiba Inu is a dog, right? - Yes.
We do know Shiba Inu is a dog.
It's a pretty docile dog.
- I don't think of that as an attack dog. - No. - Yeah.
But if we were to like apply Shiba Inu versus ApeCoin,
what do you think a good matchup would be in real life?
Like, do you think a German Shepherd versus an orangutan?
No. It'd be a Shiba versus an ape.
- Well, I know Shiba would obviously get killed by an ape. - Get destroyed!
- Yeah. The ape's-- - But I'm saying--
- I think that's how it's going to go in real life. - Could a German Shepherd hang with an ape?
- No. Well, it may-- is it--
What level of ape could a German Shepherd hang with?
- Orangutan? - A capuchin.
A trained German Shepherd?
- You know, maybe a-- - Yeah, yeah. - You see what I'm saying?
- A trained German Shepherd-- - Military. Military German.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, obviously, like, it couldn't take a gorilla
because a gorilla, even if the thing's biting it,
it would just grab it and break its neck and kill it, right?
Right.
An orangutan, a little bit smaller, would have a harder time
- getting their hand around the-- - Depends on the environment, too.
- What about a baboon? - You know?
Those are the ones with the blue butts, right?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A baboon, I think that could be--
man, baboons, they just look so mean though.
- Especially when they got like the neck fur. - I think baboon--
I think you're--
The bottom line ape that a German Shepherd, trained, could defeat
would be an orangutan. I think it would be a close match.
- You guys, this is where you get the-- yeah. - All of the best alpha on the metaverse right here.
Absolutely. I think that's a very important conversation to have.
Last question, are metaverse projects, like, bear market-resistant?
There's no such thing as a resistant bear market project.
Okay.
We've had some outliers in the past.
- If you look at, you know, Chainlink. - Chainlink.
From 2018/2019, absolutely ripped.
Binance had some times where it ripped,
and you could say exchanges would maybe be the most protected
because if people are shorting and selling,
then volume is high,
but even Binance retraced greatly before going back up in the bull market.
So, in my opinion, I do think there is an argument to make
that Sandbox could be somewhat resistant to the bear market.
Because if it truly launches in 2023,
like, let's just say that it does,
fully launched, full world,
Sandbox getting handed out as rewards,
people using Sandbox in an economy,
people exchanging it back and forth,
I think it does have an opportunity to possibly,
I would still lean towards no,
but I'd say the two coins that I've looked at for this year
regardless of the market is FTT for FTX token.
- Yeah. - Kind of along the same lines as Binance in 2018/2019.
The idea additionally is that with FTX,
you know, they should be rolling out leveraged trading for Americans this year,
which can be really big.
And then, of course, when you do look at Sandbox,
and when you look they are the most far, you know, developed metaverse out there
- at this moment with the most use - Right.
even though it's not fully launched,
there's a chance.
ApeCoin, I would say, definitely also has a chance,
but nothing to do with the metaverse.
- Just because of the hype behind this. - Yeah.
And I had said for a long time that we cannot apply past bear markets to the NFT world.
It's just too new.
- Inexperienced. - Yes.
I've always said NFTs are going to run on their own cycles.
It has nothing to do with the Bitcoin halving or the markets.
- It's about supply and demand and utility. - Yeah.
And so, because of that,
like, ultimately, the answer to your question is no, I do not believe there is a resistant niche out there.
I would say Sandbox itself has a chance to resist.
And I would say ApeCoin has a chance.
But certainly not like Decentraland or any of these other, you know, metaverse projects.
They'll probably go down significantly in the bear market.
Speaking of chances, this is now your chance to like and subscribe to Meta Money.
Thank you for joining us.
And we'll see you next week.
- Alright. - Boom!