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GM. This is Milk Road. We’re the Crypto Whisperers - we break down complex concepts and make them easy to understand.

Here’s what’s on the menu today:

• Happy birthday to the Bitcoin halving! 🎂

• OpenSea’s monthly volume dropped from $5B —> $50M 📉

• Coinbase gets subpoenaed 🍪

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BITCOIN HALVING! 🎂

11 years ago**, Bitcoin had its first halving. 

**NOTE: Ok, ok… Bitcoin Halving’s 11th birthday was technically yesterday. 

But I have ‘Forget-Everyones-Bday’ syndrome, so if it’s not on Facebook there’s a 100% chance I’ll miss it.

Anyways, happy belated to the Bitcoin Halving.

The crazy part? The next halving event is only about 145 days away. 

I know, it’s kind of confusing. So let me explain. 

First off, wtf is the halving? It’s an event where Bitcoin mining rewards get cut in half. 

• Bitcoin miners initially got a 50 BTC “reward” each time they mined a Bitcoin block. 

• Each “halving” event cuts these rewards in half. 

• The Bitcoin halving happens every 210,000 Bitcoin blocks or *roughly* every 4 years. (Btw, it doesn’t happen on the same date every time. Hence why the first halving happened in November 2012 and the next one is expected for April 2024).

• It will continue to happen until all 21M Bitcoin have been mined (expected sometime in 2140).

Here’s a simple analogy to help explain the halving: it’s a lot like Christmas gifts growing up. 

You see, I’m the oldest one out of all my cousins. So when I was a little kid, my grandparents used to give me all the best Christmas gifts…

Hot Wheels sets. Game Boys. Pokemon cards. You name it. (This is the equivalent of Bitcoin miners getting 50 BTC rewards).

But after a few years, the supply of “little kids” in the family started going up. Suddenly, giving us all awesome gifts was unsustainable. 

So to fight inflation (and avoid going broke), my grandparents cut my Christmas gifts in half. 

I went from getting the newest PlayStation → a box of Old Navy clothes → a “Merry Christmas” card with $20 bucks in it. (still grateful, but damn).

Similarly, Bitcoin miners’ rewards have dropped from 50 BTC → 25 BTC → 12.5 BTC → 6.25 BTC (current reward) over the last 10+ years.

So, why does the Bitcoin halving happen? Cutting mining rewards in half reduces the amount of new Bitcoin entering circulation, lowering inflation. 

Why should you care? The next Bitcoin halving event is right around the corner.

T-141 days, give or take. 

And each time a halving happens, Bitcoin’s price usually goes up. Check it out. 

On average, Bitcoin’s price increases by ~180% heading into the halving event and increases by ~3,000% after the halving event.

We’ll see if history repeats itself.

OPENSEA’S MONTHLY VOLUME DROPPED FROM $5B —> $50M 📉

OpenSea was once the King of NFT Marketplaces. 

Well, check it out. OpenSea’s monthly volume has plummeted since the beginning of last year.

• January 2022 - $5B in volume

• October 2023 - $49M in volume

According to @Punk9059 (Milk Road friend and NFT expert), this is due to a combination of three things:

1/ NFT volumes are generally down.

2/ OpenSea went from having a 95% market share for NFT trading → 35% market share.

3/ Margin compression in platform fees. 

So, now everyone’s wondering the same thing… is this the end of NFTs? 

Short answer: No. 

Long answer: Hell no. 

The NFT market just looks different than what it was a year ago. There are…

• More NFT marketplaces (i.e. Blur).

• More blockchains implementing NFTs (i.e. over the last 30 days, there’s been more NFT volume on the Bitcoin blockchain than the Ethereum blockchain).

So for us, it’s more of an “OpenSea problem” than an “NFT problem”.

BITE-SIZED COOKIES 🍪

Phemex is set to launch PT Staking on November 30th at 14:00 UTC. Brace yourself for a rewarding experience as Phemex vows to use a slice of its daily USDT contract trading volume to buy back PT and distribute them as staking rewards for their loyal community!*

Coinbase announced it received a subpoena from a U.S. regulator. The crypto exchange says it may respond to the subpoena, “including sending information concerning Coinbase accounts to the Commodity Future Trading Commission (CFTC).

Changpheng Zhao (aka “CZ”) stepped down as chairman of the board of directors for Binance.US. The former Binance CEO has transferred his voting rights through a proxy agreement, removing his influence from Binance.US's governance.

CF Benchmarks launched a new staking index series for institutional clients. It’s called the ‘CF Staking Reward Rate Series’ and provides investors with reward rates from certain proof-of-stake protocols. 

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opened up a comment period for Franklin Templeton’s spot Bitcoin ETF proposal. According to the filing, “the commission seeks and encourages interested persons to provide comments on the proposed rule change”. 

The number of crypto addresses holding DOGE hit 5 million for the first time ever. The crazy part? Fewer than 5,000 addresses control more than 80% of DOGE's supply.

*This is sponsored content

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