GM. This is the Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that Savage Garden was referencing when they wrote the hit song Truly, Madly, Deeply.

Here’s what’s on the menu for today:

• 2 reasons we’re still all in on crypto

• Quick bites

• Google creates a merge countdown

• Meme of the day

2 REASONS WE’RE STILL ALL IN ON CRYPTO

11 months ago… 

Bitcoin was $69,000. ETH was $4,800. And making money in crypto felt as easy as pushing one of these buttons.

Fast forward to today… ETH and BTC are both down over 70% and every week there’s a story about a scam, bankruptcy, hack, or rug pull.

Last week – Pomp, one of the most popular Bitcoin bulls removed all references to #Bitcoin from his Twitter bio, and people started to question – are the bulls changing their minds?

Are the believers turning into… nonbelievers?

Is the Milk Road going to pivot to a daily newsletter about…Milk?

Short answer…No.

Long answer….Hell no.

But this isn’t just “rah-rah YAY crypto!”

Here’s 2 reasons we believe in crypto MORE today than we did 11 months ago:

Reason #1 – Crypto is a cockroach

Cockroaches can survive nuclear bombs. Crypto has had several nukes this year.

• The fastest growing stablecoin project…imploded and suddenly went to zero (Luna)

• Two of the most popular exchanges (BlockFi, and Celsius) faced insolvency and lost 90% of their value

• The most popular crypto hedge fund (3AC) went belly up and is being forced into liquidation by the British Virgin Islands (“forced liquidation” and “virgin islands” are normally words you only hear during spring break)

The list goes on and on. Disaster after disaster hit in 2022, and yet…

Crypto is still standing. Crypto has a history of disasters (Mt Gox, Silk Road, China bans it every year, etc) but it survives.

Reason #2 – Money is a network effect

What makes the dollar bills in your pocket valuable?

They don’t have any real utility. You can’t use dollar bills for food, shelter, water etc..

They are only valuable because other people believe they are valuable.

Therefore, crypto’s value is not measured by price. Price is subject to lots of variables (eg. economy crashing, forced liquidations, etc..).

Value and “valuation” are related, but not the same. For example, Apple & Amazon’s stock prices are down this year, but are the companies themselves worse?

As the billionaire Dharmesh Shah (founder of Hubspot) once told me: “Valuation oscillates up and down around value”

Let’s take Bitcoin. What is Bitcoin’s true value? Here’s a little formula we made…

(The number of people on earth who believe Bitcoin is valuable) x (the intensity of that belief)

Just look at the last 11 months:

• Bitcoin users grew to ~106M worldwide

• Multiple countries have made Bitcoin legal tender

• Major institutions like Blackrock, JPMorgan, & Goldman Sachs are all promoting Bitcoin to their clients

• Several S&P500 companies incorporated Bitcoin into their corporate treasury strategy

• Every country around the world is feeling the effects of financial censorship (eg. Russia having it’s funds seized by the western banks) or inflation (everywhere). P.S – those are the two biggest problems that crypto solves compared to traditional currencies.

The list goes on and on.

10 years ago, the idea of Bitcoin was pretty far-fetched. I would have given it less than a 5% chance of success.

That’s flipped.

Now I think there’s less than a 5% chance that crypto just fades away and becomes worthless.

That’s an amazing reversal in 10 years.

80%+ of Americans know about crypto.

20%+ of Americans own crypto.

Hedge funds hold it. Companies hold it. Countries hold it. Hell, even my mom literally holds 2 Bitcoin.

So yeah – we ain’t going nowhere.

OK – now for some news you might have missed over the weekend.

QUICK BITES

Microstrategy has filed to sell up to $500m in Class A stock. What do they wanna do with the money? Buy more bitcoin, duh! Saylor will live by the coin, or die by the coin.

FTX Ventures has acquired a 30% stake in Anthony Scaramuccis’s firm, SkyBridge Capital. They will use $40M of the funding to buy cryptocurrencies for the firm’s balance sheet.

Google Cloud partners up with Sky Mavis, creators of Axie Infinity, to improve security. Unfortunately, the partnership is one $600m+ hack too late…

Jack Dorsey & Jay-Z airdropped $1000 in Bitcoin to every student at their new Bitcoin Academy. Sign me up HOV!

Metadee announced they are tokenizing and selling all 5 volumes of the oldest handwritten manuscript of the Qur’an as NFTs. Volumes 3-5 will be fractionalized and available to buy for $200. Crypto 🤝 Religion.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary has added two new words to the dictionary: metaverse and altcoin. Oh, they also updated “essential” to include “the Milk Road newsletter” as a definition.

TODAY’S EDITION IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY DRAFTKINGS REIGNMAKERS

I’ve got a confession. I didn’t do any Sunday chores…

Laundry? Nope. Mow the lawn? Hell no. I even forgot to pick up the kids from Timmy’s birthday party…

What did I do instead? I watched football for 12 hours straight. Glued to my couch.

My biggest problem today isn’t my wrinkled clothes, the Dorito crumbs on my shirt, or the overgrown front lawn…

It was how bad my fantasy team played. I already want to redraft my team.

Thankfully, the DraftKings Reignmakers give me a second chance at glory.

It’s where fantasy football meets NFTs. With $1m+ in cash prizes every week, you can trade & collect NFT player cards to build your dream team.

How big can you win? Well, the winner of the RMF $100K Fiat Frenzy contest won $5k over the weekend! That’s like 3 mo’ ETH before “The Merge”

Don’t let a bad fantasy team ruin your season. New contests are happening every week. Click here to start your Reignmakers team and claim your FREE pack.

Legal Disclaimer: Must be at least 18 years or older. Higher age limits may apply in some states. Not available in HI, ID, LA (select parishes), MT, NV, OR, and WA. No purchase required for Starter Packs (1 per customer). Reignmaker Starter Pack NFTs are ineligible for resale. Number of NFTs needed to fill the roster varies by contest. Prizes include real money. Winning a contest on DraftKings depends on knowledge and exercise of skill. Contest eligibility depends on NFTs held. Not a gambling website. For entertainment purposes only. See www.icrg.org for information regarding responsible gaming. Void where prohibited. See terms at draftkings.com/reignmakers.

GOOGLE BUILT A MERGE COUNTDOWN

In case you haven’t heard, the Merge is coming. Even my grandma texted me asking if I have tickets to the Merge. Yup, front row seats Grammy.

Google searches for Ethereum merge have even hit all-time highs. And the GTeam noticed it. So they decided to make a dope countdown for it.

Now, any time you search for “Eth merge” you’ll see an ETA for when it’s supposed to happen. Google uses live data (hash rates, mining difficulty, etc) from the blockchain to make the prediction.

Pretty handy tool and the analytics nerd at Google that saw the spike in search volume deserves a raise.

Ladies & gents, we’re T-67 hours away from one of the biggest events in crypto history. And don’t worry, we’ll make sure you’re up to date on everything you need to know before then.

Trust us, you’re gonna wanna keep an eye on your inbox this week.

MEME OF THE DAY

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

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

VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY

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.