September 19, 2022

🥛 Why tf did prices tank this weekend?

GM. This is the Milk Road. The newsletter that sends you a daily email packed with crypto goodies.

It's just like when your mom used to pack you that brown paper bag lunch every day.

Wow.

If I had to describe this weekend in one word… Red. 

Ethereum crashed below $1,300 and Bitcoin plummeted to under $18,500. I haven’t seen this much red since the movie Saw.

So what happened? A mix of sell-offs due to fear & liquidations.

We’re fresh off getting the latest CPI report that showed 8.3% inflation over the last year. People see the price of milk and eggs go up and it causes Panic! [Not Just At the Disco]. 

Panic→ sell offs→ prices go down → positions get liquidated → price goes down more → more liquidations.

It's a brutal cycle and in total, we saw ~$475m get liquidated from the crypto market over the weekend.

And buckle up ladies & gents, cause it could get uglier. That’s because the Fed is announcing interest rate hikes later this week and many are expecting another big raise.

So we have a question for you… How are you feeling about the markets right now?

a/ extreme fear – “Help mommy, I’m scared!”

b/ fear – I’m sleeping with the nightlight on during times like these

c/ neutral – call me Switzerland

d/ greed – Lovin’ the discounts! Keep em comin’

e/ extreme greed – Fear isn’t in my vocab. I feast while others diet

Reply to this email with your answer and we'll share the results with you tomorrow!

In other news:

  • NFTs 🤝 your local business

  • Binance and a $19m bug

  • Quick bites

  • Meme of the day

NFTS 🤝 YOUR LOCAL BUSINESS

This weekend I went to my local pizza shop and ran into an old friend. You might know ‘em too..

The OG punch card.

If you’re too young to remember, this was the original loyalty program. And back in the day, everyone used this.

You’d go into your local restaurant to buy some food or visit your local car wash and you’d receive a stamp or get a hole punched in your card. Get enough stamps/holes and you'd get a reward (i.e free pizza)

And all weekend, I could only think about one thing – could NFTs make this better? And if so, what would that look like?

Well to answer, we’re gonna take you out to San Diego, CA to show you a real example.

Say hello to Soapy Joe’s. A local car wash chain that’s been putting web3 to the test this summer.

The test: Figure out if an NFT campaign can drive more demand to their 17 locations across California.

How it works: Any time you visit one of the locations, you receive an NFT. More locations you visit = more NFTs = more rewards.

Rewards include things like gas discounts, San Diego staycations(breakfast/lunch for 2 or theme park tickets), and free car washes for a whole year.

So, how’s it going? They’re seeing numbers they’ve never seen in their 11-year history, according to a recent interview.

  • The number of people visiting multiple sites is at an all-time high

  • 10% increase in memberships since starting the NFT campaign

  • 10,000+ individual NFTs have been minted

  • NFT-related emails are seeing a 71% open rate – far higher than any other promo

The Milk Road's Take: If we had a penny for every time we saw a startup or new technology that was gonna kill those punch cards, we'd sure have a lot of pennies.

Let's see if NFTs are the one to finally do it.

TODAY'S EDITION IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY JUNO

The year is 2050.

Banks finally understand what a Bitcoin is. You can…

  • Deposit crypto into your normal bank account without them thinking you’re a drug kingpin

  • Split your paycheck into cash & crypto that auto deposits into your account

  • Spend cash or crypto with a debit card and get 10% back

  • Withdraw crypto instantly using any L2 (like Arbitrum One, Polygon, or Optimism) directly from a checking account

Sounds like a pretty cool future, right? Well, the best part is we don’t have to wait until 2050 for it….

Meet Juno – your friendly neighborhood web3 checking account. It does everything your bank does, but with your crypto.

Simply link your Metamask wallet to buy, deposit, or send crypto at zero fees.

Sign up today and earn $10 on your first crypto deposit.

BINANCE AND A $19M ACCOUNTING BUG

This is crazy. Binance accidentally sent out $19m worth of Helium tokens (HNT) to its customers.

And it was all because of a bug in the accounting systems… Whoopsie-daisies.

Here’s what happened:

  • Helium is a popular crypto project that pays people in tokens when they set up one of their mobile hotspots

  • It has 2 tokens: HNT and MOBILE

  • Binance accidentally counted the Helium tokens as one – so when a user sent MOBILE tokens to their Binance account, they got HNT tokens

  • Instead of getting a token worth ~$0 (MOBILE), they got a token worth ~$4.50 (HNT)

  • In total, ~4.8M HNT tokens (worth $19m) were given out to Binance users in the exploit

  • Most users cashed out (go figure), which caused the price of HNT to drop ~20%

The Milk Road Take: This month we’ve seen Crypto.com accidentally give a woman ~$8m, Coinbase users make 100x profits from a bug, and now this.

Good thing there are still 12 days left this month for a crypto exchange to "accidentally" send the Milk Road some money.

QUICK BITES

FaZe Clan partners with The Sandbox to launch a new metaverse called “FaZe World”. The main purpose is to host virtual events, games, and digital product releases for FaZe. Remember when we used to spell words funny & thought we were the coolest? C00l B3AnZ.

Ledger partners with Best Buy to make hardware wallets available at every Best Buy store. Some stores will even have interactive displays that educate customers about crypto storage & staying safe.

Compound Treasure has launched a new feature that lets institutions borrow funds with digital assets as collateral. Firms will be able to use crypto like BTC and ETH as collateral to borrow USD and USDC at a 6% APR.

Binance is enabling Ukraine’s largest chain-owned retailer to accept crypto payments. Customers will be able to pay their grocery bills through the Binance Pay wallet.

MEME OF THE DAY

My non-crypto friends, everytime I see them 😂

That's a wrap for today, see ya tomorrow!

If you want more, be sure to follow our Twitter (@MilkRoadDaily)

A ROADERS REVIEW

VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY

Vitalik: Leads Ethereum to the Merge – one of the biggest events in crypto history

ETH: -25% since the Merge

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.