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GM. This is Milk Road, the 2nd best part of your weekend - the 1st is the fact that it lasts 3 days. Happy Memorial Day.

It’s Saturday. Giddy up:

• Why hasn’t BTC moved for weeks? 🛑

• ETH is flying off exchanges 🔢

• NFT ticket to paradise 🎟️

• Binance’s new Thailand exchange 🍪

WHAT’S STALLING BTC’S PRICE? 🛑

Look y’all, I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer on a Saturday…

But we’ve gotta talk about how BTC’s price has been bouncing between ~$26K & ~$28K for weeks now.

It’s more stagnant than the Everglades. And instead of gators… it’s the bears’ world, we’re just living in it.

Here’s why we might not see a bull market for a while now:

1/ There’s economic uncertainty with the debt ceiling stalemate

Lawmakers can’t agree on a deal to raise the debt ceiling (they’re making progress though.)

And until they do, the government won’t know if it can pay its bills. Neither do I, for the record - way too much Taco Bell this month.

Janet Yellen (U.S. Treasury Secretary) said Friday the U.S. could “run out of money” by June 5. Yikes.

2/ The Fed can’t agree on if we need more interest rate hikes

Federal Reserve policymakers met Wednesday and were divided on if they should:

1. Raise interest rates

2. Or pause them

The threat of higher interest rates = people less likely to buy risky assets like Bitcoin. (The next decision is in mid-June.)

3/ UK inflation is hella high

Its core inflation hit 6.8% in April. That’s the highest it’s been since 1992.

Inflation = people less likely to invest in risky assets like crypto/Bitcoin.

4/ $2.2B+ worth of 85K Bitcoin options expired yesterday

This usually makes BTC’s price volatile for a while - investors either buy or sell.

And if they go with the latter, that means more Bitcoin floods the market. Less scarcity = lower price

Milk Road Take: Go buy some bear spray - they might be around for a while.

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NUMBERS OF THE DAY 🔢

~$6M - The amount stolen from users in a new scam

It’s a phishing scam that creates fake, malicious websites for cyberattackers. Then it charges them 20-30% of the assets they steal from people.

~5K victims have had their funds stolen on Ethereum, Arbitrum, & other chains.

Think of it as a scam-as-a-service. It’s called Inferno Drainer which… also kinda sounds like an underground Berlin club.

$173M - The amount in NFT transactions processed on Bitcoin

That makes Bitcoin the 2nd biggest NFT blockchain. Ethereum’s No.1 - it processed $390M worth of on-chain NFT transactions over the last 30 days (Solana processed just $49M.)

So what? Ordinals, baby! The protocol has made Bitcoin NFTs a thing. Now the network is known for something other than just sending money back and forth.

And quickly too - Bitcoin has processed ~320K NFT transactions since Ordinals launched in January.

That’s a drop in the bucket compared to Ethereum’s all-time 38M figure, but still. Not too shabby.

17.86M - The amount of ETH currently held on exchanges

This is the lowest level recorded since April of 2018:

ETH exchange balances have been declining since 2020. And things have accelerated since the Merge transitioned the network to proof of stake.

The two main reasons for this?

1/ The ability to stake ETH

Investors are chasing the attractive yield that comes with staking ETH, which is something you can’t do on a centralized exchange.

And when you account for liquid staking derivatives and an open withdrawal queue, staking ETH has become more accessible than ever.

2/ Events like FTX have spooked investors

The collapse of centralized entities was a wake up call for the industry. More people than ever are seeing the importance of taking control of their own assets.

65 - The number of countries Strike is expanding to

Strike is a global money app that leverages Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. They’re like a crypto-powered Venmo.

Right now, they are only in 3 countries: El Salvador, Argentina, and the U.S.

But Strike has BIG ambitions: make BTC a global currency.

And this move will expand their services to almost 3B people worldwide.

USE CASE OF THE WEEK: TICKETS 🎟️

Here’s a hard pill to swallow: A lot of crypto projects lack a true use case.

And many founders are trying to find solutions to problems that don’t even exist. But there’s one use case that doesn’t have many critics: NFT ticketing.

Why put tickets on the blockchain?

• Digital collectibles: People love collecting and remembering events they have attended. Imagine a digital passport of all of the events you’ve attended.. 👀

• Authentication: Being able to track the ticket back to its creation allows fans to know their ticket is legit ✅

• More revenue: Event organizers can profit on ticket resales and everyone benefits from lower fees 💵

• New experiences: Fans can be rewarded for their loyalty and engage in new digital experiences 🎉

So what? There’s been two big developments recently.

1/ The Professional Fighters League announced it will use NFT tickets

They are adding to their Web3 efforts and using NFTs for their VIP ticket experience. This could grant holders cage-side seating, attendance to pre-fight weigh-ins, and meet and greets with the fighters.

2/ Sports Illustrated dropped an NFT ticket platform

Built on Polygon, “Box Office” will be the first complete NFT ticket service. It will allow event organizers and promoters to build enhanced experiences into collectible tickets.

Antique barcode → Engaging and collectible content

MILK & COOKIES 🍪

Binance is launching a new crypto exchange in Thailand. It partnered with Gulf Innova to secure a digital asset license for the operation that’ll launch in Q4.

Gemini (the Winklevoss twins-owned crypto exchange) said its European HQ will be in Dublin, Ireland. 🇮🇪 The U.S. → overseas crypto pipeline continues…

Starbucks will airdrop more NFTs in June in its Odyssey rewards program. Caffeine addicts 🤝 Web3 proponents.

Blur’s NFT lender Blend has facilitated $225M in loans since it launched on May 1. About 85% of all loan volumes in the past month have happened on the platform.

MILKY MEMES 🤣

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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.