GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that feels like finding an empty seat on a packed subway.
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
- ✍️ Why hasn't ETH improved lives?
- 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: “Fiat Is Stealing Your Time”: Bitcoin Was Built for This Moment in History w/ Sam Callahan.
- 🍪 The DeFi Mullet is going global.
Nexo is back in the U.S. - and new clients get 30 days of Wealth Club Premier perks! Higher yields, lower borrowing rates, and crypto cashback - start here.
Prices as of 2:00 p.m. ET. Trade today with Milk Road Swap.
WHY HASN'T ETHEREUM ACTUALLY IMPROVED ANYONE'S LIFE? - VITALIK 😳
Ethereum has plenty of detractors…
But of late, the calls have been coming from inside the house.
Vitalik has been defining his renewed vision for Ethereum over the past few weeks, starting with his reframe of how L2’s should be rethinking their purpose.
His most recent question:
Why hasn't Ethereum ACTUALLY improved anyone's life?
In his view, the technologies that are genuinely liberating people right now are:
- Signal.
- Starlink.
- Community Notes.
- Local open-weights LLMs.
He's not saying Ethereum should pivot to pure finance and give up on bigger dreams.
Financial freedom matters.
But a perfectly sovereign, debasement-proof financial system still leaves most of our deep worries about the world unaddressed.
So what's the answer?
Vitalik introduces a concept: "sanctuary technologies"...
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WHY HASN'T ETHEREUM ACTUALLY IMPROVED ANYONE'S LIFE? - VITALIK (P2) 😳
Vitalik paints ‘sanctuary technologies’ as:
Free, open-source tools that let people live, work, communicate, build wealth, and collaborate in ways that are robust to outside pressure.
Not technologies that remake the world in Ethereum's image.
The goal isn't total victory for any ideology. It's preventing anyone from having total control over other human beings.
‘Digital islands of stability’ in a chaotic era - i.e. this:
Vitalik's call to action for the Ethereum ecosystem?
First: Don't try to be Apple or Google. 👇
Second: Find the users who don't see sanctuary tech as a nice-to-have, but a NEED-to-have.
Many of them aren't in crypto at all.
They're dissidents, journalists, activists, and ordinary people in unstable regimes…
According to Vitalik: Ethereum has drifted.
It hasn’t properly served these kinds of people.
That needs to change.
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
This seems too good to be true. Nexo’s “Zero-interest credit” lets you borrow $BTC or $ETH with no yearly interest or fee.*
A new level of commitment: Saylor is taking his Bitcoin with him to the grave, burning his keys upon his death.
This is why we don’t use leverage: early this morning, someone put $41M on Bitcoin using 40x leverage on Hyperliquid and lost it all within hours.
The DeFi Mullet is going global: Coinbase just launched DEX trading in 84 countries.
*sigh* There’s a new crypto tax rule from the IRS. It’s called the 1099-DA and we’ve broken everything down around it here.*
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MILKY MEMES 🤣
ROADIE REVIEW OF THE DAY 🥛
VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY
