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GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that's as tasty as your favorite sushi platter - but without the wasabi burn.

Here’s what we got for you today:

• Inflation and Fed head market reaction 🤔 

• ZKsync’s massive airdrop 🪂

• PRO Portfolio updates 🥛

• MicroStrategy to purchase more Bitcoin 🍪

INFLATION AND FED HEAD MARKET REACTION 🤔

Yesterday, a bunch of old hats gathered to decide if your money should be worth a little more or a lot less.

We’ve got the lowdown on inflation numbers, market reactions, and the much-anticipated Fed meeting.

It’s like a roller coaster ride, but with fewer screams and more charts.

We’ll start things off with the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which has blessed us with some cooler-than-expected news, inflation took a chill pill, dropping 0.1% from last month’s 3.4%. 

And let’s not forget Core CPI, which removes products that are more seasonal in nature.

It came in at its lowest in over 17 months, now sitting at 3.4%, down 0.2% from last month. 

These might seem like tiny dips, but in the world of finance these drops mean A LOT.

Just look at how the markets reacted 👇

• $BTC: +3.2%

• $ETH: +3.00%

• NASDAQ: +1.50%

• S&P500: +0.90%

We also got some more positive news regarding PPI (Producer Inflation) this morning:

• May PPI stayed at 2.2%, below the expected 2.5%

• Core PPI dropped to 2.3%, under the expected 2.4%

PPI is usually a leading indicator of CPI, meaning this is a positive sign.

Think of it like a river, producer costs flow downstream and become consumer costs.

This slight cooling in inflation gives the Fed some breathing room, but don’t start planning your rate-cut celebration just yet.

Powell’s Power Hour, aka the FOMC meeting took place yesterday and here’s what went down: 

• 3 rate cuts were originally predicted for 2024, that number is now down to 1.

• The Fed kept rates in the 5.25%-5.5% range, saying we need more consistent signs of cooling before cuts. It’s like waiting for the perfect moment to sell your meme coins.

🥛 Milk Road Take: The recent CPI news has injected a fresh dose of optimism into the markets, flipping the switch from bearish to bullish almost instantly.

With major macro events like this provoking market movements, it’s crucial to stay on top of the latest news and trends. 

When everyone else is confused about the ups and downs, we’re here to make sure you remain calm and stick to your investment plan.

There’s 2 questions you need to be asking yourself… 

1. What should I do every month when CPI is released?

2. What should I do 8x per year when the FOMC sets interest rates? 

Listen to our latest podcast to learn the no brainer move that our Milk Road PRO head of research, Kyle Reidhead, did yesterday with his portfolio.

Tune in 👇🎧

YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

ZKSYNC’S MASSIVE AIRDROP 🪂 

On Tuesday, ZKsync (an Ethereum L2) decided to play Santa Claus in June and officially announced their airdrop..

And they didn’t just bring cookies; they brought the whole bakery! 

Let’s break it down.

Token: $ZK is a protocol governance token.

Total Token Supply: 21B, with 66.7% eventually going to the community once fully unlocked.

This Airdrop: 17.5% of the total supply (3.675B tokens) for users and contributors.

17.5% Airdrop Allocation Breakdown:

• 89% to users

• 5.8% to native projects

• 2.8% to communities

• 2.4% to builders

Eligible = 695,232 wallets

Claim: Starts next week (exact date TBD, check if you’re eligible here)

And here’s the outcome:

• Only 20% of the 3.5 million people who farmed for it made the cut. Ouch, tough luck for the rest!

• Each qualified wallet might get around 5,000 tokens, estimated to be worth $5,000. 

• This implies a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of a cool $21 billion.

Wallets will be popping with joy, or maybe just flipping a lid if you didn’t make the cut.

But, the token drop bonanza doesn’t stop with ZKsync. Here are some upcoming events where point farming is already closed.

Get your FOMO ready:

• Blast: TGE on June 26th

• Layerzero: TGE in Q2

• DIN (Prev. Web3Go): TGE in Q2

• zkPass: TGE in Q2

• Lista DAO: TGE on June 20th

• MilkyWay: TGE in Q2 (not affiliated with us, but we approve the name)

• Avail, Ambit Finance, zkLink, Aethir, Mocaverse: All in Q2

(TGE dates above are estimations)

June is shaping up to be a wild month for token releases. Expect your crypto airdrop radar to be blipping non-stop. 

Feel like you missed out on all the fun? Don’t fret young grasshopper, get your shovel ready.

There’s still some fertile ground for you honest farmers out there, and you can utilize the Milk Man’s airdrop guide here to make sure you don’t miss out.

Also, there’s a nifty roadmap calendar floating around on twitter, that points to a few additional open airdrop opportunities:

• Sofamon

• Persona

• Zircuit

• Mezo

• Elixir

Heads up, the Milk Man is deep diving into these to see if they’re worthy of being added to the Milk Road Airdrop Guide. 

With ZKsync’s airdrop coming next week and Blast following soon after, June is airdrop season, baby! 

If you didn’t get in on ZKsync, don’t worry. Keep farming those points in the active ones, and who knows, you might just hit the next crypto jackpot.

MILK ROAD PRO PORTFOLIO UPDATES 📊 

The crypto market will always be volatile — there’s always going to be news that pumps and dumps the market.

The key to having a successful portfolio long-term is to stick to your plan, regardless of market fluctuations.

To walk the talk, and to show you exactly how we think about managing a portfolio in crypto (regardless of what the market does), we created the Milk Road PRO Portfolio.

This provides the latest updates about our investments and important news impacting the assets inside the portfolio.

FYI: This isn’t a day-trading portfolio so don’t expect a high volume of trades. You can learn more about our portfolio strategy here.

PORTFOLIO PERFORMANCE 📉 

The portfolio took a hit over the past 7 days, dropping to $112.1K—down 10.1% from last week. Ouch. 🤕

The crypto markets took a hit this week as investors worry the Fed might delay interest rate cuts, potentially slowing the economy.

With fewer than 3 rate cuts expected this year, our strategy stays the same. We're still all-in on our investments!

We haven't made any changes to our portfolio over the last 7 days. 

If you're not fully allocated at this point, we believe this is a great opportunity to enter the market and take advantage of the short-term panic we're seeing this week.

Let’s chat about our best and worst performers over the past week. 👇️ 

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

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MicroStrategy to purchase more Bitcoin with $500M capital raise. They’re raising more money to buy Bitcoin through convertible senior notes ($MSTR) in a private offering because apparently, 214,400 BTC just isn't enough!

Terraform Labs to dissolve, CEO asks community to take over. Following a $4.47 billion SEC settlement, they’re closing shop and hoping the community can handle the keys to the Terra kingdom.

Curve founder faces liquidation after CRV price plunges. Apparently, using $141 million in CRV to secure a $95.7 million loan wasn’t his best idea—talk about a margin call!

UwU Lend hacked again amid a payback plan for the first attack. The hacker returned for round two, swiping another $3.7 million just as users were celebrating the reimbursement from the first $23 million exploit.

Paxos cuts 20% of staff. The company is laying off 65 people to focus on tokenization. Guess they’re just shedding some pounds to stay nimble in the crypto game!

*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.