GM. This is Milk Road, the daily newsletter that makes crypto news just click.
Here’s what we got for you today:
- ✍️ Firedancer live on Solana
- ✍️ We’re tokenizing everything
- 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Tether Co-Founder: The Bitcoin Cycle Is Broken, And That’s Worse Than a Crash
- 🍪 YouTube moves onchain
Decentralized Token Folios (DTFs) on Reserve are indices that bundle multiple crypto assets into a single token. Read more about DTFs here.
Prices as of 2:00 PM ET. Trade today with Milk Road Swap.
FIREDANCER IS LIVE ON SOLANA MAINNET! 🔥
Is… is this real?
I hate to admit it, but after years of Firedancer being ‘just around the corner’ – I’d given up on it actually shipping.
But here we are.
Firedancer is now live on Solana mainnet – and has been running on a handful of validators for 100 days, successfully producing 50,000 blocks.
The big, hairy, audacious problem it’s solving? Solana’s downtime.
(Which is a HUGE issue if you’re looking to become the ‘onchain Nasdaq’.)
Here’s a ‘so simple even our General Manager Tyler could understand it’ explainer of how Firedancer is solving the problem:
Imagine Solana is a supermarket. Any time you want to make a purchase, you have to go through the checkout.
But until now, Solana only had one checkout aisle (aka: validator client) in operation – meaning if the checkout chick got the flu – the whole thing would come to a crashing halt.
No moving money. No making swaps. Nothing.
Firedancer’s launch is the equivalent of the Solana supermarket opening a new checkout lane. If one goes down, the other can pick up the slack.
Seems trivial – but when you’re trying to coax the TradFi world over to your network, uptime is one of the biggest selling points/requirements.
That, and speed… which Firedancer also excels at – this thing is designed to increase Solana’s transaction processing by 2–3x in real workloads!
(Which is insane, considering how blazingly fast Solana already is.)
This is a HUGE moment for the network – and makes it a legit contender in the race to tokenize the TradFi world.
CRYPTO INVESTING AS A SMOOTHIE
Buy all the ingredients. Chop it all up. Blend it. Add sugar. That’s how long it takes to make a smoothie.
Or… you just grab a ready-made one.
Well, Reserve is basically building the ready-made smoothie of crypto.
Decentralized Token Folios (DTFs) on Reserve are indices that bundle multiple crypto assets into a single token.
Here’s why we’re impressed by Reserve:
- Backed by Sam Altman & Peter Thiel
- Partnered with Bloomberg, CoinDesk and CoinMarketCap
- Just launched CMC20, the crypto version of the S&P 500
No more managing complex portfolios, just buy DTFs & chill.
Read more about the DTFs here.
IT’S OFFICIAL: WE’RE TOKENIZING EVERYTHING 🤙
Speaking of tokenizing the TradFi world – this just happened:
Here’s the nuts and bolts of what this all means…
The DTCC is a U.S. financial market infrastructure company that automates, centralizes, and standardizes the clearing, settlement, and custody of securities on behalf of thousands of broker-dealers, custodian banks, and asset managers.
… cool.
Next question: What the hell does ANY of that even mean??
Think of it like this…
If stocks were cars, the DTCC would be the folks building/maintaining the highways that allow vehicles to move from Point A to Point B.
Ok, now – here’s what this new SEC approval means for the future of tokenization…
Most tokenized onchain stocks are ‘wrapped’ – meaning a middle man has purchased a stock → created a token to represent it → then let people trade it onchain.
The problem with this method are the gray areas it creates: who owns the legal title to the underlying stock? Who gets its voting rights? Who receives the dividends?
Each platform offering ‘wrapped’ onchain stocks might have different answers to each question – making it murky as hell.
And TradFi investors don’t like ‘murky’ – they like clear, unified rules.
With these new DTCC-issued onchain stocks – ‘clear, unified rules’ are exactly what TradFi is going to get.
The bearer of the onchain stock token keeps all their rights as usual, the same way they would if they held a traditional stock.
No wrapped tokens. No à la carte legal rights. No middlemen.
It’s the difference between your mom trying to make McDonald’s-style burgers at home (wrapped onchain stocks) vs. a Big Mac (DTCC-issued onchain stocks).
One is a representation, the other is the real deal.
It’s a massive leap forward in the race to bring the global financial system onchain.
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
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The U.S. to buy 1M Bitcoin? The Bitcoin Act wants to make it happen!
YouTube moves onchain: U.S. creators will now be able to receive payouts in stablecoins.
The everything onchain era: Birdeye just dropped a banger report on the current state of RWAs (and their future).
Why can everyone still see my wallet balance? That’s exactly what Zama is trying to fix by adding a privacy layer to existing chains.*
*this is sponsored content.
MILKY MEMES 🤣
ROADIE REVIEW OF THE DAY 🥛
VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY
