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GM. This is Milk Road, your crypto news waterboy – hydrating your mind with refreshing facts.

Here’s what we got today:

• 5 reasons ETH could rally 📈

• Crypto and the origin of life 🧪

• Say hello to Amazon’s new crypto movie 🍪

5 REASONS ETH COULD RALLY 📈

Let’s kick off the day with some cold, milky facts: 

• January to May are the best months for ETH, by far.

• ETH averages double-digit gains during each of those months. 

• Average returns range from 13% → 31%. (Feb is the worst, May is the best)

• The rest of the year (June - Dec) is more choppy. 

In other words… it’s ‘bulking season’ for Ethereum. This is when it gets its biggest gains. 

Plus, ETH is getting injected with some steroids this year:

• An ETH ETF could be approved in the upcoming months. And if we learned anything from the BTC ETF, the price pump happened before (aka the anticipation got more hype than the approval itself).

• The Dencun upgrade is happening in a few weeks. This is Ethereum’s first big upgrade since the Merge. 

• ETH on centralized exchanges has plummeted to ~12%. Less ETH on exchanges = less ETH that can easily be bought. 

• Restaking is one of the hottest narratives in crypto. This has made ETH way more attractive to hold for investors.

Things could be lining up for a potential ETH rally soon.

CRYPTO AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 🧪

There’s one question that will make every investor crumble…

Well, today we have a pretty cool real-world use case.

It includes cryptocurrencies, scientific research, and the origin of life. 

(P.S. - shoutout to Mikael for putting it on our radar. You’re today’s MVR  - Most Valuable Roader).

Ok, so check it out. Researchers in Poland are trying to unravel the grandaddy of all mysteries… 

Where do all our missing socks go? What is the origin of life?

To try to answer this:

• Researchers simulate “prebiotic reactions” on supercomputers. 

• That’s nerd talk for analyzing billions of chemical reactions. (No, mentos & coca cola isn’t one of them).

• The goal: reverse engineer their way back to the original compounds that led to life as we know it. 

Sounds cool, right? 

Well, there’s a big problem… supercomputers are expensive and hard to access. You can’t just walk into Best Buy and buy one.

You gotta know somebody who knows somebody who knows something ‘bout it. 

The solution: decentralized computing power. 

That’s where projects like Golem Network come in… 

• Users with spare computing power can rent it out to other people on Golem.

• In return, they get $$ (in this case, GLM tokens).

Think of it like Airbnb for computer resources. 

Using Golem, researchers were able to rent out 20,000 CPU cores to simulate 11B+ chemical reactions. 

The best part? It only cost ~$38,000. (The team estimates it would have cost 2-3x more using traditional Web2 cloud providers).

So next time someone asks what crypto is used for, you can say “finding the origin of life.”

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

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Amazon is turning the $4B Bitfinex heist into a new film. It will follow the life of Razzlekhan, the rapper-turned-crypto-thief, and her husband, who pled guilty to the Bitcoin heist.

$2.61B was lost in crypto hacks and scams last year. According to PeckShield’s analysis, there were 600+ major attacks (!!). Hackers were doing two-a-days all year long. 

Magic Eden launched a new multi-chain wallet. It supports the Solana, Bitcoin, Polygon, and Ethereum blockchains.  

The first Bitcoin ETF application has been filed in Hong Kong. That’s right, Bitcoin ETFs are going on a world tour!

Bitcoin mining firm GRIID began trading on the Nasdaq yesterday. It was down 6% on Day 1. Ouch, talk about a rough first day at stock exchange school. 

Liquid staking is now live on the dYdX chain. Stakers will receive trading and transaction fees in the form of USDC.

*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.