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GM, this is the Milk Road. The crypto newsletter you can always rely on - rain, sleet, hail, or shine.

It was a quiet weekend in crypto. 

No surprise there since all eyes were on… The Super Bowl Taylor Swift. 

P.S. - shoutout to the NFL scriptwriters. Great game. 

Anyway, here’s what we got for you today:

• Bitcoin cracks the top 10 🏆

• ETH staking breaks new records 📈

• The march of the penguins 🐧

• Xbox 🤝 web3 gaming 🎮

• Solana’s second phone receives 100k orders 🍪

BITCOIN ENTERS THE TOP 10 🏆

BTC is on a roll…

• It had a 13.5% gain last week. It’s the best single-week performance since October.

• It ended the week at $48,300. It’s the highest weekly close since 2021 (!!)

The cherry on top? BTC’s recent gains catapulted it into the top 10 most valuable assets in the world. 

Fun fact: BTC needs to hit $61,000 to pass Facebook + Silver and jump into the Top 8.

Crazy. BTC is cruising through the world’s most valuable assets like it was the Coors Light Chill Train.

ETH STAKING IS ON THE RISE (AGAIN) 📈

Ethereum recently hit a new milestone: 25% of all ETH has been staked. 

That means about 30M ETH (worth $74B) is currently locked up. And the number is rising… 

• There are currently 5,800 validators in the queue, waiting for their turn to stake.

• The staking queue has jumped from no wait time → a 2-day wait. (As of writing, there’s a 1-day and 20-hour wait to stake).

So, why the sudden spike? Ethereum is a lot like Chipotle - whenever there’s a new item (or narrative) on the menu, it gets a ton of hype. 

The result: the lines go out the door. 

The same thing is happening with ETH right now. Here are its top narratives:

• Restaking: EigenLayer (a popular restaking protocol) is one of crypto’s hottest projects and recently re-opened deposits. But to restake, you first need to stake. 

• ETH ETF Mania: Many are expecting an ETH ETF to launch later this year and a handful of the applications have focused on staking in their proposals. 

We wouldn’t be surprised if the staking queue gets longer over the next few weeks. 

THE MARCH OF THE PENGUINS 🐧

Here’s a crazy NFT stat for you:

• At one point in time… 150 Pudgy Penguins = the same price as 1 Bored Ape.

• Now… 1 Pudgy Penguin = about the same price as 1 Bored Ape.

Penguins might not have wings to fly, but they do have flippers (to flip other NFT projects).

XBOX X WEB3 GAMING 🎮

Xbox is a gaming goliath:

• 170M+ consoles sold - including the OG Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Series X, etc.

• 100M+ monthly active users. The Milk Man is (proudly) one of ‘em…

Not to mention it’s the unofficial School of Hard Knocks. Xbox Live is where middle schoolers master the art of trash talk and witty comebacks. 

Well, check it out... Xbox just got its first web3 game. 

It’s called ‘Off The Grid’. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

• It’s a battle royale shooter game, like Fortnite.

• It has a custom in-game NFT wallet.

• The in-game economy and player progression are fully on-chain.

• It’s built on Gunz - an Avalanche-based blockchain subnet.

• Neill Blomkamp (director of ‘District 9’) is the chief creative director.

First, it was Epic Games listing web3 games on its store. Now it’s Xbox. 

Little by little, web3 gaming is getting where it needs to be to hit the masses.

HELP THE MILK MAN DELIVER 🥛

We are hiring a part-time writer to help us amp up the calcium for all things Milk Road.

We're looking for writers passionate about crypto and with plenty of experience in the space.

If this sounds like you, what are you waiting for? Fill out the form here.

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

On Friday Feb 16th, NFT marketplace Universal Page will launch a Pro Pass. This limited NFT gives holders discounts on trading fees and unlocks extra features.*

Analysts think these two stocks will soar ahead of Bitcoin’s halving event. Spoiler alert: they’re Bitcoin miners. —DL News

Solana’s second smartphone just hit 100,000 preorders. That’s $45M in sales in just over a month. 

Black Mirror is going web3 with a new ‘smile-to-earn’ experience. Based on the social credit score system from the episode 'Nosedive,' Smile Club lets users earn points that can be traded for exclusive prizes and experiences.

The New York Attorney General is seeking $3B in restitution from Digital Currency Group (DCG) and its lending arm, Genesis. DCG and Genesis are accused of misleading investors. 

Solana’s outage was caused by a “previously identified bug”. According to some Solana devs, the bug resulted in an infinite loop, which caused the validators to stall on a certain block - halting the entire network.

*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.