Exploring the Intersection of Sports, Blockchain & NFTs at Korean Blockchain Week 2025
52
Companies
57
Key Quotes
2
Topics
1
Insights
🎯 Summary
Podcast Episode Summary: Exploring the Intersection of Sports, Blockchain & NFTs at Korean Blockchain Week 2025
This 35-minute episode of “The Edge of Show,” recorded live at Korean Blockchain Week 2025, features in-depth discussions with leaders from the Web3 space, focusing heavily on the evolution of NFTs, the restructuring of DAOs, and the application of blockchain technology in sports and health data management.
1. Focus Area
The primary focus areas were:
- NFT Market Evolution: Analyzing the current cycle of the NFT industry (contraction, concentration, and evolution) beyond simple retracement.
- DAO Governance: Detailed discussion on the challenges and restructuring of large, multi-faceted DAOs, specifically the dissolution of the Apecoin DAO.
- Sports & Fan Engagement: Exploring how blockchain and NFTs can fundamentally change fan interaction, player valuation, and sports prediction markets (via basketball.fun).
- Cross-Chain Infrastructure: The necessity of seamless token movement across major ecosystems (Ethereum, Solana, BNB, etc.) facilitated by technologies like LayerZero.
- Data Ownership: The application of blockchain for securing and enabling access to personal health data (via Axon Dow).
2. Key Technical Insights
- DAO Agility vs. Scope: The consensus was that DAOs struggle when their purpose is too broad and multifaceted, leading to competing interests and slow decision-making, contrasting with infrastructure-focused DAOs which can remain nimble.
- Cross-Chain Interoperability: The successful integration of Apecoin across multiple chains (Ethereum, Arbitrum, Apechain, Solana) highlights the maturation of cross-chain messaging protocols (like LayerZero) as essential infrastructure for token utility.
- AI Agent Simplification: A brief mention highlighted the need to simplify on-chain activity for AI agents, suggesting current multi-chain key management is too complex for widespread AI adoption.
3. Market/Investment Angle
- NFT Growth Beyond Hype: The current phase of the NFT market is seen as an “evolution,” presenting significant growth opportunities for builders addressing real problems, rather than just focusing on past price action.
- DeFi Yield Comparison: NBA star Tristan Thompson highlighted DeFi as offering significantly better real-world yields (8-12% on stablecoins) compared to traditional banking (1-2%), positioning DeFi as a tangible alternative for financial literacy education.
- Incentivizing Participation: New models, like those in sports prediction, rely on “play-to-earn” mechanics, leaderboards, and token rewards to incentivize continuous community engagement and accurate predictions.
4. Notable Companies/People
- Cameron (CEO of Aiko/Apecoin Executive): Discussed the strategic decision to sunset the Apecoin DAO structure in favor of a more agile executive function to better compete and evolve, and detailed Project RAID (Rapid Apecoin Integration Deployment) for cross-chain expansion.
- Tristan Thompson (NBA Superstar & Builder): Shared his journey into Web3, driven by a desire to educate athletes on finance. He is launching basketball.fun, an on-chain fantasy and prediction market designed to give fans a voice in player valuation. He also mentioned involvement with Axon Dow for health data ownership.
- Yuga Labs/Greg (Gargamel): Credited for supporting the community-driven evolution of Apecoin governance, leading to the DAO sunset.
- ZetaChain (Johnson Kovie, CMO): Mentioned as a universal, chain-agnostic infrastructure provider aiming for native interoperability across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and more, with a specific focus on the Korean market and stablecoin trends.
5. Regulatory/Policy Discussion
- The discussion touched upon the banking sector’s unhappiness with stablecoin legislation, implying that stablecoins offer competitive interest rates that traditional banks cannot match, thus threatening their traditional fee-based models.
- Tristan Thompson emphasized the importance of education to onboard the masses, ensuring they understand the difference between legitimate protocols and risks like the FTX collapse.
6. Future Implications
The conversation points toward a future where:
- Sports Engagement is Tokenized: Blockchain will move beyond simple collectibles to create interactive, high-stakes prediction and fantasy markets where fan sentiment directly influences perceived player value.
- Ecosystems Must Be Interoperable: Projects like Apecoin are prioritizing cross-chain presence to capture all existing holders, making chain-agnostic infrastructure (like ZetaChain) critical.
- Metaverse Ambitions Remain High: The vision for Otherside is explicitly stated as aiming to “take down Roblox,” indicating a long-term, high-capital commitment to building scalable, engaging virtual worlds.
7. Target Audience
This episode is highly valuable for Crypto/Web3 Professionals, NFT Project Leaders, Sports Tech Innovators, and Investors interested in the practical application of blockchain technology outside of pure finance, particularly in high-engagement sectors like sports and digital identity.
🏢 Companies Mentioned
BNB ecosystem
✅
Layer 1/Ecosystem
Base
✅
Layer 2 Blockchain
Hyper
✅
Unclear (Integration Partner)
Yuga
✅
NFT/Ecosystem Parent Company
Chief Marketing Officer
✅
unknown
Johnson Kovie
✅
unknown
Walker Hill
✅
unknown
World Cup
✅
unknown
But I
✅
unknown
New York City
✅
unknown
Axon Dow
✅
unknown
White House
✅
unknown
Fox News
✅
unknown
Wells Fargo
✅
unknown
Where I
✅
unknown
💬 Key Insights
"Think Uniswap, but you can do native transactions between ETH on the Ethereum network or any sort of combination of DeFi assets."
"And the superpowers is that you just deploy one universal app on ZetaChain, and it can access users on Solana and the Ethereum or even Bitcoin network itself."
"So how do you have that same experience in crypto? Because all of these blockchains offer unique advantages. And so the thesis of ZetaChain and what it provides as a universal blockchain is access to the utility across all of these diverse chains."
"ZetaChain is a universal blockchain, enabling native interoperability across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and beyond."
"I think for me being a pioneer in this space is kind of paying a poor and educating, right? I think in order to onboard the masses and do the mass adoption, we got to educate and give that literacy where they feel comfortable opening a wallet, knowing that this is not an FTX situation, it's not a scam."
"What are most successful aspects of the industry? They were more reliable, incredible than CNN and Fox News during the election. So that shows you something that the community, if you grab a bunch of people who have an idea, we don't know, we don't know the underlying... community can come together with an idea or have a belief, and it actually come to fruition. That shows you how powerful this community is."
📊 Topics
#artificialintelligence
91
#investment
3