GM. This is Milk Road. We’re the Papa Johns of Crypto:

Better news. Better memes. The Milk Road.

Here’s what we got for you today:

• Samuel pleads not guilty

• Numbers of the Day

• Milky Meme

SAMUEL PLEADS NOT GUILTY

Ladies & gents, Samuel is back.

He’s reemerged from the shadows of his parent’s basement and made his way to Manhattan Federal Court.

And we were able to get our first good look at the 2023 Samuel. 

To be honest, he looks:

• Like he just crammed in a semester worth of biology the night before

• Like his Christmas stocking was filled with Adderall & Taco Bell

• Kinda like a monster from Where The Wild Things Are, based on his court sketch

Why was Samuel in court? To see how he’d plead against the eight charges he’s facing. Among them: wire fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, money laundering, & fake veganism.

(Okay, not that last one.)

How’d Samuel plead? NOT guilty.

That’s right ... After weeks of Samuel’s “I’m Sorry” Tour, he walked right up to the judge, looked him straight in the eye sockets, and told him he wasn’t guilty.

BREAKING: LIVE FOOTAGE OF SAMUEL IN COURT

So, now what? The trial date is set for Oct. 2, 2023.

His former colleagues, Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, already entered guilty plea deals with the government. Does Samuel follow suit? Do their testimonies give prosecutors the evidence they need to convict?

Who knows. Until then, Samuel will be free playing League of Legends on bail.

How are people reacting? Here’s the best from Twitter:

TODAY'S EDITION IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY ROOFSTOCK

Most people buy crypto to invest. They want to see their money go from $1,000 to $5,000.

They want to go from crashing at their parent’s place to buying the house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

The truth is crypto wasn’t made to get people rich. Crypto was made as an alternative to our current financial system. However, it still hasn’t touched one of the largest parts of the financial system… real estate.

Right now buying a home has more hoops to jump through than the Westminster Dog Show.

But a company that has done $5b in transactions since 2015 is changing how we buy homes.

The company is called Roofstock On-Chain and they are making it easy to buy Real Estate on the blockchain.

Roofstock says on-chain real estate makes sense if you:

• Have money in crypto and are looking for a safe place to invest it

• Want to get an on-chain mortgage using your tokenized home as collateral

• Want everything in one central place without 100 message-long email chains of documents

Learn how you can buy or sell your next home on the blockchain with Roofstock.

NUMBERS OF THE DAY

2,200,000

^ That's the number of ENS domain names that were minted last year.

The Ethereum Naming Service (ENS) is the DNS for crypto. For DNS, instead of 2400:cb00:2048:1::c629:d7a2 (or whatever,) you write milkroad.com.

You can use ENS names for naming things like your website and crypto wallet.

Even though the protocol started in 2017, over 80% of all ENS names were created last year.

We like to call this a “network effect” — the network's value increases as more people use it. Facebook became more valuable as more people made Facebook accounts. More accounts mean more people to connect with.

But ENS is a naming service; it's not a network like Facebook. So how is it benefiting from network effects?

Once people learn they can name their wallets something like “themilkroad.eth," instead of 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000000x, why wouldn’t they get an ENS name? It's just easier.

Plus, who doesn't love a good nickname?

$169m - Worth of token unlocks coming up in January

Token lockups are the stock options of crypto.

After an Initial Coin Offering (ICO,) early investors, employees, and community members receive tokens on the low. Sometimes they get ‘em for free.

Lockups exist so they don’t sell their tokens for market price, take the profit, and run for the hills. However, there is a downside to token lockups.

When lockups expire, investors fear prices will dip, because early token holders will cash out. It's like when the child actor you watched growing up finally turns 18.

This month there are six high-profile projects with tokens unlocked:

• Moonbeam (GLMR) will unlock 46.2m tokens (~$15.3m) on Jan. 11

• Aptos (APT) will unlock 4.5 tokens (~$16m) to around on Jan. 12

• BitDAO (BIT) will unlock 187.5m tokens (~$67m) on Jan. 15

• ApeCoin (APE) will unlock 7.3m tokens (~$28m) on Jan. 17

• Axie Infinity (AXS) will unlock 4.8m tokens (~$31m) on Jan. 23

• Ronin (RON) will unlock 41.9m tokens (~$12m) on Jan. 27

MILKY MEME

That's a wrap for today. Stay thirsty & see ya tomorrow! If you want more, be sure to follow our Twitter (@MilkRoadDaily)

INTERESTED IN ADVERTISING ON THE MILK ROAD?

Fill out this survey and we'll get back to you soon!

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.