🥛 Your Guide to Bitcoin’s New Protocol 📖
Today’s edition is brought to you by Cross Finance – a forward-thinking digital ecosystem offering cutting-edge financial solutions that merge banking and blockchain through its L1 blockchain, dApps, and payment card.
Experience the revolution today on CoinList!*
GM. Milk Road: Think of us as your crypto news barista – we remember your usual, and today we've got a special blend.
Here’s what we’re serving up:
Runes 101: Everything you need to know 📖
These indicators will show you the bull market top 👀
OKX launched a new Layer 2 🚀
Bored Apes are down more than 90% 🍪
RUNES 101: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW 📖
Crypto trends are like viral dances – just when you get the hang of one, everyone’s moved on to another.
(Side note: nothing will ever top the ‘Soulja Boy’ dance. There, I said it)
Crypto’s newest trend is… Runes.
In fact, Franklin Templeton (a $1.5T asset manager) dropped a new report all about it yesterday.
Here’s everything you need to know:
Runes is a new fungible token standard on Bitcoin.
It’s similar to how Ethereum has fungible tokens (i.e. $MKR, $SHIB, etc) except these are on Bitcoin.
Runes is supposed to be an upgrade from existing fungible token standards on Bitcoin (like BRC-20).
It’s designed to be more efficient and have cheaper transaction fees.
It was created by Casey Rodarmor – the same guy who developed Ordinals, a protocol that lets you create NFTs on Bitcoin.
The crazy part? Runes has gotten a ton of hype and… it hasn’t launched yet!
It’s supposed to go live later this week during the Bitcoin Halving.
Why this matters: Some investors think Runes could be a near-term catalyst for the Bitcoin ecosystem – just like how Ordinals caused a Bitcoin NFT rush (and grew to a $2B market in under a year).
We’ll have to wait and see…
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PRO “WHERE ARE WE IN THE CYCLE?” INDICATORS 📊
Crypto moves in cycles. If you want to truly capitalize on the opportunity of this industry, you must be aware of where we’re at within this cycle.
By doing so, you can spot the bull market peak and take valuable profits before the inevitable bear market crushes your bags.
Trust the Milk Man: You don’t want to roundtrip your bags to the moon and back.
Timing the exact top of the bull market is impossible. However, leveraging various indicators that have been successful in the past can give us a better shot at spotting the top before it’s too late.
Below, we show you 5 indicators which have historically signified the top of previous bull markets. Using 1 indicator isn’t a great way to predict the top, but by combining these 5, we can significantly increase our chances.
We've also added a color-coded system to show how close each indicator is to signalling the market peak.
🟢 Plenty of room to run still 🏄
🟡 Getting closer to the top signal, but haven’t yet reached the mark ⚠️
🔴 We’ve hit the market top indicator 🚨
Every Tuesday we update the 5 indicators below for PRO eyes only. Our recommendation is not to wait for all indicators to reach 🔴, but instead, take profits along the way as they get closer.
Let’s explore if we’re anywhere near the top of this bull market. 👇
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Full access to the 5 bull market peak indicators above. 👆
Our weekly reports that help you invest successfully in crypto. 💰
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PRO REVIEW OF THE WEEK
OKX LAUNCHED A NEW LAYER 2 🚀
A new Layer 2 has entered the crypto arena… it’s called ‘X Layer’.
But first, what’s a Layer 2? Let’s imagine crypto is a city…
Ethereum is Main Street. It’s the most popular area to go to, but it’s congested and expensive.
So what do we do? We use the Subway train system. (AKA a 2nd layer of transportation).
It’s not as convenient or prestigious as Main Street (and you might see a drunk guy peeing in the corner) – but it’s cheaper and faster.
In crypto, these are called “Layer 2s”. And now, there’s a new one… X Layer.
It was created by OKX – the second-largest crypto exchange (by monthly trading volume this month) behind Binance.
It was developed using Polygon’s Chain Development Kit (CDK) – a toolkit that lets devs easily build chains using zero-knowledge technology.
The new Layer 2 was released to the public yesterday. Users can now deposit/withdraw crypto onto the new L2 via OKX’s exchange.
OKX’s native token ($OKB) will be used to pay transaction fees.
There are already 170+ decentralized apps (dApps) built on it.
Milk Road Take: It looks like OKX is taking a page out of Coinbase’s playbook…
The leading U.S. exchange launched its own L2 (Base) last year and, so far, it’s been putting up BIG numbers:
$415k profit* yesterday
$8.6M profit so far in April
$26.8M profit so far in 2024
$33M profit since July 2023
*These numbers show Base's profit before it pays its dues to Optimism for using the OP Stack.
We’ll see if OKX can see the same success.
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs are down more than 90% from their all-time highs. The floor price has dropped to ~10 ETH (worth $30K) – the lowest price since August 2021.
Hong Kong spot Bitcoin ETFs could go live as soon as this month. Exact dates are still ‘to be determined’ but if everything goes smoothly, the first ETFs could launch in late April.
Ethereum’s validator queue just hit its highest level since September 2023. The recent catalyst? Restaking. (P.S. – We have a podcast episode with EtherFi coming out on Monday 👀)
Bitcoin’s dominance is at a 3-year high. Bitcoin now commands nearly 53% of the crypto market, the most since early April 2021 and more than every other cryptocurrency combined.
Tether is launching a new ‘tokenization platform’. According to Paolo Ardoino (Tether’s CEO), users will be able to tokenize anything from bonds, stocks, or funds to coffee shop reward points.
MILKY MEMES 🤣
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ROADER REVIEW OF THE DAY
VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY
Breakfast of Champions
— Milk Road (@MilkRoadDaily)
Apr 16, 2024
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.
