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- š„ Best of May: 5 winners, 1 loser... ā®ļø
š„ Best of May: 5 winners, 1 loser... ā®ļø
PLUS: The latest job openings in crypto š
Todayās edition is brought to you by productivity expert Timothy Kenny. You can get his ultimate project management template being used by over 16,000 students. Itās FREE and comes with a guided course. š”
GM, this is Milk Road. Reading us is like waking up to find out itās a snow day. Every day.
Hereās what weāve got for you today:
The winners and losers of May āŖ
Web3 Wednesday šļø
First class NFTs šŖ
MAY RECAP: 5 WINNERS. 1 LOSER. āŖ
Somehow, ladies & gents, Mayās about over.
And instead of flowers, the month was full of everything from MetaMask drama to FTX coming back to lifeā¦
But there can only be so many winnersā¦ and losers.
We rounded them up for you. Letās start with the champs:
1/ Ordinals
Ordinals = NFTs on Bitcoin.
And the new trend has caused more arguments than Thanksgiving with the extended family. But that hasnāt stopped itā¦
In May, there were ~7M Ordinals inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain. That brings the total inscriptions to a whopping 10M+.
Dune Analytics
So what? Ordinals have brought a whole new wave of use cases to Bitcoin including stuff like NFTs, BRC-20 tokens (aka memecoins), and more.
And while everyone thought it would take a pump in Bitcoinās price to attract the next wave of users, Ordinals jumped in and said āhold my beerā.
Itās like Bitcoin was put on an episode of Pimp My Ride Blockchain and got some new rims and a TV inside.
2/ BTC Miners
Bitcoin miners saw a huge month:
They averaged ~$2M / day in transaction fees. The rise in new use cases like Ordinals brought in more transactions, leading to more fees for miners. (Ordinals accounted for $35M of these fees alone)
The U.S. government's proposed tax on Bitcoin miners has been rejected (for now). This would have charged miners a 30% tax on the electricity they use for Bitcoin mining.
Core Scientific (the former largest BTC miner) is coming back from bankruptcy. Call it the Comeback of the Year.
So what? Miners are the foundation of the entire Bitcoin network - theyāre like the backstage crew at a magic show. They help make the impossible possible, and you donāt even know theyāre there.
More miners = higher hash rate = more security and a āhealthierā Bitcoin network.
3/ BLEND
Blur launched its new lending platform, Blend, on May 1st. And boy oh boy, did it put up some BIG numbers in its first monthā¦
Completed $300M+ in loans
Made up over 80% of all NFT lending volume for the month
Loans made up over 50% of total volume on Blur
Dune Analytics
Itāll be interesting to watch how things change as Blend continues to add new collections and its point incentives expire at the end of the year.
4/ Tether
It actually released some public info about what backs USDT - Tether said it held $2.44B in reserves at the end of Q1. Not too shabby.
Plus, it said it made $1.5B in net profits in Q1 - and itāll start spending some of its future profits on BTC. šŖ
So what? You should be watching Tether this year.
Itās the king of the stablecoin kingdom right now since its biggest rivals were toppled from their throne:
Binanceās BUSD lost a big chunk of its supply when Paxos stopped issuing it
Circleās USDC depegged from the U.S. dollar
USDTās supply dominance has risen 13% since ~January. Someoneās poppinā that good bubbly this year.
5/ ETH Staking
Everyone and their momma was saying Ethereumās Shapella upgrade would be āThe Great Unstaking.ā
Well, the month of May proved that thatās more of a lie than canned water.
In total, 22.6M ETH ($41B) was deposited into Ethereum contracts this month. That means the amount of staked ETH is still rising, despite the ability to withdraw. Take that, h8ers
So what? Staking is still all the rage! More people engaging with Ethereum = a stronger network šŖ
And now onto the Big Loser for the monthā¦
Ledger.
Itās a big maker of hard wallets (i.e. the best way to store your crypto cause only you can access your private key.)
Well, it announced a new opt-in feature that would allow it to access encrypted shards of your private key and send it to 3 companies.
Thatās like building customers an underground bunker and then also building a tunnel so they can get in too.
So what? Ledger lost 2 big thingsā¦
1/ Market share. Its #1 competitor, Trezor, saw a 900% jump in sales after the Ledger Fiasco happened.
You know you f*cked up when your competition is up triple digit percentages. Oopsies.
But most importantly Ledger lostā¦
2/ Trust. Crypto investors now trust their local weatherman more than Ledger.
If youāre gonna play in this space, you gotta talk the talk and walk the walk.
Moves like these are like fish tacos on a plane - users can smell that sh*t from a mile away.
The Milk Manās got a few problems.. Spilling milk, staying organized and managing several orders at once.
But when it comes to project management, heās got a couple of tricks up his sleeve. Call him Dairy Blaine.
His favorite trick? Timothy Kenny
Itās a project management template that allows you to store and access more projects than you can handle. Itās already received over 16,000 downloads.
It also comes with a course that walks you through everything you need to know. And the template comes in all shapes and sizes: Notion, Word, Google Docs, OneNote, and Obsidian.
And the author has quite the resume:
Heās created over 65 courses on accelerated learning and productivity
His courses have attracting 130,000 students from 150+ countries
Heās used this project management system for over 3,000 projects over the last 5 years
See what all the hype is about and grab your FREE template and course below:
WEB3 WEDNESDAY šļø
Welcome back to another Web3 Wednesday, Roaders. Time to check out what cool Web3 jobs are out there this week.
Here ya go:
Partner Success Manager at Aptos - Palo Alto, CA
Business Development Lead (Capital Markets) at Aptos - Remote
Senior Engineering Manager at MoonPay - Remote, UK
Customer Support Specialist at Uniswap - Remote or New York, NY
Fiat Clearing & Settlement Senior Manager at Binance - Remote, Asia
Compensation and Benefits Manager at Parity - London, England
Staff Software Engineer (Core Services) at Chainalysis - Remote, Ontario, Canada
P.S. - Are you trying to hire in Web3? Learn how to get your open jobs in front of 250K+ crypto enthusiasts here.
MILK & COOKIES šŖ
Access Labs just launched Scribe. Scribe aims to be THE publishing app for small and independent creators - and Milk Road readers can get priority access to their beta.*
Bitcoin was trading at a 20% discount on Binance Australia. A result of them halting bank transfers earlier this month. Binance has more on its plate than Joey Chestnut.
Japanās largest airline launches an NFT marketplace. All Nippon Airways is the latest to punch a first class ticket into the world of digital collectibles.
Peter Schiff is dropping a Bitcoin Ordinals art collection. After calling NFTs āworthlessā and āeasy to replicateā two years ago.
Curve Finance CEO purchases 2 mansions worth ~$40M. Brushing aside the bear market and acquiring over 60,000 sq. ft of land in Australia. Crikey.
*This is sponsored ad content
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GM Roaders. let's get after it today
ā Milk Road Images (@MilkRoadImages)
1:16 PM ā¢ May 31, 2023
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.
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