GM. This is the Milk Road. They say Saturdays are for the boys.
Well, this week we say Sunday is for the Milk Road Weekly Recap.
Let's dive in!
CRYPTO'S TOP FIVE MOMENTS OF THE WEEK
Ladies & gents, that's another week in the crypto books.
Just in case you missed anything this week, we’re bringing you the Milk Road Top 5 Moments:
5/ NFT of a house sells for $175k
But there's a twist: The holder of the NFT also holds the keys to the house at 149 Cottage Lake Way, Columbia, SC 29209.
The company behind it all is called Roofstock onChain - a marketplace that lets you buy single-family properties using NFTs. Here’s how it works:
- They open an LLC for each property
- The LLC takes ownership of the property
- They tokenize the property & mint an NFT that represents ownership of the house
- People can browse the NFTs on the marketplace & buy the homes in one-click
You can even check out the full tour of the house on OpenSea here.
4/ Do Kwon is back with another interview.
This time, Do was interviewed by Laura Shin from the Unchained pod.
And Laura brought the heat by asking Do the tough questions we all wanted to hear.
Here's what Do had to say:
- Do hasn’t answered the South Korean arrest warrant or Interpol red notice because he says he hasn’t seen them. The good ole "I didn't see it, so it didn't happen"...
- Do doesn’t believe he committed any fraud. He says Terra wasn’t a scam, just a massive market failure
- Do’s message to investors & users: “I take full responsibility for everything”
- Do believes the charges against him in South Korea are not valid. Since crypto regulation doesn’t exist there yet he believes the charges aren’t applicable
- Do is working on new projects. He said he still wants to contribute to the crypto space and is happy to be doing more lowkey work now
Do faced tougher questions this time, but we still don't know the answer to the million-dollar question: Where in the world is Do?
3/ Walmart's CTO says crypto will play a big role in retail shopping
Fun fact: Walmart makes more money than any company in the world. And it's been that way for the last 10 years.
And guess what... Walmart loves crypto & blockchain tech.
Their CTO Suresh Kumar jumped on an interview this week where he dropped some gems on why crypto will play a big role in retail & their digital strategy.
There are 2 major areas that crypto & blockchain can disrupt:
1/ Payments - Suresh says crypto will become an important part of how customers transact and there will be a major change in payment options.
2/ Product discovery - he says customers will shift to discovering new products in the metaverse in the future (vs just going to the store).
And in case you didn't know, Walmart has:
- Integrated blockchain tech to let them better track the origins of the produce & products they sell. And they’re experimenting with other ways it can make their supply chain more efficient
- Launched 2 new metaverses in Roblox (Walmarts Universe of Play and Walmart Land) where users can buy virtual/physical items & play other metaverse games with friends
Now it looks like the're taking a serious look at how crypto can disrupt everyday transactions.
Walmart crypto payments coming soon??👀
2/ Weekly Trademarks
Wanna know how much the Milk Man cares for you? He reads trademarks applications just to find the most interesting Web3-related ones. Just so you don't have to.
Here's what happened over the last week:
- Formula One (F1): filed 8 trademarks that included crypto mining. I better see this in their Netflix doc!
- Del Monte Foods: filed 8 trademarks that included an online virtual restaurant
- In-N-Out: filed 4 trademarks that included a virtual environment for recreational, leisure, and entertainment services. In-N-Out is ready for their burgers & broadway debut, "🎶What a hamburger is all about 🎶"
But the best of the best? Kraft is bringing their Weinermobile to the metaverse.
1/ Aptos blockchain launches & crashes on the same day
A new blockchain dropped this week - Aptos. If you didn't know, lemme tell you:
- They raised $400m from VCs like FTX Ventures, Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures, Jump Crypto, A16Z, Multicoin Capital, and more
- A $2b+ valuation in the private markets
- Created by Mo Shaik and Avery Ching who were part of the Facebook team that worked on Diem, the failed crypto stablecoin project
People in crypto were calling it the "Solana killer" and investors were calling it the best thing since sliced bread.
So how’d the launch go? Worse than my first attempt at a pick up a girl at the bar in college.
🚩Network performance crashed after launch. Aptos claimed it could process 100k transactions per second (TPS). However, the current TPS is ~4 transactions per second.
🚩Majority of the tokens are owned by the Aptos team. 51% of tokens were supposed to go to the “community”, but turns out 41% is owned by the Aptos Foundation & 10% is owned by Aptos Lab. I guess community = Aptos Team?
🚩 No community-run validators on the network. One developer called out how all 101 network validators were hand-picked by Aptos. Apparently, you had to sign an arbitration agreement in the Cayman Islands to be included in the validator set.
🚩Exchanges listed the Aptos coin without any details on the token. Users were able to buy the Aptos token, but no one knew the tokenomics (i.e the total supply, emissions schedule, etc)
🚩Aptos muted the Discord channel. Aptos users were all asking questions & demanding answers after the launch. Instead of answering, Aptos decided to mute people.
Aptos had more red flags than at the beach when the water gets rough.
Like we always say, where there's smoke, there's fire. And I don't think water can put this fire out for Aptos. They need some milk.
MEME OF THE WEEK
That's a wrap, ladies & gents. Stay thirsty & see ya next week!
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VITALIK PIC OF THE WEEK
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.
