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December 1, 2022

🥛5 things that caught our eye from SBF’s 70 minute interview

GM. This is the Milk Road. We are the daily newsletter that gives you all the right answers to crypto. Like a Chegg account but we don’t charge ya $15.95/mo.

Here's what we got today:

  • New York Times interviews Samuel

  • Telegram is building a decentralized marketplace

  • 3rd Crypto CEO dies this month

  • Milky Memes

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERVIEWS SAMUEL

Samuel Bankman-Fried.

He went from the crypto fro to Sam Bankman-Fraud from the JP Morgan of crypto to the Bernie Madoff of crypto.

He’s officially the guy at the bar who everyone hates but he lingers around waiting for his chance to to talk to a pretty girl.

And in this case, the pretty girl was Andrew Sorkin from the New York Times.

As much as Samuel disgusts us, we just can’t take our eyes off him. He's like that car crash on the side of the road that causes traffic, even if it's not blocking the way.

It was a 70-minute interview, but we got you with the 30 second rundown of the most interesting stuff:

  • Sam says his lawyers are advising against speaking to the public, but he feels it is his “duty” to help customers. Always a great idea to ignore the lawyers!

  • He believes FTX.US and FTX U.S. derivatives (Ledger X) are still fully solvent and could process withdrawals today. We've never heard of a solvent company going bankrupt…

  • Claimed his political donations came "from profits", but Forbes reported that Alameda lost $3.7b from inception to 2021.

  • On the amphetamine and alcohol allegations, “I didn’t have my first sip of alcohol until I was 21. I used things on the margin to help me focus a little bit, I wish I had been focused more over the last year.”

  • Samuel believed FTX had TOO much corporate governance because of the dozens of boards for the 100+ corporate entities.

  • “I was as truthful as, you know, as I am knowledgeable to be.”

Samuel had a look on his face that said: I know everything be in the end because it always has.

My laugh counter had him at least 4. He deflected questions about the commingling of funds, AKA fraud, with vague answers that didn’t tell us anything. He didn’t seem like a guy worried about going to prison, or even the thought of going to prison.

It felt like an episode of Law and Order SVU with a suspect on the stand and an amateur lawyer on cross examination letting him get away with any answer that seemed half coherent.

I guess… it’s possible Samuel is telling the truth? It was all just one big oversight, an oopsie daisy.

Then again, maybe we shouldn’t trust anything he says.

The Vegan image? (This is a joke, but we're closer and closer to believing this headline):

The effective altruist?

Probably best to just not give this guy a platform and let the regulators do their thing.

But, George Stephanopoulos and Good Morning America interviewed him this morning.

The must read quote from the interview: "I wasn't even trying to manage risk. I didn't spend any time or effort trying to manage. I stopped working as hard"

TELEGRAM IS BUILDING A DECENTRALIZED EXCHANGE AND WALLET

Yesterday, Telgram's CEO, Pavel Durov said the company will build a decentralized exchange and non-custodial wallet.

Listen, Pavel. The Milk Road is a media company that writes about crypto. We love crypto and crypto loves us (well, not if you look at our portfolio). But you don’t see us making an exchange or auction platform.

So why is a messaging app doing this?

Well, Telegram isn't new to the blockchain game.

In 2018, they raised $1.7b from investors like Sequoia and Lightspeed to build a layer 1 blockchain called the Telegram Open Network (TON)

The idea was to use the blockchain and native $TON for a messaging app, but the SEC sued Telegram and forced them to abandon the project before it launched.

Telegram open sourced the tech and left it for the TON Foundation, who have kept it running since. $TON has a $2b market cap today.

More importantly, why should you care?

Telegram is bigger than just crypto. It’s one of the biggest apps in the world:

  • 700 million monthly active users

  • Top-5 downloaded apps worldwide in 2022

  • Valued around $30 billion in Jan. 2021

We'll see where this goes. Asking a messaging app to build an exchange is like asking a barista to make a pizza. Reminds me of when this guy (the rocket ship and electric car CEO) bought Twitter.

But who knows, maybe both of these moves will work out.

TODAY'S EDITION IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY COINLEDGER

If your NFT portfolio looks anything like mine this year you’ve lost 90%+ of your money.

But what if I told you that’s good news?

Whenever you lose money on assets you can do something called tax loss harvesting.

Tax loss harvesting lets you sell assets at a loss to lower your tax bill. Aka you receive free money from the government for being a bad investor.

CoinLedger is helping depressed JPEG investors like you and me actually get that free money from the government.

Their new product, the NFT Loss Harvestooor, is free service that purchases your NFT for 0.00000001 ETH so that you can claim the capital loss and save thousands in taxes.

One NFT investor has already reduced his tax bill by $7,400.

Use the NFT Loss Harvestoor to start getting money from the government today.

3RD CRYPTO CEO DIES THIS MONTH

The third crypto billionaire in the last month just died.

This time it was Russian crypto billionaire and founder of the Forex Group, a multi-billion dollar trading conglomerate, Vyacheslav Taran.

Last week it was 30-year-old Tiantian "TT" Kullander. The co-founder of the Amber Group and its WhaleFin digital asset platform, who died unexpectedly in his sleep.

Last month it was 29-year-old Nikolai Mushegian. The co-founder of DeFi lending platform MakerDAO who drowned in Puerto Rico.

Some other weird coincidences from Taran's death:

  • The helicopter crashed in good weather

  • A second passenger was booked for the flight but cancelled at the last minute

  • Since Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, more than a dozen Russian businessmen and officials have died

The good news?

The Milk Man isn't a billionaire.. yet.

MILKY MEMES

That's a wrap for today. Stay thirsty & see ya tomorrow! If you want more, be sure to follow our Twitter (@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.