GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that’s here for you like your closest friend. We’ll meet you at 3am with the shovel. #WeSawNothing

Here’s what we got for ya today:

• Wtf is ERC-4337?

• Kraken is opening a crypto bank

• Amazon is launching an NFT marketplace

• Yuga nets $16.5M on Twelvefolds auction

Today's edition is brought to you by Franken Run, the Milk Man is currently smashing buttons playing this game.

WTF IS ERC-4337 & WHY DOES IT MATTER?

There’s a new buzzword in crypto…. ERC-4337. And no, that’s not a new Star Wars character.

It’s a new Ethereum upgrade that went live earlier this month. Today we’re gonna tell you everything you need to know and why everyone has been talking about it.

First… What is it? ERC-4337 introduces something called Account Abstraction, which allows Ethereum wallets to operate as smart contracts.

Still hazy? Here’s what it enables:

• Recovering lost private keys. There’s a new “social recovery system” where designated users have the ability to restore access to a wallet, should someone lose their private keys

• Securing wallets without a seed phrase. Users can enable 2FA and biometrics (fingerprint or facial scan) to protect their wallets. Sayonara to those 12-word seed phrases

• Carrying out automated payments and setting time-based spending limits (i.e. you can set monthly spending limits on a wallet)

• Sending gasless transactions. Decentralized applications can “sponsor” gas fees (aka cover the costs) to make things cheaper and simpler for their customers

Why does it matter? The upgrade enables a lot of the same features a bank offers, without needing to trust a bank.

By merging crypto wallets with smart contracts, Account Abstraction makes for more secure and efficient transactions, ultimately making crypto more user-friendly.

Plus, it makes some of the previously “impossible” stuff (like wallet recovery, seedless wallets, etc.) possible.

So, what happens next? We asked our good friend Kofi his thoughts. He’s a crypto wiz and a lot smarter than us, and he gave us two potential outcomes - a bullish one and a bearish one….

Bullish Case: This is awesome. Wallets that use ERC-4337 will be so much better than the wallets we have today:

• No more seed phrases since you can use other authentication methods

• Much easier wallet recovery methods

• Ability to sponsor gasless transactions

Simply put, there’s just a lot more stuff that's possible when your wallet is also a smart contract.

More possibilities → More cool sh*t being built → More new users getting onboarded

Bearish Case: There’s too much complex terminology like account abstraction, paymasters, bundlers, etc., that will make it hard to build products that regular people will like and understand.

You can throw “smart” in front of anything you want.... Smart contracts, smart wallets, smart accounts. That doesn’t mean it will make the user any smarter. What we need are simple, dumbed-down concepts to get major crypto adoption off the ground.

Most people are on the bullish side of ERC-4337, but we'll have to wait and see if it actually leads us to the promised land of a billion new crypto users.

COMPETE FOR A RARE NFT WITH FRANKEN RUN

The NFT market is as stale as 2-week old chips.

Everyone does the same boring reveals with the same static mint mechanics. 

No one is innovating.  

But today, I want to talk about a brand that just launched a skill-based NFT reveal game. The game is called Franken Run. 

Franken Run, created by FrankenDAO, is a free game where you can play to earn a more valuable NFT, only if you hold a Franken Monster NFT.

The game is based in the browser where you run away from the most evil doctor on the blockchain, Dr. ETHvil (boo). 

The further you run the better chance you have to get a rare NFT. 

And, the prize pool for top scores is $1,000 in cash!

The competition ends March 31st

Don’t regret missing out on a rare NFT. 

Click the button below.

KRAKEN IS OPENING A CRYPTO BANK

Everyone make room, there’s a new crypto bank coming soon - Kraken Bank. That’s right, the 3rd largest crypto exchange is launching its own bank.

Kraken’s Chief Legal Officer went on The Scoop podcast yesterday to talk about it. Not only did he give the inside scoop, but he added some m’fing sprinkles too.

Here’s everything you need to know:

• Kraken Bank will be a Wyoming-based crypto bank

• Kraken is the first ever crypto company to get an SPDI banking charter. Sounds like something you get after a wild weekend in Vegas, but it stands for a Special Purpose Depository Institution (aka they’ve got the Wyoming regulatory stamp of approval)

• It’s “on track to launch very soon.” Services will first roll out to existing U.S. Kraken clients

• The bank plans to offer digital assets custody, staking services, wire transfers, and mobile banking apps to its customers

This is big because crypto just lost its biggest bank: Silvergate. Silvergate had all the biggest crypto companies as clients and processed ~80% of all funds that flowed into and out of the crypto markets.

Many were wondering how crypto would survive without Silvergate. Now, Kraken Bank is looking to step up and fill the void.

This could be a genius move, but we all know there’s one thing that can take the Kraken down… Davy Jones Gary Gensler.

The head of the SEC recently forced Kraken to shut down its staking service and pay $30M in fines.

Now we’ll have to wait and see if Kraken Bank gets unleashed or faces the same result.

AMAZON IS LAUNCHING AN NFT MARKETPLACE

Jeff Bezos has gone from launching rockets to launching NFT marketplaces.

Yesterday, Amazon announced they will unveil their new NFT marketplace on April 24th. The marketplace will initially feature 15 NFT collections and will only be available to U.S. customers.

It's also rumored that Amazon will give customers the ability to buy NFTs tied to real-world assets. For example, the Milk Man will be able to buy fashion-oriented NFTs tied to the dope Kirkland sweatpants he orders from Amazon. (it's called fashion, look it up)

You’ll be able to access the marketplace through a tab on Amazon’s website called “Amazon digital marketplace”. NFTs can only be bought using an Amazon account & using a credit card.

So, what’s the big deal? Amazon is the 5th largest company in the world with a $970B market cap (bigger than any other company that has entered the NFT space).

They have over 300m active users and 58% of them are between the ages of 25-44. The perfect age for an NFT degen…

And check it out. Last year, Prime Day did $12b in revenue. That’s 50% of the entire NFT market’s trading volume for all of last year.

The hope is Amazon’s new marketplace will onboard millions of users to NFTs. But after similar flops from Coinbase, Gamestop, and others… time will tell.

YUGA LABS NETS $16.5M IN TWELVEFOLD AUCTION

It’s official… The auction for Yuga Labs’ new Bitcoin-based NFT collection is over. Kaput. Finito. Done.

This is big for 3 reasons:

1. The creators of Bored Apes netted ~$16.5M on the auction

2. It’s Yuga’s first NFT collection to launch on the Bitcoin blockchain

3. The auction had more controversy than a game of Monopoly with the in-laws

Which is why we decided to try something different today to cover it all…

Introducing Milk Road News - a new offering where we’ll go deeper on specific topics on MilkRoad.com. Get the full scoop on Yuga’s Twelvefold auction drama here.

MILK & COOKIES

Mastercard partners with ByBit to launch a new crypto debit card. It will let users make payments and withdraw cash using cryptocurrency holdings.

Snoop Dogg announces his new web3 company - Shiller. It’s a “live broadcast platform” that aims to combine web3 tech with real-time live-streaming content.

Alameda is suing Grayscale over $9B locked in Bitcoin Trust Shares. Alameda claims it has billions in locked investments that are being “improperly withheld from its customers.” One bankrupt company suing another one, go figure.

MILKY MEME

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That's a wrap for today. Stay thirsty & see ya next time! If you want more, be sure to follow our Twitter (@MilkRoadDaily)

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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.