GM. This is the Milk Road, the daily newsletter that makes learning crypto as simple as ABC. It's easy as 1,2,3.

Here's what we got today:

• FOMC meeting & what it means for crypto

• T-Mobile & Helium launch the world's first cryptocarrier

• Quick bites

• Meme of the day

FOMC MEETING & WHAT IT MEANS FOR CRYPTO

Today’s a big day for crypto. Jerome Powell (head of the FED) will be announcing interest rate hikes from the recent FOMC meeting. 

And I’ll be booing him the same way NFL fans boo Roger Goodell every time he walks on stage.

It’s expected that the Fed will be raising interest rates by 75 bps (aka .75%). If they do, it’d be the 3rd straight time the Fed raises rates by that much.

And while we can’t predict what they'll do and how the markets will react, we can look at what happened in the past for clues.

Here’s data from the markets over the last 5 FOMC meetings:

In general, it looks like:

• most days have been in the green on the day of the FOMC announcement

• most of the sell-offs happen a few days before and after the announcement

P.S - This matches what we've been seeing so far too. ETH and BTC are both down in price this week.

If we had to make a prediction, here it is in one pic:

Basically, if the Fed announces a 100bps than the prices will most likely crash, and if it's below 75 bps prices will go up. But we will be watching Powell's post-game speech closely. Ultimately his tone determines where the markets go.

To be honest with you, before I got into crypto I had no idea what an FOMC meeting was. Now I keep up with Jerome Powell and the Fed like my girl keeps up with Kim and the Kardashians.

HELIUM MOBILE: THE WORLD'S FIRST CRYPTOCARRIER

T-Mobile is partnering with Nova Labs to launch the world's first cryptocarrier. It’s a 5G network called Helium Mobile.

It's similar to the normal 5G networks you might be using (Verizon, Sprint, etc), but it has a few twists:

• Helium’s mobile subscription plans will start for as low as $5/month and it includes everything in a normal cell plan (text, call, data)

• Users will earn crypto ($MOBILE) just for using the network

• Users own their data. It will never be sold to advertisers or other third parties

• Beta is expected to launch in Q1 2023

This is interesting because if a user ends up earning enough $MOBILE they could not only have a free monthly cell plan, but they could be making money off it.

Sounds a little too good to be true, doesn't it? I mean $5/mo for a phone plan? That's cheaper than those burner phone plans...

Well, to keep it real with you, we still have our doubts. That's because Helium is struggling. Sure, they recently raised $200m, but they've been on the hot seat:

• Got caught “misrepresenting” partnerships on their site

• Generated ~$6,650 in revenue in June from people actually using it. For a company that raised hundreds of millions of dollars, that’s bad. The Milk Road made more $$. And we’re a free newsletter…

• Proposing to completely ditch their own Helium blockchain because it's slow & expensive, and move over to Solana

It sounds like Helium raised a bunch of money and is going through a mid-life crisis. It'll be interesting to see if they can pull this off.

TODAY'S EDITION IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THIRDWEB

Web3 is in its early days. We’re in the 'beer drinking iPhone app' stage.

The main problem is it’s difficult for devs to build in web3 - workflow is fragmented, complex, and slow. We need products to make it easier.

Stripe made it easy to add payments to your app.

AWS made it easy to add storage & compute for your app.

Now it’s thirdwebs turn - thirdweb makes it easy to add web3 tools like tokens and NFTs to your app.

Some of the world's biggest brands (Afterpay, Anomica, etc) are using it to develop and power their apps. Since thirdweb launched:

• 55,000+ developers have joined

• 200,000+ smart contracts deployed

• $24m+ raised

Companies like thirdweb are crucial to the growth of Web3, as developer tools help builders create real-world applications of the technology.

Interested in learning more? Check it out here!

BITE-SIZED COOKIES

Robinhood has listed USDC on its trading platform. It's the first stablecoin that will be available to 15m+ Robinhood users.

NASDAQ is launching a crypto custody service for institutional investors. Nasdaq is a little late to the party - Fidelity, Blackrock, and Citadel have all launched something for institutional investors over the last few weeks.

OkayBears, a popular Solana NFT project, inks a licensing deal with IMG IMG is one of the largest agencies in the world and manages $15b+ in annual retail sales for brands like Fortnite, NFL, Angry Birds, Lamborghini, etc.

Colorado becomes the first U.S state to let residents pay taxes using crypto. 

MEME OF THE DAY

That's a wrap for today, see ya tomorrow!

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VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY

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.