Today’s edition is brought to you by Coinbase’s Onchain Summer - Base’s multi-week event that kicks off on August 9th to celebrate art, music, gaming, and more on the blockchain. Don’t miss out on the action.
GM. This is the Milk Road. The #1 Doctor Recommended source for your daily crypto nutrients.
You know what they say: “A newsletter a day, keeps market uncertainties away.”
Here’s the good stuff for today:
- Milk Road Court: guilty or innocent? ⚖️
- PayPal’s new stablecoin has some red flags…🚩
- Graph of the day: crypto funds flow report 📊
- Trouble brewing for Huobi? 🍪
Prices as of 10:30 AM ET. Click here for our Fear & Greed Index
P.S. - We’ve been getting the same question a lot… why is this Milk Road Public Wallet different now?
The answer: We’re starting brand new! You can follow the whole journey here.
MILK ROAD COURT: THE $1.5M TRICK ⚖️
Welcome to Milk Roaders Crypto Court.
It’s like the Judge Judy show - except instead of family affairs, legal paperwork, and financial receipts it’s crypto cases, smart contracts, and blockchains.
Today, we’re gonna talk about Milk Road Case #32781: The $1.5M “Trick”.
THE VICTIM: “Elizab.eth”. An anonymous crypto trader who owns some trading bots.
THE DEFENDANT: Hanwe Chang. A well-known crypto trader.
Here’s the backstory:
- Hanwe is one of the top Blur “point farmers”. aka they trade and bid on a sh*tton of NFTs on Blur’s marketplace. (more activity = more points = more tokens on future airdrops)
- Elizab.eth decided to create a bot to “copy trade” Hanwe’s strategy in order to accumulate more points. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
- Hanwe noticed a bot was copying his trades, so he decided to trick it. He placed extremely inflated bids on his own NFTs using a separate wallet. (he knew that the bot would copy the bids)
- Hanwe then quickly accepted the bots’ bids on his NFTs. As a result, Hanwe profited 800 ETH (worth $1.5M) and the bot was drained of its funds.
Ladies & gents, that’s how you turn a big pain → a bigger gain.
But here’s the twist: Many are debating the legality and morality behind the $1.5M trick.
On one hand… Elizab.eth made the first move by copy-trading Hanwe and stealing Blur points from them.
On the other hand…Hanwe knowingly exploited and manipulated Elizab.eth’s trading bot and stole $1.5M. (and then flexed it on social media afterward)
Milk Road Take: In our (nonexpert) opinion, we see no crime here.
Hanwe’s actions should be protected under the FAFO (F*ck Around, Find Out) Act of 2023 since Elizab.eth initiated it all.
Play stupid games, and win stupid prizes.
But we want to hear from the Milk Road Jury (aka you). Select how you would vote on this case below.
How would YOU vote on this?
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PAYPAL’S STABLECOIN HAS SOME RED FLAGS 🚩
Yesterday, PayPal announced the launch of its new stablecoin - PYUSD. It was followed by a roar of “WGMI” chants from the crypto community.
(big company launching a token = big opportunity for mass adoption)
But fast forward to today, feelings toward the stablecoin are different.
That’s because a few crypto devs took a peek at the code and found a few red flags:
🚩 The code is written in a super old version of Solidity
🚩 It allows the owner to freeze addresses and wipe funds
🚩 It allows the owner to pause all transfers
🚩 It allows the owner to increase the total supply of tokens, whenever they want
Turns out PayPal’s new token has more red flags than my ex-girlfriend.
And while it’s called a stablecoin, it seems more like a CCDC - centralized company digital currency (first cousins with CBDC).
The lesson: If you (or a loved one) plan on using any new tokens, ALWAYS check to see if there are any questionable functionalities in the smart contract.
Stay safe out there Roaders.
GRAPH OF THE DAY: WEEKLY CRYPTO FUNDS FLOW REPORT 🤑
Source: CoinShares
The latest Weekly Crypto Asset Funds Flow Report just dropped.
The results? $107M in total outflows.
Here are the big highlights:
- Bitcoin saw the bulk of outflows, totaling $111M. (the largest weekly outflow since March)
- A few altcoins saw inflows. Solana (SOL) was the biggest winner, followed by minor inflows into Ripple (XRP) and Litecoin (LTE).
- Weekly trading volume continues to decline. The on-exchange market volume was down 62% relative to the year-to-date average.
This was the 3rd straight week that crypto funds have sold off more than they bought. *queue sad violin*
It could be a mix of profit taking + investors vacationing and sipping on Mai Tais.
We’ll see if the trend continues next week.
BITE-SIZED COOKIES 🍪
Crypto Rumor Mill: Huobi could be facing solvency issues. There are reports that company executives were arrested and the exchange could be facing liquidity issues . As a result, users are starting to withdraw funds from the exchange. (Milk Road Rule #4: Better safe than sorry)
Curve Finance has placed a $1.85M bounty to help identify the hacker that stole $70M last week. They should just call Liam Neeson for help at this point…
Singapore Red Cross is teaming up with Triple-A to start accepting crypto donations. Popular cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC will be accepted.
Reddit tokens, Moons and Bricks, see major price pumps after being listed on Kraken. $MOON is up 40% and $BRICK is up a whopping 135%. It’s what we call the Exchange Listing Effect (ELE).
Kenyan authorities raided a Worldcoin warehouse over concerns about data collection practices. This comes after the government suspended Worldcoin’s operations last week.
MILKY MEMES 🤣
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ROADER REVIEW OF THE DAY
VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY
— Milk Road Images (@MilkRoadImages)1:58 PM • Aug 8, 2023
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.
