🥛 How my friend found millions NFT dumpster diving

GM. This is the Milk Road, the email that teaches you all about crypto in less time than it takes to choose a Netflix show.

Today, we found out that inflation rose 8.5% in March (a new 40 year-high) and we’ve officially hit the “Extreme Fear” zone…

I’m not here to tell you what prices are gonna do following the US’s inflation report…but i am here to tell you that I love you. 

Yeah, I love you for giving me the next 176 seconds of your day to read this.

Today's estimated read time: 2 minutes &  56 seconds

Let's get into the good stuff:

•  ⬇️ Crypto assets saw a big outflow last week
•  🤑 My friend just found millions of dollars
•  🗞️ Quick news nuggets
•  🤣 A great Meme

CRYPTO ASSETS SAW AN OUTFLOW OF $134M LAST WEEK

Source: Coinshares 

I like looking at the inflows & outflows of money.

When times are good, like 2 weeks ago, we see lots of new capital coming into crypto ($450M combined in 2 weeks). This drives the price up. Because, duh. 

Last week, the flow flipped. Like when your shower all of a sudden goes ice cold because someone turned on the dishwasher. 

In the last 7d, we have a net outflow of $134M. This could be investors taking profits ahead of the US inflation data hitting or something else entirely.

Money in, money out, potato, po-tah-toh. 

I don’t get too caught up in the price movements. Instead, I try to get a fundamental understanding of why I believe in something over the long term. 

Kyle Samani, the co-founder of Multicoin (one of the big crypto VC funds) said something similar yesterday on Twitter. He said he tries to distill every crypto deal into a 1-line reason-to-believe. 

For example, here are the 1-liners for his big investments :

LayerZero - bridges are fucking complicated, focus on simplicity

Helium - radically reduced cost structure to build physical network of WAPs

Solana - technical scalability creates social scalability

Fractal - NFT gaming gonna be huge, led by the best conceivable for that market

Hivemapper - Helium for mapping data

They are intentionally reduced to be as simple as possible. You can’t always reduce it down into a catchy 1-liner, but it’s the thought that counts. 

P.S. Here’s your investment thesis for why you invest your time reading the Milk Road:

“Because I can laugh every day while increasing my crypto IQ by 15 points” 

MY FRIEND JUST "FOUND" MILLIONS

What happened? XCopy is one of the most popular NFT artists in the world. And someone just “found” 100 of his old works in a junk pile (and is going to make millions off it).

Check this out: My friend Gianni went through all of Xcopy’s contracts on Etherscan and discovered that XCopy minted 100 of his first ETH NFTs on a marketplace called “RareBits” that went out of business.

He reverse engineered the unverified contract and bought them all for ~6.9e total and is now the proud owner of some of XCopy’s earliest public work and most likely will be able to sell these for millions of dollars.

Check out one of the actual NFTs he grabbed:

3 random thoughts.....

1/ Rarebits is a great example of how “timing is a bitch” in startups. Super smart team working on an NFT marketplace. Shut down in 2019 right before NFTs started taking off. 

2/ This is a cool example of “NFT ArchAeology” (digging up valuable treasures on the blockchain) 

3/ NFTs are “provably true.” So there is no dispute that these are authentic pieces of art by XCOPY. 

6 PIECES O'NEWS NUGGETS

Twitter Beef of the Week: Do Kwon vs. Jack Niewold about his LUNA criticisms. If you missed it, check out the thread.

Ethereum is stress-testing the new 2.0 update before it goes live. 

The NBA has filed for 4 crypto trademarks for “The Association”.  It covers a list of virtual items including “game tickets, game programs, trading cards, collectibles, memorabilia, jerseys” and even “memes” related to NFTs.

Coinbase is creating a movie trilogy using Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. It’s called “The Degen Trilogy” and BAYC holders get to “audition” their apes for a role in the movies. They get to submit their apes, and create a fake character description, that will get reviewed by an actual Hollywood director. 

Epic Games (the creators of Fortnite) announced a $2B raise to create a new metaverse. The CEO said the investment will accelerate their work to build the metaverse and create spaces where players can have fun with friends, brands can build creative and immersive experiences, and creators can build a community and thrive. 

Animoca also recently acquired Eden Games for $16M to continue developing their crypto racing games. This comes after they recently lost their licensing rights with F1 and had to shut down their F1 Delta Time game last month. 

Today's Milk Road is brought to you by LEX 🏢

What they do: make it easy to invest in real estate

Pop quiz… 

What asset class has created more millionaires than any other? 

Answer: Real estate. 

Today’s sponsor, LEX, has a really cool angle for investing in real estate. 

LEX does an “IPO” for a building, so you can directly invest in marquee commercial real estate. You can build a portfolio of buildings you want to invest in. Each building has a ticker, just like stocks. 

As a shareholder, you can get paid dividends flowing from the rent paid by the tenants. You can also earn tax advantaged passive income and trade without lockups.

Check out LEX’s live assets in New York City and upcoming IPO in Seattle. 

Sign up for free here and get a $50 bonus when you deposit at least $500.

MEME OF THE DAY

See ya tomorrow!

Shaan "Chocolate Milk" Puri and Ben "2% Milk" Levy

Reviews from the Road:

Warm...

Getting warmer...

Ahhh there it is...

What'd you think of today's email?

• 🥛🥛🥛🥛🥛 F**king great
• 🥛🥛🥛 Meh, do better
• 🥛 You didn't bring the heat