GM. This is Milk Road. We’re like a Tootsie Lollipop - satisfying, delicious, & we don’t make you work too hard to get to the center (i.e. the good stuff.)

Here’s what we got for you today:

• A gamble that’s gone the distance 🎰

• FTX might come back to life 🧟

• Visual of the day: dipped stablecoin trading volume 📉

• Shaq gets served 🍪

Today’s edition is brought to you by Access - a monetization ecosystem that is uniting content creators and consumers through on-chain relationships 🤝 

JOE V. JIMMY: 5 YEARS OF HIGH STAKES 🎰

Everyone in crypto loves a good ol’ bet. It’s provocative, it gets the people going.

We’ve seen:

• Balaji’s $1M BTC bet

• Do Kwon’s $20M+ Luna bet

Well, this next bet is a 5-year wager that’s worth 7 figures. It’s the Joe Lubin vs Jimmy Song bet.

In the blue corner: Joe Lubin - Co-founder of Ethereum. CEO of Consensys. And OG homies with Vitalik.

In the red corner: Jimmy Song - Bitcoin Maxi. World traveler. Wearer of Cowboy hats.

What was the bet? Whether or not Decentralized apps (dApps) on Ethereum would be widely adopted in 5 years.

There were 3 conditions:

• 5 Ethereum dApps needed to have 10K+ daily active users

• They also needed to have 100K+ monthly active users for six months out of a calendar year

• The bet is decided in May 2023, 5 years from the deal being made

Jimmy put up 69.74 BTC and Joe put up ~810 ETH. At the time, BTC was ~$8,500 and ETH was ~$700.

Who won the bet? Joe.

It was close, but with the help of dApps like Uniswap (peak of 1M monthly active users), OpenSea, Suhiswap, and more - Joe got the W.

We haven’t seen Jimmy pay up yet, so this million-dollar question is…

Will the Bitcoin Cowboy be a man of his word or ride off into the sunset (without paying up)?

Either way, it's still a pretty cool bet. And it’s crazy to see how far crypto has come.

Joe must be feelin’ like a proud papa :’)

THE ALL-IN-ONE ECOSYSTEM FOR CONTENT CREATORS 📝

I’ll let you in on a little secret… The subscription model is broken. There’s nothing worse than checking your bank statement to see you’re still paying for that outdated magazine…

Well the Milk Man has found a solution: Access.

Access enables creators to:

• Build strong on-chain relationships with their consumers

• Mint NFTs directly to subscribers

• Token gate content and community channels

And even though CoinGecko, The Block, and CryptoSlate use it, it’s not just for big companies. Check out the Access Content Hub to see how various creators are currently leveraging the platform.

But the best part? Access Labs recently launched Scribe.

Scribe aims to be THE publishing platform for small and independent creators.

The platform is currently in Beta, but the team has opened up priority submissions for Milk Road readers - just sign up below!

See why 120,000 subscribers already use Access:

HERE COMES FTX 2.0? 🧟

Ladies & gents, get your popcorn ready. Crypto might be getting a blockbuster sequel that no one saw coming…

FTX 2.0. I know, terrifying. Sounds like the next movie for The Evil Dead trilogy.

The director? John Ray III (the current FTX CEO.)

According to recent documents, John Ray III and the FTX bankruptcy team have been working on a plan to potentially restart the exchange.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes peek at what’s been done for FTX 2.0 so far:

So, what would this mean for creditors? It might be one of the best shots for everyone to get their money back.

And it has support from some FTX creditors so far.

But even though it might be best for creditors, it’s still a long shot.

The core FTX product is FLAWED. It has:

• Coding issues

• Poor performance

• Software bugs

Plus Ray would need to raise a sh*tton of capital. Tribe Capital (VC firm) did say it’d put up $100M for the endeavor.

But it’d be a lot cheaper to just launch a new exchange without that tainted af FTX name…

VISUAL OF THE DAY: STABLECOIN TRADING VOLUME AT YEARLY LOW 📉

The stablecoin market cap is the lowest it’s been since September 2021.

And trading volumes have fallen 40%+ in May - that’s the lowest levels on CEXs since December.

So what’s going on? A combo of 2 things:

1/ Crypto prices are Stable (with a capital S)

When crypto prices are stable → stablecoin volume goes down.

When crypto prices are volatile → stablecoin volume goes up.

Well, recently crypto prices have been playing ping pong. BTC can’t break through $30K, ETH can’t surpass $2K (both are significant levels.)

That hurts trading volume for stablecoin asset pairs.

2/ A couple of major stablecoins have taken a beating this year

• Paxos stopped issuing BUSD.

• Circle (issuer of USDC) had $3B in the SVB collapse. It caused a panic that made USDC depeg.

Example No. 743,719 why they shouldn't have named these things “stablecoins.”

MILK & COOKIES 🍪

Web3 companies have been advertising on the iconic NYC Times Square NASDAQ building. All with the help of Pirix.co. They offer top-tier media coverage that helps brands build credibility, get ranked higher on Google and create an effective digital presence.*

Shaq was finally served his FTX class action lawsuit. The lawsuit was given during the Heat game at the (checks notes) former FTX arena. Talk about coming full circle…

Do Kwon’s bail in Montenegro was revoked. No bail, more jail.

$3.5B of BTC and ETH options are set to expire on May 26th. Brace yourself for some short-term volatility.

Caroline Ellison’s diary has become a key piece of evidence in the FTX case. It includes “handwritten observations” that “express personal and professional resentment” towards SBF. Yikes.

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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.