After a 2021 frothy bull market, NFTs are currently experiencing the depression phase of the market cycle. However, despite the fact that only NFT art has truly found its product-market fit, NFTs in general represented the consumerist moment for crypto. In addition, they also provided a solution for tokenising real world assets (RWA) and intangibles, potentially penetrating markets worth hundreds of trillions of dollars. Moreover, similar to digital art, the advent of AI poses a challenge when it comes to establishing provenance, but this represents another utility for NFTs, as they can be traced back to their origin, given the public nature of blockchains. We were joined by Stephen Young and Storm from NFTFi, to discuss the general state of the NFT market, future prospects for NFT development and how their P2P NFT lending platform unlocks new sources of liquidity in this bear market. Topics covered in this episode: Stephen’s & Storm’s backgrounds and what allured them to NFT financeNFT market overviewTokenised real world assets (RWA)NFTFi’s peer-to-peer vs. peer-to-pool modelsHow other DeFi derivatives apply to the NFT marketNFT vs. fungible token market sizeBlur’s BlendNFT royaltiesNFT lending protocols differencesHow escrow contracts affect NFT ownership and utilityNFTFi roadmapInterest rates for different collectionsNFT art marketAI artCollateralizing RWAEpisode links: Stephen Young on TwitterStorm on TwitterNFTFi on TwitterThis episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/508

The recent history of L2s has shown that there doesn’t need to be ‘one chain to rule them all’ or an ‘ETH killer’. Instead, a healthier approach would be to find the best solution for a specific need, taking into consideration any potential tradeoffs. Avalanche has done just that, focusing from the get-go on delivering high transaction throughput, using their unique subnet architecture, consensus protocol and warp messaging. HyperSDK continues this conviction, offering a framework for developers to spin up customisable, high performance virtual machines. We were joined by Patrick O’Grady, VP of Engineering at Ava Labs, to discuss HyperSDK and how it enables building customisable, high performance VMs on Avalanche subnets. Topics covered in this episode: Patrick’s backgroundAvalanche’s consensus protocolSubnetsAvalancheGo design conceptsWarp messagingStaking and subnet validatorsHyperSDKHyperSDK vs. Cosmos SDKAvalanche throughput parametersCustom solutions for developersEpisode links: Patrick O'Grady on TwitterAva Labs on TwitterAvalanche on TwitterThis episode is hosted by Meher Roy & Felix Lutsch. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/506