🥛 Is the ETH Merge finally here? A look into the timeline...

GM. This is the Milk Road. We break down crypto into tiny little pieces. Like a termite. A knowledge termite.

It's Friday, prices are green, life is good. Let's boogie:

• USDC gives us a $55 billion dollar peek-a-boo

• Help Vitalik upgrade his blog & get paid in crypto

• Funding Friday

• Meme of the day

THE MERGE HAS A NEW TARGET DATE

The Merge has a new target date. It could be coming as soon as September 19th if all goes well with the final test: Goerli. Crazy huh, they named the ETH test after that rash you had in college.

Why does this matter? The Merge will be one of the biggest events for Ethereum ever. It will move from proof-of-work → proof-of-stake.

This means faster transactions, less energy usage, and one step closer to scalability.

Here’s what the timeline is looking like:

• Goerli Test Merge: week of August 11th (the final testnet!)

• The Merge: week of September 19th

"It's quite realistic to merge in September, assuming... the Goerli fork doesn't completely blow up" - Tim Beiko, Protocol Support at ETH Foundation.

ETH is up ~12% since the news broke! You know what that means...we're upgrading from the McD's dollar menu tonight.

CIRCLE RELEASES A BREAKDOWN FOR USDC RESERVE ASSETS

Remember when Terra blew up?

It was an $18B stablecoin, that went to ~$0 in one week, and shook up the entire crypto market.

Well, one reason Terra collapsed was that it wasn't “backed” by safe assets.

Stablecoins have been criticized for years for not transparently showing the reserves that back their stablecoin. Some people say Tether (the biggest stablecoin) is a potential risk for crypto if it turns out the reserves are not there.

Today - some good news came out. USDC, the 2nd biggest stablecoin in the world, with $55B in circulation, released data about the reserves backing their stablecoin.

So...what’s in the piggy bank?

$13.5B cash in banks (24.4%)

$42.1B in US treasuries (75.6%).

They have slightly more in reserves than the stablecoins in circulation (that’s good/expected)

This is important because we need a trusted stablecoin to be able to transact in crypto.

With USDC over 100% backed by cash + short-term treasuries, this should give people peace of mind.

It’s also one of the main ways USDC makes money - earning interest on their reserves. They’re projecting $351m in revenue for 2022.

Why this matters: When Terra crashed, it was a ~$18B stablecoin, that went to zero, and people lost trust. Circle showing that their stablecoin is fully backed by USD + short-term US Treasuries is good for trust.

MILK ROAD REACTIONS

TODAY'S NEWSLETTER IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY PANINI NFT's

I still remember the feeling I had when I opened my first pack of NBA cards back in the early 2000s and pulled out a Kevin Garnett.

Guess what? I just pulled my first NBA card NFT fresh out of Panini’s Donruss Optics Set.

Look, ma, I got a Jrue Holiday:

I think most NFTs are dumb, but I like these because I love the NBA, they’re cheap ($10 a pack), have built-in scarcity, and the rarest ones come with dope experiences like Tickets, and players' meet and greet, and VIP experiences.

To me, it’s way better than physical cards that can get Cheetoh dust on them any time of the day. These just live on the blockchain, baby.

Go check it out now and get your first pack today! If you're lucky, you can get a dope Kevin Durant or Steph Curry NFT.

HELP VITALIK UPGRADE HIS BLOG & GET PAID IN CRYPTO

This is Vitalik. The creator of Ethereum. Father of Chains. Proofer of Stake. King of the Sandals. Rightful heir to the Zuckerberg throne. Lankiest of all lanky men. And our hero at the Milk Road.

Yea, that’s right. He gets the full Game of Thrones intro around here.

Anyways, V tweeted out a little Gitcoin project.

If you haven’t heard of Gitcoin, it’s a cool platform that lets you find projects to work on and get paid for them.

We like Gitcoin. It’s a crowdsourcing platform to help get sh*t done.

Here’s how it works:

• Post a task you need done

• Offer a bounty (aka a crypto reward for completion)

• Let people submit their best attempts

• Pick the best one, and voila! Your problem is solved

Similar to 99Designs in the Web2 world.

SOUTH PARK ROASTS MATT DAMON AND OTHER CRYPTO CELEBRITIES

South Park just released their newest movie, The Streaming Wars Pt 2. And they ROASTED crypto in it.

They made fun of crypto companies and celebs who have promoted crypto in commercials.

And no one was safe.

Matt Damon, Reese Witherspoon, and Naomi Osaka all got cooked like some Kentucky Fried Chicken.

If you need a good laugh, check it out!

FUNDING FRIDAY

Each Friday, we give you a rundown of Web3 companies that got funded.

This week we saw ~$350M get invested into crypto companies. Here’s who got the money:

Farcaster got $30m to develop a decentralized social network.

Animoca Brands got $75.3m to develop blockchain games.

Inflection Points got $12.6m to build a crypto jobs marketplace. Shoutout to the homie, Pomp!

Safe got $100m for their digital assets management platform. Formerly called Gnosis Safe, til they realized no one knew how to say it.

DeepNFTValue got $4m for their NFT price prediction platform. It estimates future prices of CryptoPunks using Machine Learning.

If you wanna check out the full database of companies that have raised money in 2022, we got 'em for you right here.

MEME OF THE DAY

THE MILK ROAD LOSES A CHALLENGE

Yesterday we made a promise: if we didn't make you chuckle, Billy would do 10 push-ups.

P.S - we lost.

We keep our word at the Milk Road, so here they are!

That's a wrap for this week ladies & gents. See ya Monday!

Shaan "Chocolate Milk" Puri, Ben "2% Milk" Levy & Diego "El Lechero" Salinas

A Review from the Road...

When you run into someone you know at the grocery store and gotta say Hi...

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.