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March 18, 2023

🥛 Peek into the crypto graveyard 💀

GM. This is Milk Road. We’re like that buddy that made you chug water before going to sleep after a night out bar hoppin'. Hydration is key, friends.

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

  • Six Feet Under: Crypto Edition

  • LinksDAO buys a $905K Scottish golf course

  • SVB collapse triggers $200B inflows to crypto

  • SBF got $2B. Caroline Ellison, $2M

Today's edition is brought to you by CoW Swap, our go-to platform to find the best prices when swapping tokens.

WELCOME TO THE WEB3 GRAVEYARD

Web3 has attracted some of the biggest brands in the world…

Nike. Adidas. Budweiser.

But just as the mighty have come, the mighty have also fallen. And *most* have definitely fallen. #RIP

So we decided to take a trip down to the Crypto Cemetery to see if there are any lessons for future brands trying to get into the space.

1/ Coinbase NFT

Coinbase might be a big kahuna among crypto exchanges. But those skills did not transfer to the NFT world.

It launched its NFT marketplace to the public in May 2022. Users started leaving the platform from the day it launched.

The Coinbase NFT marketplace only has $6M in trading volume to date (!!!) That’s it. Compare that to $12M that OpenSea and $30M that Blur saw just on Wednesday alone.

It may have failed for a couple reasons: Coinbase kept access to the platform for a select group of waitlisted users before its broader launch. Instead of drumming up demand, it may have had the opposite effect. *sad trombone*

Plus it debuted while NFTs were on a major decline.

The NFT market really told Coinbase, “Stay in your lane.”

2/ Instagram

Facebook started letting users mint and sell NFTs on Instagram in November. Mass adoption proponents were going nuts; a Web2 player with a giant platform diving into Web3? That would onboard tens of millions like it was a walk in the park.

But just four months later, the feature is donezo, the company said this week.

Why? Because they want to focus on other areas of the business.

Translation: we gave it a shot and it didn’t work. No one cared about sharing their NFTs on the apps where they post their dinner and see which childhood friend got married.

Not great, especially since it also shuttered its stablecoin project Diem in January 2022.

Facebook is that reality TV star that thinks they can crossover to recording sh*tty pop albums… (they can’t)

3/ Game of Thrones

The only thing worse than the show’s finale? The god awful NFT collection inspired by the series’ universe.

Warner Bros. launched it with two other firms (Nifty + Daz 3D) in January. And everyone was cracking up over the avatars’ f*cked up hands.

Truly wth…

Were the NFTs ridiculous? Yes. Did the first drop sell out in 7 hours? Also yes.

But it’s safe to say its success had everything to do with the GoT fanbase and nothing to do with the creative vision and quality of these things. Plus its second drop from January has just ~$512,000 in volume…

4/ Nickelodeon

Betcha didn’t know your 11-year-old self’s fave channel launched NFTs. You know why? Because it has only seen ~$3M in trading volume.

The floor price for the collection is ~$19 at the moment.

Whoever says “nostalgia sells” hasn’t taken a look at this project.

5/ Radioshack

Like a phoenix from the ashes of the early 2000s, Radioshack sprang back to life last year. And not as your battery supplier; as a Web3 brand.

It launched a crypto swapping app as part of the initiative. But (shocker), the platform has seen an all-time trading volume of only $100M.

For comparison, Binance has a 24-hour trading volume of ~$29B. Coinbase Pro has $2.25B.

Radioshack launched an NFT collection, too, based on the CEO of Radioshack’s parent company, Alex Mehr. Total trading volume to date? $585.

And don’t even get us started on its NSFW social media campaign last summer. Woof

The Milk Road Take: If you want to dive into Web3, you need to have a concrete plan and a community. Most of these companies just do it to do it, without actually knowing anything about the space.

You also gotta make your project unique so it actually stands out and provides value to your users.

Merely cashing in on the Web3 hype has its downsides: devoted users can smell the bullsh*t from a mile away.

FIND THE BEST PRICES WITH COW SWAP

Finding the best prices in crypto is like finding a needle in a haystack.

But what if you had a magnet to find the needle for you?

CoW Swap is a decentralized exchange that lets you swap tokens on Ethereum & Gnosis at the best rates.

Here’s how it works:

  • CoW Swap aggregates all the prices on DEXs for you. It scans all the prices to find the best bang for your buck.

  • It finds on-the-fly peer-to-peer trade opportunities. This “Coincidence of Wants” cuts out the middleman, so you get an even better price.

  • Protects your trades from bad actors. CoW shields you from other traders extracting MEV to make sure you’re always safe.

In a nutshell, CoW Swap helps you work smarter, not harder.

Ready for lower prices, eth-less trading, and a safe way to execute multiple trades at once?

START TRADING TODAY

A $905K DAO-OWNED SCOTTISH GOLF COURSE

In a lot of ways, DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) are like the clubs you join freshman year of college.

Like to fish? There’s an org for that. Into trapeze swinging? Yep, got that too.

You a fan of golf and decentralization? Well, good thing LinksDAO exists. It’s a DAO whose members can access 500+ golf courses around the world.

Existing members joined by purchasing LinksDAO NFTs a couple years ago. NBA star Steph Curry bought a global membership NFT with Links for $3,442.89 in January 2022.

And the DAO just acquired a permanent golf course for members. It bought the 100-year-old Spey Bay golf course on the northern coast of Scotland for $905,000.

That’s right; decentralization has gone Scottish. *Cue the bagpipes*

Here are the Milknotes:

  • Links launched a little over a year ago with the ultimate goal of buying a golf course. Talk about manifesting your dreams…

  • About 88% of members voted yes to buy Spey Bay. Those who hold membership NFTs get a vote in what the DAO does.

  • Members will be able to access the course, but so will “serious golfers.”

If you’re wanting to join, don’t worry. The CEO said Links wants to add 100,000 members through good ole fashioned, NFT-less registration.

Is there a DAO devoted to all things dairy and crypto? Asking for a friend…

CRYPTO MARKET GETS $200B INJECTION

The crypto market saw $200B of inflows in the past week.

Bitcoin’s price alone is up 36% in the last seven days. ETH is up 26.5%. And the total crypto market cap from $918.2B → $1.17T.

Why the influx? A few things:

  • Silvergate, SVB, & Signature (all big banks) collapsed

  • They’ve set off a contagion in the banking world

  • The R-word (recession) is being tossed around…

So people have been throwing their funds into BTC and ETH faster than the Feds can print $300B out of thin air to bail out the banks.

Investors are clearly seeing the appeal of decentralized assets, and are likely expecting the Fed to consider lowering interest rates in the future. The potential for lower rates = happy crypto investors.

The crypto community is also viewing the banks’ collapse as a potential I-told-you-so moment…

BITE-SIZED TREATS

The numbers for what FTX execs walked away with when the exchange collapsed are in. SBF took $2B+, Gary Wang took $246M, and Caroline Ellison took $6M (no, that’s not a typo.)

The Solana-based NFT project DeGods is joining the Bitcoin Ordinals craze. It’s launching 535 NFTs via an auction this week.

Coinbase is looking at setting up a crypto trading platform somewhere outside the U.S. The industry has warned that may happen as the government keeps clamping down on the crypto space.

Salesforce is teaming up with Polygon to help clients create token-based loyalty programs. Web2 giant + Web3 giant = match made in heaven

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.