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GM. This is Milk Road, we mix the latest news and funny memes to bring you the best damn newsletter in crypto.

Here’s what we got for you today:

• July recap: The biggest moments and trends 📊

• 3 things to watch in August 👀

• The IRS says staking rewards are taxable 🍪

JULY RECAP: THE BIGGEST MOMENTS AND TRENDS 📊

Well, ladies and gents, that’s another month in the books for crypto. And July was a wild one.

It was filled with lawsuits, hacks, Bitcoin ETFs, and on-chain hamster racing. (yup, you read that right)

So we’re coming at you with a recap of some of the biggest moments, performances, and trends for the month.

First, let’s cover the biggest moments…

Overall it was a positive month for crypto. But surprisingly, this wasn’t reflected in the price of BTC and ETH…

Both tokens dropped 4% and it was the first time since 2019 that BTC and ETH had a red July.

So, where’d the gains go instead? Altcoins.

Which leads us to our first trend of the month…

1/ Altcoin SZN

Many altcoins saw big profits in July. Here were some of the top performers:

• XRP: +46.53%

• MKR: +44.81%

• UNI: +22.56%

• SOL: +22.64%

• OP: +20.60%

The big catalyst? XRP being ruled not a security by a judge. “Can I get a hell yeah?!”

It was The Ruling Heard ‘Round Crypto and caused a handful of altcoins to pump in price.

But just when things were looking up for the crypto industry…

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**static noise**

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming…

2/ Hacks, scams, and rugs were up BIG last month

$300M+ was lost to exploits, hacks, and scams in July. (the most in a single month this year)

Being in crypto felt like laser tag at Shadowland - except instead of losing points, you lose all your money.

The crazy part? 2 of the bigger incidents happened over the last 2 days of the month. Right at the buzzer…

THE HACK: Curve Finance was hacked for ~$50M over the weekend.

Although the attack has been mitigated for now, there’s a bigger problem at hand… the Curve CEO has $100M in debt backed by 427.5M Curve (CRV) tokens.

This represents ~47% of the total circulating supply of Curve (CRV) tokens.

So what? If the Curve CEO ends up defaulting on the loans and gets liquidated, it could lead to a massive dump of tokens and trigger an implosion in DeFi.

This could very well bleed into August and investors should keep a close eye on the situation.

THE RUGPULL: Bald is a memecoin that launched on Coinbase’s Layer 2 blockchain, Base.

It went from $0 → $100M market cap within 48 hours and then, in the blink of an eye, the project got rugged by the dev.

So what? Many people in crypto are speculating the dev could be a familiar face…

Sam Bankman-Fried, formerly known as SBF. (or fkSBF for short)

Online sleuths have found a few similarities between Bankman-Fried and the Bald dev:

• The initial liquidity for the memecoin came from a wallet that’s linked to SBF

• Serum (a project that was connected to SBF) recently became active on Twitter again and started shilling the Bald token

• Their writing styles are very similar (they’re both part of the 12 people on Earth that still use the word “nor”)

Who knows if it’s really Sam Bankman-Friend or not, but there are two things I don’t trust: Comcast internet and coincidences.

The most concerning part is that the rug pull was executed on Coinbase’s brand-new blockchain.

And since the U.S.-based crypto exchange is in the middle of a legal war with the SEC, many people think Gary G could use this as ammo.

All eyes will be on what happens next…

3 THINGS TO WATCH IN AUGUST 👀

It’s officially August.

And there are 3 big things we’re keeping our eyes on this month: Q2 earnings calls, macro news, and token unlocks.

Lucky for you, the Milk Man rounded up all the most important dates.

Q2 EARNINGS CALLS

August kicks off with a BIG week in earnings calls…

Here are the 3 companies we’re looking at closely -

Microstrategy: August 1st.

Coinbase: August 2nd.

Robinhood: August 3rd.

MACRO STUFF

CPI: August 10.

FOMC Meeting: Not happening this month. Woohoo.

TOKEN UNLOCKS

We’ve talked about why token unlocks are a big deal and why investors need to keep an eye on them.

The TLDR – Where there is a token unlock, there is price volatility. (Milk Road Rule #58)

Well, there are a bunch more happening this month:

• DYDX is unlocking $13M worth of tokens on August 1

• SUI is unlocking $26M worth of tokens on August 2

• GAL is unlocking $9.5M worth of tokens on August 4

• CRV is unlocking $5M worth of tokens on August 13

• AVAX is unlocking $10M worth of tokens on August 25

BITE-SIZED COOKIES 🍪

The IRS issued a new ruling that crypto staking rewards must be reported as gross income in the year they are received. The ruling states that the fair market value of the crypto rewards should be included in annual income and determined when the assets are received.

Yuga Labs is acquiring Roar Studios, a music and metaverse startup. The acquisition will help accelerate the development of Yuga’s metaverse, Otherside.

FTX proposed a reorganization plan to reboot the bankrupt exchange. According to documents, the rebooted exchange would not be available to anyone in the U.S.

MILKY MEMES 🤣

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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.