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GM. This is Milk Road. When it comes to crypto, we give you the inside gossip like your aunt Suzanne after two glasses of chardonnay. 

(You won't miss a beat).

Here’s what we got for you today:

• ✍️ The method behind the memecoin sector’s madness 

• ✍️ 739,000 Stripe merchants can now accept crypto in the US

• 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: The Best Short Term Trade Before the US Election w/ OSF

• 🍪 Trump’s World Liberty Financial will launch its $WLFI token sale on Oct. 15

THE METHOD BEHIND THE MEMECOIN SECTOR’S MADNESS 😵‍💫

Apologies in advance for this, but…

🎵“Baby Shark doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo”🎵

There. Now you’ll have that stupid song stuck in your head all day (whether you like it or not).

Memecoins operate in a similar way. You may not like them – but boy do they catch on.

Need that quantified? Check this out…

1/ Ten of the top one hundred coins by market cap are now memecoins:

2/ Memecoin search interest spiked this month, in a continued 12 month uptrend

3/ Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s search interest is at a 12 month low…

Don’t worry, this isn’t the part where we tell you to ape into memes…

But that’s not to say understanding the pumpamentals (think: branding, narrative, cult-like status, etc.) that allow memecoins to continually sustain interest and attract investor dollars isn’t a valuable insight to have in our arsenal.

So let’s give you the tl;dr of Murad’s Popular Memecoin Supercycle Presentation at Token 2049, to get an idea of what memecoins get right, and how they appeal to investors.

1. Crypto is a speculation-first, tech-second industry (...currently).
   The memecoin sector’s heavy focus on token speculation and total disinterest in underlying protocols/technologies allows it to play directly to peoples’ base desires (“getting rich, quick”).

2. No unlocks = no getting dumped on.
   VC backed projects typically have 80%+ of their supply allocated to insiders that will sell their bags to retail at inflated prices. This ain’t a problem with Memecoins, since their entire supply is in circulation from day one.

3. Make poor people rich → create a community of evangelists.
   Narratives are a key driver of short term performance. Making a bunch of rich VCs even richer doesn’t bring cult status to a project – bringing new wealth to a group of retail investors does.

4. Stronger communities = greater stickiness.
   When someone's choice of investment becomes a part of their personal identity, they’re less likely to sell. Memecoins are often identity based assets.

Now – Murad delivers all of this with a big ol’ caveat/plot twist:

Investors should be looking at memecoins with long term “multi-cycle” potential – which seems paradoxical… 

But the point is this: You want to find memes that will remain relevant for years to come.

Consider Dogecoin (a token that has been flourishing since 2013!). 

The doge meme is just about as relevant today in internet culture as it was a decade ago (plus there is always the possibility that Elon might use it one day 🤷)...

So what new tokens does Murad see as potentially fitting this mold?

We just sat down with OSF to comb through Murad’s multi-million dollar memecoin portfolio (alongside OSF’s).

Tune in to learn more about Murad’s memecoin theory 👇

YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

739,000 ONLINE MERCHANTS CAN NOW ACCEPT CRYPTO IN THE US 💵

We hope your seat has a head rest… 

Cause we’re about to switch focus from ‘speculative noise’ to ‘bullish fundamental development’ so fast that you might be at risk of whiplash.

Brace yourself, in: 3..2..1…

What does that all mean exactly?

Stripe just allowed any US merchant to flip a switch and begin accepting $USDC payments through their online stores, and have them settle natively in fiat ($USD).

No need for sellers to set up a crypto wallet or cash out their tokens via an exchange… 

Just one toggle switch in their Stripe backend and BOOM! It’s all done for them.

Oh and the cherry on top? Crypto subscriptions are coming soon… 

(This means Milk Road PRO could accept crypto payments in the future 👀)

And if that ain’t doing it for you – lemme hit you w/ some numbers real quick…

In 2023, Stripe processed – wait for it – $1 trillion worth of transactions, and 739,000 (or 56%) of all active websites using Stripe (as of Jan 2024) are based in the U.S.

Translation: If US merchants and their global customers start adopting $USDC payments through Stripe – it could feed a whooole bunch of revenue back to the underlying blockchains (Ethereum, Solana, Polygon).

Here’s why we love innovations like this:

The major key to mass adoption is getting every day people to start using crypto without even realizing it!

(E.g. T-Mobile subscribers unknowingly using Helium’s data coverage).

This is a definitive step in that direction for Stripe’s 739,000 US-base merchants.

…with the remaining 2.1M global merchants to (hopefully) be unlocked soon!

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

Gemini is a global, secure, user-friendly crypto exchange for both beginners and pros, offering over 70 assets, staking rewards, and a crypto-back credit card. With top-tier security and intuitive design, it’s a smart way to safely dive into and grow your crypto portfolio. *

World Liberty Financial's public sale for its $WLFI tokens will begin on October 15. The DeFi project, which is linked to former U.S. President Donald Trump, aims to raise $300 million during the sale.

Mt. Gox has extended the repayment deadline for creditors to October 31, 2025. Originally scheduled for 2023, the new deadline pushes back the timeline for those expecting compensation from the 2014 collapse. Yikes.

Kadena appoints Alana Ackerson as Strategic Advisor to advance tokenization of Real-World Assets (RWAs) and institutions. Another protocol making a push into RWAs and institutional tokenization? We love to see it.

The Avalanche Foundation is set to repurchase tokens it previously sold to Terra’s Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) in a 2022 deal worth $100 million. The current value of 1.97 million $AVAX tokens is about $56 million, a 44% decrease from the stash's original $100 million value.

* this is sponsored content, not financial advice

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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.