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March 17, 2023

🥛 Your guide to future airdrops 💸

GM. This is Milk Road. It may be St. Paddy’s, but luck’s got nothin’ to do with us. We’re just that good, smart, and quick. 🍀

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

  • Arbitrum airdrop is a go 👀

  • Milkbusters: Why was Signature shut down?

  • Funding Friday!

  • Tether’s market cap is double USDC

P.S.A – Ethereum is going through a major upgrade soon (yup, another one). You probably have some questions about what happens next…

Well, ConsenSys has your back with a new guide to the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade. It has all the info you need. It's easy to understand. And the best part? It's free.

ARBITRUM AIRDROP IS A GO

*sniff sniff* You smell that…?

It’s the sweet smell of a brand new airdrop.

That’s right, Arbitrum is finally airdropping its new governance token, ARB, next week.

What’s Arbitrum? It’s the biggest layer 2 blockchain on Ethereum with $1.6B in total value locked. These Layer 2 networks make Ethereum transactions faster and cheaper for the end users.

So what’s happening? ARB tokens will airdrop, or be released for free, to users. The airdropped tokens will represent 12.75% of the total ARB supply (10B.)

The tokens will only be used for governance purposes. Arbitrum transaction fees will still be paid in ETH.

So why is the ARB airdrop a big deal? A few reasons:

  • It’ll allow Aribitrum users to govern the project. Whoever holds ARB gets to vote on future changes made to the protocol.

  • The token launch will create a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO.) Offchain Labs, Aribtrum’s creator, will slowly turn over control of the protocol to the users.

  • The DAO will be self-executing. When there’s a majority vote, changes will automatically be carried out on-chain instead of a team needing to implement them into the network’s code.

  • That means this is a huge step toward fully decentralizing the Arbitrum project.

Plus, people can make serious BANK on these airdrops. Our friend, Jason, made $600k in one year from airdrops (3x his highest salary, ever.)

So yeah, crypto investors wait for airdrops like music fans wait for a new Drake album.

How do you get access to the airdrop? If you haven’t been using Arbitrum, it’s too late for this one. Arbitrum is air-dropping ARB to the people who have previously been using the network devotedly. It isn’t looking for fair-weather users.

If you have been using Arbitrum, you can check here if you’re eligible to claim your airdrop.

The trick going forward is to think about which project might airdrop next:

1/ Research projects that haven’t done airdrops yet

2/ Choose the ones you think show promise

3/ Start using their protocol like there’s no tomorrow, so you’re included in a future airdrop

We’ll even make it easy for you – here’s our list of top projects that could do an airdrop in the near future.

STAKED ETH WITHDRAWALS ARE COMING!

Ethereum is undergoing a period of rapid infrastructural development. Within the next two months, the Shanghai/Capella upgrade will simultaneously upgrade the blockchain’s execution and consensus layers to enable staked ETH withdrawals.

Find out what this means for stakers and the web3 ecosystem.

The FREE report from ConsenSys walks through the following:

  • What is the Shanghai/Capella upgrade?

  • The role of stakers in Ethereum’s governance

  • Full and partial withdrawals

  • The impact of withdrawals on the Ethereum staking and DeFi ecosystems

  • Competition and innovation in the sector

  • Visit the Shanghai/Capella Upgrade hub to learn more.

That’s not all. In celebration of the upgrade, ConsenSys will launch its second commemorative NFT collection, and invite web3 enthusiasts to participate by claiming an NFT.

Their first collection, The Merge Regenesis, was among the largest and most distributed NFT drops of all time.

Sign up for the drop here

MILKBUSTERS: WAS SIGNATURE BANK REALLY IN TROUBLE?

We're back with another episode of Milkbusters – where we dive into some of the toughest questions and debunk the biggest myths in crypto.

Today we're here to talk about one thing: Signature Bank.

And we're gonna look at whether the crypto-friendly bank was really in financial trouble or whether there's a bigger picture here.

Let's dive in…

So what happened? U.S. regulators forced Signature Bank to shut down last Sunday.

This wasn’t a small-town, George Bailey bank. This was a NY-based mega entity with more than $100B in assets and customers like Coinbase and Paxos. Only ~25% of the bank’s assets were crypto.

The Myth: Signature Bank was shut down because it was a "systemic risk” and was being investigated over money laundering issues, weak data reporting, and its ties to FTX.

The Truth: It looks like there might be more to the story. Here are 2 reasons why…

1/ This was the perfect opportunity for anti-crypto regulators to kill another crypto bank

Barney Frank (Signature board member, self-described crypto skeptic) said the shutdown was only to “send a very strong anti-crypto message.”

One of his reasons why is because the FDIC (agency that seized Signature) never said the bank was insolvent.

Franke reiterated to NY Mag Wednesday that the government just wanted to use Signature as “a poster child” to scare banks away from crypto.

2/ Whoever buys Signature has to close its crypto business

This one smells the fishiest. Regulators had previously said Signature’s closure had nothing to do with crypto.

But Reuters reported Thursday that the FDIC is hunting for a buyer for Signature. And whoever buys will be required to shutter the bank’s crypto accounts. 👀

(The FDIC pushed back on Reuters and said the buyer doesn’t have to divest its crypto business. So, who knows.)

Milk Road Take: The optics aren’t good for regulators who say they didn’t take Signature down because of crypto.

All three banks (SVB, Signature, & Silvergate) were friendly to the crypto industry. Signature was merely the last one that needed striking down, and the U.S. has a proven track record of being unfriendly to crypto innovation.

If the future buyer doesn’t also get Signet (the platform Signature offered to easily transfer funds from crypto to fiat) as part of the deal, then we’ll have our answer.

FUNDING FRIDAY

This week in Funding Friday – we saw ~$62M invested into web3 companies. Here’s who got the money:

DressX got $15M to build a digital fashion store with NFTs. Time to bring the drip into the metaverse.

Soul Wallet got $3M to develop a next-gen crypto wallet powered by ERC-4337. Lost on ERC-4337? We got you covered here.

Metalink got $6M to create an all-in-one NFT management platform. A home for all your JPEGs.

Jungle got $6M to build new web3 games. “Welcome to the Jungle, we got fun and games.”

Check out the full database of companies that have raised money this year, right here.

BITE-SIZED TREATS

Fidelity has opened up Bitcoin trading to the public. Customers can buy and sell the asset, but they can’t transfer it to a self-custody wallet.

About 70,000 BTC ($1.75B) has been transferred to self-custody wallets since SVB collapsed last Friday, per Glassnode data.

FTX crypto influencers on YouTube are facing a $1B class-action lawsuit. It alleges they promoted the exchange and are liable for damages.

Tether, a stablecoin’s, market cap is now double USDC’s, a rival stablecoin. Circle, which issues USDC, said it has $3.3B in reserves stuck on SVB.

MILKY MEME

🤣🤣

That's a wrap for today. Meet us on Twitter to talk all about it. It’s kinda like a family BBQ but better – no screaming kids, awkward photos, or drunk uncles telling weird stories (@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.