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GM, this is Milk Road, the friend who makes sure you never skip a beat in crypto.

Ok. I have a confession…I did something I said I’d never do.

If my mom knew, she’d give me the “tsk tsk tsk” and a 2-hour lecture... 

If my wife knew, I’d be sleeping on the couch for the next month… 

… in a whispering voice... I went memecoin trading. 

That’s right. I did it. It’s all people have been talking about lately and ignoring it was like ignoring the last cookie in the jar… 

So, I tried it and now I’m back with stories (and scars) to tell.  

Most of today’s edition will be about that, but here’s what else is on the menu:

• 3 reasons ETH is pumping 👀

• Lessons from trading a Solana memecoin 🧐

• MicroStrategy bought another $615M worth of BTC 🍪

3 REASONS ETH IS PUMPING 👀

ETH is in the GREEN, baby! It’s up 6% over the last 24 hours and hit its highest price of the year.

Suddenly, everyone’s #TeamETH again…

So, why is ETH pumping? There are a few theories…

• The Dencun upgrade is coming in early 2024. This upgrade will significantly lower fees for Layer 2’s (L2s) and make ETH more competitive with Layer 1’s like Solana.

• Many are anticipating an ETH ETF to launch at some point next year. And many expect that attention will shift to this narrative right after the Bitcoin ETF is announced.

• There’s a lot of excitement around Eigenlayer and restaking. When the sector fully develops, ETH staking rates are expected to skyrocket and raise the demand for the token.

It’s not just ETH going up in price either… L2’s like Arbitrum, Polygon, and Optimism are up this week.

Ahh, nothing like waking up and smelling the roses green prices.

LESSONS FROM TRADING A SOLANA MEMECOIN 🧐

Ok. First things first… why’d I go Solana memecoin trading? 

Here are 3 reasons, not named “it’s about the money”:

1/ All the hype has been around Solana tokens lately. It’s like hearing music bumping at the house next door and you’re just sitting in your house knitting… 

At some point, you have to put the yarn down and go check out the party.

2/ I wanted to see what trading was like on Solana. I used it back in 2021 but stopped last year after all the outages and drama. Plus, I got rugged on an NFT project there. 

I was finally ready to give it a *second chance*.

3/ Ok, fine… it’s partially about the money. After writing about the traders who turned $16K → $12M and $50 → $100K… I got a whiff of the degeneracy and wanted to give it a go.

Side note: This degenerate move was also sponsored by… my wife's grandma, Nana. 

This was the first Christmas I was a “husband”. And for the last 5 years, I’ve gotten the “boyfriend Christmas gift” (fresh socks and white tees) from Nana.

This year I got married and entered the big leagues (fresh socks, white tees, AND $250). It also came with a note: “Use this to buy more doggycoins.” 

You got it, Nana! I took my $250 and entered the Degen’s Den…

Btw, I’m not gonna focus on which token I bought. Why? Because, honestly, it doesn’t matter. 

At the end of the day, it’s a sh*tcoin. And I’m not here to promote it. I’m here to tell you the lessons.

Let’s dive in. 

1/ The user experience on Solana was fast, cheap, and smooth. 

The #1 thing that stood out from the experience was…cheap gas fees. 

I’ve historically used Ethereum, where gas fees can hit triple digits ($100+) when the network is busy. You can’t tell if you’re buying stuff on Ethereum or Ticketmaster…

Solana’s fees (on average) are less than $0.01.

2/ Know your role and play your role.

I’m a sh*tty day trader. I don’t have the time, skills, or patience for it.

There, I said it.

And honestly. I’d rather stare at the sun for 9 hours straight than stare at graphs all day. This is what my experience was like:

• Look at the graph… price up 30%. 

• Go to the bathroom… price down 40%. 

• Take a sip of coffee… price back up 20%. 

(At one point, I was convinced every time I drank coffee, the price would go up. I ran upstairs, chugged the rest of the coffee pot, ran back downstairs and… the price was down 25% 🤬).

It was at this moment I realized, this just wasn’t for me. And that’s ok… there are plenty of other ways to make money in crypto. 

Stick to your strengths and your favorite narratives. (DeFi, staking, yield farming, NFTs, etc.).

3/ Be wary of the profit prophets

One of the main reasons I bought the Solana-Memecoin-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is because…

I noticed A LOT of people I follow on social media talking about it. 

Discord. Twitter. It was everywhere. And it was from people I trusted. 

But what I realized was that some of these are coordinated pump-and-dumps…

Be careful not to get caught up in the mess and…

4/ Don’t be blind to counterarguments.

A big mistake investors make is to look at bullish takes on a coin and brush off the negative ones as "coping/fudding."

(Fudding = spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt).

• Twitter user (@FreddieRaynolds) explained how Luna could collapse. People mocked and laughed at him, but a few months later… Luna collapsed.

• Ishan Bhaidani called out the FTX ponzi. People mocked and laughed at him, but a few months later… FTX collapsed. 

The lesson: Look at bull/bear outlooks and form your own decision.

Ok, this is getting a little long and my editor looks like he’s about to smack me with the force of 1,000 Will Smiths if I go any longer. 

Stay thirsty and talk to you tomorrow, 

-The Milk Man

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

We sat down with the Founder & CEO of Metallicus, Marshall Hayner, to discuss his journey and the current crypto landscape. Check out the full interview with Marshall here!*

MicroStrategy bought another 14,620 BTC, worth $615M. Microstrategy is now up over $2B on their Bitcoin position. There truly is no second best.

Cathie Wood says Bitcoin will replace gold. At the same time, Cathie’s ARK Invest fund has actively been selling Coinbase and GBTC shares.

Coinbase, Galaxy, Polygon, Multicoin, and other top crypto VCs share their 2024 funding outlook. Dive into predictions from some of the biggest names in the industry!

Crypto users lost $2b to hacks, scams, and exploits in 2023. The dark side of an explosive year for the industry.

Dopex is a decentralized options exchange focusing on calls and puts across Arbitrum and Polygon. In addition to a wide range of options vaults, Dopex offers advanced speculation instruments, including concentrated liquidity options and synthetic yield-bearing tokens. Check out our review of their platform here!

*This is sponsored content

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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.