GM. This is the Milk Road, where we cut up your sandwich into little triangles for you.
The stock market and crypto market continue to drawdown. After a 10+ year bull run with prices going up and up, it seems safe to say we have entered a bear market.
Most people will just curl into a ball, and give up.
But the reality is that some of the best projects and investments happen in a downturn.
After the Dot Com crash (2000), you could have invested in tech stocks like Amazon at $7 per share. And tech companies like Facebook & LinkedIn came out of the crash.
And after the 2008 Recession, the founders of Slack, Uber, and Airbnb were building the next wave of giants.
If we enter a recession now, I will be looking for the blue chip assets at a discount, and new projects that are being built by real builders who aren’t scared off by price dips.
Alright - enough from me. Let’s get to the big crypto news of the day:
Estimated read time: 3 minutes and 26 seconds
- 🧐 A $37M typo
- 🤑 Coinbase Chief Product Officer makes bank
- 💸 Funding Friday
- 🤣 Meme of the day
A $37M TYPO
This story features one small mistake and one huge mistake.
The small mistake → there’s a project called Juno (built on Cosmos). Someone recently gamed their airdrop and got $37M worth of value. A small whoops for it being exploitable.
Then… the big mistake.
The community voted to seize back the $37M from the guy (Takumi Asano, a Japanese investor with a lotta money).
But after they seized it, they accidentally sent the $37M to the wrong wallet because of a typo.
A $37M typo. Only in crypto baby! Yeeeee hawwww.
What did the head of protocols have to say after the double mess up? “We f*cked up big time”.
Yeah bud, you did.
COINBASE CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER MAKES BANK?
Disclosure, I’m very long Coinbase.
This tweet went semi-viral yesterday:
Coinbase hired a VP from Google, Surojit Chatterjee, as their head of product with $646 million compensation package in 2020. I’ve been waiting to see the product impact of the highest paid PM in tech. Coinbase NFT is that product.
— Dare Obasanjo (@Carnage4Life)2:54 AM • May 5, 2022
$646M?! Hot damn!
I know it doesn’t matter…but I can’t resist. Who’s down for some over-the-top research on this?
Who the heck is this guy? Surojit was a VP of Product at Google, leading their shopping team.
VP at Google, is that a big deal?
The food chain goes CEO → SVP → VP. It looks like there were about ~200-360 VPs at Google. He worked at Google for 11 years.
How much do VPs make?
Digging around, it looks like a typical VP will bring home ~$1M-$5M per year.
Levels.FYI shows the same:
So how did that jump to $600M+?
He joined Coinbase 2 years ago (just before the IPO) as Chief Product Officer.
In 2020, he earned $15.8M:
On top of that, he got a stock grant giving him 2M shares
OK so let’s do some math.
He got 2,000,000 shares. Today, with a share price of $118, those shares are worth $236M (not all upfront, they vest over 5 years)
At the stock price peak, those shares were worth over $600m… Mama mia!
I gotta say - this is my favorite “holy shit” tech money story since the graffiti artist painted a wall at Facebook’s office and his shares ended up being worth $200M.
FUNDING FRIDAY
Every Friday we recap all the web3 startups that got funding. This week we saw $270M invested in crypto companies and $290m into funds. Who got the money this time?
Poolsuite - the NFT project launches ManorDAO to buy a giant Manor. One of our favorite NFT projects. It’s fun, and the brand is awesome.
Stakes got $5.3M for their sports betting NFTs. Make a prediction, people wager against your prediction, and the winning bet gets minted as an NFT. Aka “Digital bragging rights”.
Americana got $6.9M for their chip that turns luxury items into digital NFTs. Our prediction of the week: in the next 30 years, we’re going to see every asset (real estate, art, wine, shoes, etc..) sold & stored digitally.
Syndicate got $6M to create web3 investment clubs.
Kinetix got $11M for their no-code platform that turns any of your videos into animated 3D avatars.
LootRush got $12M for their play-to-earn NFT marketplace. Pick a game, choose your NFTs and start playing. You can withdraw your tokens into your wallet or use them to keep playing more.
Zora got $50M to build out their NFT marketplace. The round was led by Katie Haun, the former federal prosecutor on the Silk Road case that turned VC. Badass story.
Get our full database of companies that have raised this year right here.
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MEME OF THE DAY
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CONGRATS TO OUR CEREAL WINNERS
Yesterday, we asked what your favorite cereal is and the answers came in waves.
Nick, you deserve a box of the Captain for this answer: "Some days I cheat on my true love and get a box of Capitan Crunch"
Adnan, Flakes are headed your way: "Frosted Flakes, bitches."
Scott, we see you with the 2% milk, even though Raisin Bran isn't our jam, we got you: "Raisin brain crunch. Emphasis on the crunch. 2% milk (always)."
Wilfrid, we'll try to work our magic, but no promises: "One time at my aunt’s house (early 90’s) I ate almost the whole box of a “new” cereal she had, Kellogg's Cinnamon Mini Buns. It was discontinued but it left enough of an impression that I remember it almost 30 years later. "
And guess what...we're picking 3 more winners who hit reply to this email with their favorite cereal and we might even send some milk with it!
Shaan "Chocolate Milk" Puri and Ben "2% Milk" Levy
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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.
