March 27, 2023

🥛 Battle of the crypto hackers ⚔️

GM. This is Milk Road, your crypto wingman. We make sure you never make a fool of yourself, get you out of sticky situations, and will spend all night talking to the annoying friend.

Here's what you missed this weekend:

  • Euler hackers return $100M in stolen crypto💰

  • NFT collector accidentally burns $130K CryptoPunk 🤦‍♂️

  • Bitcoin’s hashrate hits a new all-time high 📊

  • Billionaire says companies should have payroll in Bitcoin 👀

Prices as of 9:30 AM ET

Today's edition is brought to you by Hundrx – a browser extension that seamlessly integrates Twitter into Web3.


EULER HACKER RETURNS 58,000 ETH 💰

Euler Finance is a lending protocol that was exploited for ~$200M earlier this month.

Over the weekend, it got ~$100M worth of ETH back and all we can say is: what a wild ride:

  • Euler Finance got flash loan attacked and hacked for ~$200M.

  • Euler's team offered hackers a $20M reward to return 90% of the funds. It got rejected.

  • Then the Ronin Bridge hackers (AKA a N. Korean hacking group) attempted a phishing attack on the Euler hackers to steal the $200M. It’s crypto’s Battle of the Bastards Hackers.

  • Euler exploiters avoided the attack but then the team drama starts and one of the exploiters reaches out to the Euler team with a message: “Email me ASAP, I will give up every f*cking thing about the hacker for 10% like offered.”

  • Over the weekend, the hackers returned ~$100M and are in the process of negotiating with the Euler team to give the rest back.

Wow, talk about a real-life movie. It’s like Ocean's Eleven meets Catch Me If You Can with a cameo appearance from Kim Jong Un and The Boys™.

The craziest part of the story: Euler Finance was audited 10 times by 6 different security companies before the hack happened. They all concluded there were no major security risks.

My question is: who was doing the security? this guy?

Either way, glad it all worked out in the end. Euler Finance is getting the stolen crypto back. Depositors can get refunded, and the Euler coin, EUL, jumped +40% over the weekend.

Nature is healing.

TWITTER MEETS WEB3 WITH HUNDRX

There’s never a dull day on Twitter. The app is full of news, drama, memes, and million-dollar crypto bets.

But there’s a problem: it’s hard to engage. As of now, we’re limited to digital likes and IRL laughs.

That all changes today with Hundrx – a browser extension that seamlessly integrates Twitter into Web3. It lets you:

  • Turn Twitter profiles into a valuable, tradable asset with just a few clicks

  • Mint social tokens representing an individual's social capital that can be traded on the open market

  • Reach more followers with a new discovery algorithm

  • Create fundraising campaigns with hashtags

  • Eliminate the bot problem by ensuring that only real people can mint social tokens

Looking to take your Twitter game to the next level? Join Hundrx now and enable Web3 for Twitter!

Get rich, or tweet tryin’.

AN NFT COLLECTOR BURNS HIS $135K CRYPTOPUNK 🤦‍♂️

Brandon Riley is an NFT collector that bought CryptoPunk #685 for 77 ETH (~$135K) recently.

Well over the weekend, he accidentally sent it to a burn address and deleted it. (Whoops)

How’d it happen? Brandon was trying to wrap his CryptoPunk in order to use it as collateral to get a loan on NFT.fi, a borrowing & lending platform for NFTs.

But instead of using his own wallet address, he used the burn address (i.e. a wallet that no one has access to.)

*Poof* Just like that, CryptoPunk #685 is gone, forever.

Unfortunately for Brandon, this is still the wild wild west of crypto – there is no customer support or 1-800-I-F*CKED-UP number to call.

The lesson: Always quadruple-check the address you’re sending your assets to because you might be making a huge mistake.

Tonight we pour one out for our fallen fellow Punk.

BITCOIN'S HASH RATE HITS A NEW ALL-TIME HIGH 📊

Hashrate is a way to measure how much computing power is needed to mine Bitcoin. And recently it’s been breaking more records than LeBron James.

Bitcoin’s hashrate has been on the rise for the last 3 months and over the weekend, it hit a new all-time high of 400 EH/S.

Why this matters: Hashrate is used to measure things like how active Bitcoin miners are and how secure the network is.

An increase in hashrate means 2 things:

1/ Miners are getting back in the game. 2022 was a sh*tty year for miners – many went bankrupt or turned their machines off during the crypto winter.

2023 has been a comeback year – Bitcoin is up over 50% and miners are turning their machines back on as it’s becoming profitable again.

It shows miners are confident in Bitcoin in the near term. And it also means…

2/ Bitcoin's network is getting more secure. Miners all compete to solve hard, complex problems. The first ones to get them correct win & get to mine that specific block on the network.

It’s kinda like pop quiz day in math class. But the higher the hashrate, the harder the problems (i.e. it’s like going from geometry and shapes → solving the quadratic formula.)

This means the higher the hash rate is, the more difficult and costly it is for someone to attack the network.

Both are good signs for Bitcoin's growth and we’ll be keeping a close eye on the hashrates to see if the trend continues. Mmmm, Bacon & Hashrates for breakfast for the next few weeks.

BILLIONAIRE SAYS COMPANIES SHOULD HAVE PAYROLL IN BITCOIN 👀

Tim Draper is one of the most successful investors out there. If you don’t know him, he:

  • Is a billionaire VC that invested in companies like Tesla, Coinbase, Robinhood, Ring, etc.

  • Started his own university (Draper University)

  • Won the U.S. Marshals auction for the 30,000 Bitcoin confiscated from the Silk Road back in 2014

In other words – he’s cool, rich, and successful. He’s the uncle everyone wishes they had…

Well over the weekend, he dropped a new post on his learnings from the recent banking collapses and a few tips for cash management.

The most interesting tip? Diversity risk using Bitcoin. 👇

The best part about this is Tim isn’t making any outrageous predictions or extreme comments.

He’s keeping it simple: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Minimize exposure to any one bank, splits assets across different banks, and store some money in Bitcoin just in case sh*t hits the fan.

We completely agree. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in crypto it’s there are NO benefits to the whole “wait and see” approach for this kind of stuff.

The game theory says: Heads you win nothing. Tails, you lose everything.

So it doesn’t hurt to have that backup plan ready for when things go into DEFCON 4 mode.

MILKY MEMES

🤣🤣

That's a wrap for today. Meet us on Twitter to talk all about it. It’s kinda like a family BBQ but better – no screaming kids, awkward photos, or drunk uncles telling weird stories (@MilkRoadDaily)

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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.