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GM. This is Milk Road. We pluck the ripest stories from the Crypto Tree of News. No ladder needed.

Here’s what we got today:

• The craziest crypto heist of all time 🤯

• Crypto venture funding hit $1B+ last month💰

• Middle schoolers are learning about Bitcoin 📚

• $343M in crypto… *poof*… GONE 🍪

THE CRAZIEST CRYPTO HEIST OF ALL TIME 🤯

Crazy stuff happens in crypto, every single day…

• Teenagers are becoming gazillionaires trading internet tokens and monkey JPEGs.

• North Korea hacked a crypto company for $600M using fake job offers.

• Some guy lost 8,000 Bitcoin and is trying to use robot dogs to find them in a landfill. 

It’s a wild industry.

But the story I’m about to tell you is the craziest thing you’ll see in crypto. Getcha popcorn ready, here it is in 3 parts…

PART I: THE HEIST

It was November 22. A good ole’ Wednesday. 

Everything was normal until…it happened… 

KyberSwap got hacked. Now, there are a few things you should know:

• KyberSwap = a decentralized exchange that launched back in 2017 (OG status).

• A total of ~$47M was stolen from it.

• The attack is considered to be “one of the most sophisticated hacks” in DeFi. (If you wanna nerd out and dig deeper, this Twitter thread explains how it happened).

And the attacker gave a quick play-by-play of what they were doing, as they were doing it. It felt like one of those blockbuster hacker movies…

Hacker: “Just go into the network. Looking for the mainframe.”

*a few seconds later*

Hacker: “Ok, found it. Hacking into the mainframe to gain root access.”

*types with one hand while drinking a RedBull with the other*

Hacker: “Damnit. There’s a firewall. Gimme a minute, gonna bypass it.”

*starts typing furiously on keyboard*

Hacker: “I’m in.”

Ok, fine… it wasn’t that dramatic (and no explosions), but it was close. 

It kept going and going and going. Until finally….

The hacker got in. As a result, they stole $47M from KyberSwap. 

PART II: THE NEGOTIATIONS 

Ok, the hack is done. Funds are stolen. Now…it’s time to negotiate, right? 

Wrong!

Hey, if I just pulled off one of the most technically sophisticated hacks in crypto history, I’d probably wanna nap too. #WorkHardNapHard

The problem? It didn’t last a “few hours”, it lasted DAYS.

And after 190+ hours (aka 8 days), Snorlax the hacker finally reached out with “a treaty”...

PART III: THE TREATY

This is where things get insane. The hacker’s demands are as follows:

• Complete executive control of Kyber (the company behind KyberSwap).

• Control of all documents and information related to the company, like protocol formation, operation, revenues, profits, expenses, investors, etc.

• Control of all Kyber assets, both on-chain and off-chain. Including company shares, equity, partnerships, websites, servers, etc.

But wait! There’s more! Once these demands have been met, the hacker will:

• Buy out all Kyber executives from their company shares “at a fair valuation”.

• Double all employee salaries. Employees who leave will receive a 12-month severance “with full benefits and assistance in finding a new career, no questions asked”.

• Refund LP investors 50% of their lost funds. 

I know, HOLY. SH*T! It’s like that Captain Phillips movie scene where the boat gets hijacked…

… except this is happening in real life. 

So, what’s next? The hacker gave Kyber until December 10th to accept/deny the treaty. 

Until then, we wait. 

P.S. - Call crypto whatever you want, but you can never call it boring!

CRYPTO VENTURE FUNDING HIT $1B+ LAST MONTH 💰

Over $1B was raised by blockchain/crypto companies in November. That’s a 6-month high and the 3rd highest monthly total this year. 

*firm handshakes all around*

Here are some cool projects that recently raised money:

Wormhole raised $225M to allow different blockchain networks to communicate with each other. The cross-chain protocol now has a $2.5B valuation. 

Fnality raised $95M to tokenize major fiat currencies. The blockchain payments firm creates tokenized versions of fiat currency backed by cash held at central banks like BNY Mellon, Banco Santander, Barclays, etc. 

Blast raised $20M to develop a new Layer 2 blockchain. Early access to the blockchain went live on Nov. 20 and already has $600M+ in total value locked (TVL). 

Privy raised $18M to build blockchain-based tools for startups. Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Blue Yard, Archetype, and a few angel investors threw in money during the funding round.

OCEAN raised $6.2M to create a decentralized Bitcoin mining pool. The funding round was led by Jack Dorsey (the guy who created Twitter and is so rich he did that thing where billionaires grow a crazy beard to look semi-homeless).

MIDDLE SCHOOLERS ARE LEARNING ABOUT BITCOIN 📚

Check it out. 6th graders in Belgium are learning about Bitcoin in school…

Pretty impressive. 

In 6th grade, I was learning how to sing the U.S. states in alphabetical order. (🎵Alaaabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado…. Connecticut! 🎵)

Good to see kids are learning about something more valuable nowadays, like Bitcoin.

BITE-SIZED COOKIES 🍪

The first of 3 Streamr Network 1.0 incentivized testnets is open with 5 million DATA tokens to be distributed to node Operators & Delegators starting from Monday. It’s a great time to join the next-gen decentralized data network!*

$343M was lost to crypto hacks and fraud cases last month. It’s the highest monthly crypto losses of the year and up 15x from October. gulp

The open interest in Bitcoin long futures held by asset managers on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has reached an all-time high. The current open interest value is ~$2B; up from $1.04B at the end of October. 

A U.S. bankruptcy court has given FTX debtors the green light to start selling some of its trust assets. This includes $744M worth of Grayscale and Bitwise shares. 

Binance announced its ending support of BUSD stablecoin next month. R.I.P. to another fallen crypto stablecoin. 

Uniswap Labs is teaming up with Talos to bring decentralized finance (DeFi) liquidity to institutional traders. Uniswap Labs will provide its Trading APIs to Talos’ clients.

*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.