GM. This is the Milk Road. We’re crypto’s Lunchables. We make our own fun and have a surprising twist that’s hard to resist.
Here’s what’s in our Milk Road Lunchables today:
- Ethereum's Triple Halving explained
- LatAm’s biggest e-commerce biz is expanding their crypto features
- Bite-sized treats
- Meme of the day
ETHEREUM'S TRIPLE HALVING EXPLAINED
The Ethereum Goerli testnet successfully merged last night. That was the last test before The Merge.
Think of it like clinical trials - a drug has to go through phase 1, phase 2, phase 3 etc.. before it gets to humans. Same thing with Ethereum.
✅ Ropsten(completed on June 8)
✅ Sepolia(completed on July 6)
✅ Goerli (completed yesterday)
Sounds like Ethereum had one wild weekend if you ask me...
Next up, the Merge. The real one. Now that Ethereum has passed all its tests, the Merge is expected to come sometime in mid-September.
Why this matters: The Merge will be one of the biggest events in crypto history. Ethereum will go through a major software update that will move it from proof-of-work → proof-of-stake.
But it will also go through a phenomenon people are calling…*drumroll please*...
The Triple Halving. Let me explain. With triple the laughs and in half the time.
- Ethereum will use 99.9% less energy moving from PoW → PoS
- Less energy to run = less block rewards for stakers
- The annual emission of new ETH will drop from 4.3% → 0.4%
- We’ll go from 13,000 new ETH a day to 1,300 new ETH a day. That’s ~10x less
The emission rate dropping from 4.3% → 0.4% is about 3 “halvings”. Hence why it’s being called The Triple Halving.
A “halving” is something Bitcoin goes through every 4 years. It cuts mining rewards in half to cut down inflation from new Bitcoin being mined.
It will keep halving until it hits the final 21m Bitcoin that’s mined. (Expected in 2140)
The interesting thing is Bitcoin has gone through 3 of them so far. Each time it’s led to big bull runs. Just take a look…(post-halving is shaded in blue)
Ethereum is going through all 3 of these at once when the Merge happens. But wait, there’s more!
There are 2 other factors that make Ethereum deflationary:
Deflation 1: Ethereum's burn mechanism - EIP-1159. No, it’s not R2D2’s cousin.
It’s another software update that went live last year. It burns a portion of every transaction fee and takes it out from the total supply.
Deflation 2: Staked ETH lock-up periods. There is currently ~$25b worth of ETH being staked (10% of the entire supply). People stake their ETH with validators to earn yield.
This $25b, and anything else that’s added, will be locked for 6-12 months after the Merge. Meaning it cannot be withdrawn and sold.
To summarize:
Annual ETH emission dropping from 4.3%-->0.4% + EIP-1159 burn mechanism + $25b worth of ETH locked for ~12 months = a whole lot of deflation.
That’s what I call a Triple Halving with a side of large fries and a Coke.
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MERCADO LIBRE IS EXPANDING CRYPTO FEATURES ACROSS LATIN AMERICA
Mercado Libre is one of the largest e-commerce businesses in Latin America. They have over 38m users and processed over $30b in transactions in Q2.
Now they’re expanding their crypto features across Latin America.Here’s the TLDR:
- Mercado Libre launched a crypto wallet earlier this year in Brazil. They offered trading for BTC, ETH, and USDP (a stablecoin)
- Within 2 months, they reached over 1m users
- Now they want to expand to Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and more.
Mercado Libre sees two trends that are getting people in Latin America to use stablecoins:
1/ About half the population is unbanked and uses cash for retail transactions
2/ Inflation and interest rates are at all-time highs. If you think stuff is bad in the U.S, think again. Argentina’s inflation rate was 64% for June (9.1% in the US).
Mercado Libre (Milk Road Translate to English: free market) is manifesting its name. This move could be big for the next million users to get onboarded into crypto.
BITE-SIZED TREATS
Magic Eden has submitted a proposal to BAYC to build an NFT marketplace for them. $APE coin would be the main currency used for the marketplace.
World Table Tennis has inked a deal with NFT Tech to roll out their Web3 plans. NFTs, metaverse experiences, play-to-earn & move-to-earn games are all expected. *Fun fact - I won my school's Table Tennis tourney in 7th grade.*
AfricaDAO has won a $20m proposal from BitDAO to accelerate Web3 adoption across Africa. This will be added to the $105m that’s already been soft committed.
Report: Ripple Labs is interested in buying Celsius’ assets. Remember, Celsius filed for bankruptcy and has a $1.2b hole on its balance sheet.
Hotbit is the latest crypto company to halt withdrawals. Not because of liquidity issues, but because they had a former manager who's being investigated for illegal activities.
LongHash Ventures launches a new $100m Web3 fund.
MEME OF THE DAY
MILK ROAD POLL RESULTS ARE IN: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT DAOS?
Earlier this week we wanted to know how you all felt about DAOs. Well, the results are in...
The Milk Roaders are NOT DAObters.
Only ~10% of you have 0 interest in DAOs. Most of you are either interested or already part of one.
That's a wrap for today ladies & gents. See ya tomorrow!
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VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY
Vitalik is playing 4D chess while we're all just playing checkers... #builtdifferent
A ROADERS REVIEW
DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.
