May 18, 2023

🥛Big price moves coming? 🔮

GM. This is Milk Road. We’re the friend talking into your ear through a wire so you can sound smart on a date. We’ve got your back.

It’s Thirsty Thursday, Roadies. Leggo:

  • Here comes the buy/sell pressure…🎢

  • Ordinals → Doginals 🐶

  • Visual of the day: $54M in crypto outflows 📉

  • Ripple makes a big purchase 🍪

Prices as of 8:30 EDT

Today’s edition is brought to you by NFTfi – the most trusted and longest standing NFT lending platform on the market.

CELSIUS & TETHER COULD ROCK ETH/BTC🎢

Let’s talk about 2 things, Roadies: sell pressure & buy pressure.

The first happens when there’s less demand for an asset, causing prices to fall. The second is when there’s more demand for an asset, causing prices to soar.

Got it? Good. Now that we’re on the same page let’s talk about 2 big moves:

  • Celsius’ sell pressure on ETH

  • Tether’s buy pressure on BTC

Now, we can’t predict the future (only the Simpsons can), but here’s how these events could affect crypto prices in the near future:

1/ Celsius could flood the market with loads of ETH

Celsius went bankrupt last July and owes its creditors… *checks notes*… ~$4.7B.

Well, turns out the bankrupt crypto lender also has a sh*tton of ETH staked and now that Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade is over (AKA users can unstake their ETH), Celsius can access those funds.

In total, Celsius has requested to unstake 428k stETH (~$780M worth) from Lido’s liquid staking platform.

The good news: Celsius could use that ETH to pay some creditors back. Alexa, play B*tch Better Have My Money

The bad news: When so much supply enters the market, that sends prices down, so people sell. Less scarcity = lower value = lower price.

(P.S. – Even if Celsius uses the ETH to pay people back, it might not happen for a while. Bankruptcy proceedings can drone on longer than my high school history teacher.)

2/ Tether wants to spend some of its profits on BTC

Tether issues the largest stablecoin by market cap, USDT. Last week, the stablecoin issuer said that it made $1.5B in net profit over Q1.

Now, Tether wants to put some of the profits to use.

Meanwhile I’m using 15% of my paycheck on Taco Bell every week.

If Tether’s Q2 net profits were anything like its Q1’s ($1.48B,) that could mean the company would buy up ~$222M of BTC next quarter.

Large BTC volume buys/price predicted to go up = investors also buy.

Tether’s tryna pull a Microstrategy

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WHO LET THE DOGINALS OUT? 🐶

Ladies and gents, activity on the Dogecoin network is BOOMING…

On Tuesday, it saw 719K transactions alone – a new all-time high. Wowza.

BitInfoCharts

What caused this? Doginals are following in Ordinal’s footsteps.

That’s right. The hype has gone from BRC-20s → DRC-20s.

Here’s what you need to know about it:

  • DRC-20s function the same way as Bitcoin inscriptions

  • Users can embed data into the smallest unit of a Dogecoin, called Shibes

  • Since fees on the Dogecoin network are cheap, it costs a lot less money to create/buy/sell DRC-20s vs BRC-20s on Bitcoin

Why does this matter? There are two reasons:

1/ The congestion of the Bitcoin network is leading people elsewhere

Dogecoin isn’t the only network exploding. It’s also raining cats and dogs on Litecoin with the recent emergence of LRC-20 tokens.

2/ Up until Doginals, it’s been quiet in Doge land

Other than the short-lived Twitter logo change, there hasn’t been much excitement around Dogecoin recently.

But Doginals are the first time new innovation has been brought to Dogecoin. And it could bring a spark to the network like Ordinals did for Bitcoin.

We wanna hear from you, Roadies! Have you experimented with Doginals?

VISUAL OF THE DAY: $54M IN CRYPTO OUTFLOWS 📉

There’s been $200M in digital assets flowing out of crypto funds within the last 4 weeks. Last week alone saw $54M in outflows.

Why? Crypto prices slipped last week, especially BTC.

It dropped below $26K last Friday. *shudder* So it makes sense that people might be exiting with the recent dips.

$160M of the $200M in outflows in the past 4 weeks was Bitcoin, too.

We’ve come a long way from that brief but blissful $30K price level in April…

MILK & COOKIES 🍪

The UK wants to lump crypto regulations in with gambling and lottery. A sharp 180 from the “Royal Mint” NFT initiative they dropped this past March.

Apple allows Axie Infinity crypto game on the App Store. Axie Infinity: Origins will be available in a select number of countries throughout Latin America and Southeast Asia. Axie’s token jumped 12% when the news dropped.

Ripple is buying a crypto custody firm for $250M. The deal will expand Ripple’s enterprise offerings for digital asset custody, issuance, and settlement services.

Coinbase has been posting a countdown on their Twitter page. No info has been released, but PEPE holders are speculating. 👀

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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.