GM. This is the Milk Road. We give you the bird’s eye view of crypto from the Milk Road Spy Balloon. Please don’t shoot us down.
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
- Why Coinbase, Kraken, & the SEC are freaking out about staking
- Crypto misses out on the Super Bowl
- An 11-year-old BTC wallet woke up
- A crypto-backed lending platform raises millions
THE SEC IS COOKING STAKES
There are two things that crypto peeps can’t stand:
- Twitter accounts that don’t post “gm” at dawn
- The SEC harshing the industry’s mellow
Welp, today we’re mad about the second one.
The SEC said Thursday it’s closing down Kraken’s staking service faster than Spirit Halloween stores on Nov. 1. PLUS, it’s fining the exchange $30M.
Rumors of the SEC coming for staking were already a rumor swirling in the Twitterverse. The CEO of Kraken’s rival, Coinbase, tweeted Wednesday that the Feds were coming for everyone’s staking programs with pitchforks.
He said it’d be a “terrible path for the U.S. if that was allowed to happen.” The SEC is already probing the exchange over its staking feature.
But *RECORD SCRATCH* first, a refresher: staking is a way for people to make some casholah on crypto without buying and selling it.
You deposit your crypto to a blockchain, help verify transactions on it/keep everything secure, Et Voila! you get a nice little return (with Ether it’s ~6%.)
The future of staking seemed uncertain when the SEC mused the idea of calling staked Ether a security in October after the Great and Powerful Merge (proof-of-work/mining → proof-of-stake.) It argued that investors now need protection since their returns would depend on what other people do (that’s how the Feds define a security.)
Crypto folks would prefer the generally more chill Commodity Futures Trading Commission had jurisdiction over staking. It has fewer resources than the SEC and regulates commodities (which is what Bitcoin is classified as.) Ether stans are worried aggressive SEC regulation would hold the Ethereum project back in innovation and hurt its ability to match the scale of Bitcoin. But that future seems inevitable with Gensler at the helm of SEC.
We’re not saying Coinbase’s staking service is next on the chopping block, but we’d be sleeping with one eye open if we ran a staking service rn.
MAP THE WORLD WITH HIVEMAPPER
If you're anything like the Milk Road, you love tokens.
You like collecting them. You like buying them. And you love earning them by driving your car.
Yep, that's right.
What if I told you there was a company that lets you earn crypto by driving your car around town?
The company is called Hivemapper and it's focused on one thing - creating a decentralized map of the world.
Hivemapper gives you crypto for setting up a dashcam in your car.
It sounds like magic, but it's not.
Here’s how Hivemapper works:
- You buy a Hivemapper dashcam
- Drive around town while the dashcam takes pictures
- Receive Hivemapper's native token (HONEY) for your hard, laborious work
Over 5000 people use Hivemapper to earn crypto every day. Hivemapper users have mapped more than 260,000 unique km so far.
Use the code MILK55 at checkout to get $55 off your Hivemapper dashcam and start earning crypto today.
CRYPTO MISSES OUT ON THE SUPER BOWL THIS YEAR
Over 100M people will be doing one thing this Sunday…. Going to church Watching the Super Bowl. America’s big game is known for its funny/cringe commercials, 36-layer dips, and chicken wings. Lots of chicken wings*.
*Milky Fact of the Day: The National Chicken Council (yup, a real thing) estimates over 1.4 BILLION chicken wings get eaten on Super Bowl Sunday. No wonder toilets break during the game.
But there will be one thing missing at this year's event…Crypto. According to Fox Sports’ ad sales team, there will be no representation for crypto companies this year. Apparently there were a few deals on the table, but everything fell through once FTX collapsed.
This is a sharp contrast from last year, which had so many crypto ads people called it The Crypto Bowl. Here were a few that made an appearance:
- Coinbase had a commercial with a QR code bouncing around the screen like those old school DVD logos. People could scan the code and get free Bitcoin when they signed up to the exchange. It was such a hit that the Coinbase site crashed.
- Crypto.com had a commercial where LeBron James was talking and giving advice to a younger version of himself. There was also a secret QR code that people could scan at a chance to win a Lebron James NFT. This also ended up being a big success as app downloads increased by over 100% the following week.
- eToro had a commercial where crypto investors were “flying to the moon” while convincing other random people on the street to invest in crypto. If you think it sounds bad, the execution was even worse.
But the most memorable commercial? FTX. The now-bankrupt crypto exchange had a commercial starring the one and only, Larry David. In it, the legendary comedian was pitched on FTX being a safe and secure way to invest in crypto.
His response?
The whole motto of the commercial was “Don’t be like Larry”. Oh, how the tables turned…
I’m sorry we didn’t listen, Larry. We’ll never doubt you again.
A DORMANT BTC WALLET AWAKENS
Every 11 years, the sun completes a solar cycle, and its magnetic poles flip.
It took that same amount of time for a dormant Bitcoin wallet to wake up and make its owner $9.6M richer.
This Rip Van Winkle wallet rose from its slumber on Wednesday and moved 412.12 BTC, which was $8 a coin in October 2012, the last time the wallet saw activity.
The owner made a whopping 120,000,000% profit, if the coins were sold.
We salute you og HODLer 🫡
FUNDING FRIDAY
It’s Funding Friday! This week, $200M+ was invested in web3 companies. Here’s who got the money:
Carbonplace got $45M to build a carbon credit marketplace that easily connects buyers and sellers. It’s the Match.com of carbon credits.
Sesame Labs got $4.5M to create a marketing platform for web3 companies. Big Bird, that you?
Webacy got $4M to develop security solutions for software and hardware wallets. Worried your wallet is compromised? Just press the Panic Button and immediately transfer your assets to a new backup wallet.
Cedro Finance got $1.5M for an omnichain platform that lets users borrow and lend across different blockchain.
SALT got $64.4M to offer crypto-backed loans. Don’t wanna sell your crypto? Now you can HODL and borrow against it.
If you wanna see all the companies that got funded, check em out here!
MILKY MEMES
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That's a wrap for today. Stay thirsty & see ya tomorrow! If you want more, be sure to follow our Twitter (@MilkRoadDaily)
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A ROADERS REVIEW
VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY
Big Friday mood 🙏
— Milk Road (@MilkRoadDaily)1:00 PM • Feb 10, 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.
