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GM. This is Milk Road. We’re like that friend that actually gave you a blanket and a pillow at 6th-grade sleepovers.

Happy Wednesday. Let’s get it:

• The State of Crypto: Regulation Edition 📍

• We’ve got the latest CPI numbers…🔢

• Web3 Wednesday 🗒️

• The Mayor of Flavortown comes to Web3 🍪

THE STATE OF CRYPTO: REGULATION EDITION 📍

Wow, yesterday was a doozy.

• Congress had a hearing about the future of crypto

• Legal documents in a major crypto case (SEC vs. XRP) were made public

• A U.S. judge made a big decision about Binance.US

Lucky for you, we sent the Milk Man to Washington, D.C. to get in on all the action. He sent us a bunch of notes back on everything that happened.

(P.S. - He says he hasn’t had this much action in law & politics since he ran for “Class President” in 8th grade. He finished second. Still thinks it was rigged)

Anyways, here’s his State of Crypto: Regulation Edition.

1/ The Hinman documents were released

Legal battles remind me a lot of piñatas. Every time they crack open, a whole bunch of juicy candy comes out.

This time, it's the Ripple v SEC piñata that’s been cracked wide open.

The candy that came out? The Hinman documents.

William Hinman is the former director of SEC. Back in 2018, he made a famous speech where he suggested that cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH were not securities.

Now internal documents for that 2018 speech have been released.

Here’s the 1 big takeaway: Even though the SEC has denied its involvement in the speech and argued that Hinman was expressing his thoughts and his thoughts alone…

The Hinman documents tell a different story. They show that many SEC officials weighed in on the speech and believed the goal was to provide market guidance.

It discredits the SEC and shows they have no idea what they’re doing when it comes to regulating crypto. One day, certain cryptocurrencies are securities. Other days, they’re not.

Overall, this is a small win for the crypto industry in its fight against the SEC.

2/ A U.S. judge denied a motion to freeze Binance.US’ assets

Last week, the SEC filed a temporary restraining order that would freeze Binance.US’ assets.

Why? The SEC believes that CZ (CEO of Binance) and/or other Binance employees are commingling customer funds and wanted to prevent any assets from moving.

Yesterday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson temporarily denied the restraining order.

Now what?

• The judge has ordered the SEC and Binance.US lawyers to negotiate limits on the company

• Binance.US also needs to provide a list of its business expenses to the court. (Hope no one ordered too much takeout food.)

• A status update is due by Thursday

Even though it’s a temporary win for Binance.US, the future is still cloudy. It recently turned into a crypto-only exchange after losing its banking partners.

3/ The U.S. Financial Services Committee had a hearing about crypto

It was called “The Future of Digital Assets: Providing Clarity for the Digital Asset Ecosystem.” *gulp*

The agenda covered everything from the new stablecoin bill to talking about how the digital market should be structured and regulated. Special guests included:

• Jeremy Allaire - CEO of Circle

• Emin Gün Sirer - CEO of Ava Labs (and has the coolest name in crypto)

The hearing was ~5 hours long and there was a ton of debate (booooring), but here’s the one big takeaway….

There are many members of Congress that want to keep crypto innovation in the U.S.

Yes, they want to create laws and regulations around crypto in order to keep investors safe. But they don’t want to kill crypto either.

The most surprising part was how members from both parties are working together to make it happen. Nothing like good bipartisanship.

Overall, it was a good day for crypto. Congress showed optimism about the future of crypto, and the SEC got a motion denied and is now under fire after the Hinman documents.

Fina-f*cking-lly, a breath of fresh air.

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CPI IS LOWER THAN EXPECTED 🔢

It’s here, folks: the latest U.S. Consumer Price Index CPI.

I was dreading it more than my root canal appointment, but… the results came in lower than expected. 🎵 Alexa, play Celebration by Kool & the Gang 🎵

Inflation rose 0.1% in May versus the expected 0.2%.

This is the slowest rising pace since April 2021.

So…why should you care?

Inflation goes up → Federal interest rates go up → People are less likely to buy risky assets like crypto.

This is why it’s worth watching CPI & federal interest rate decisions like a hawk.

The Fed’ll announce if it’s raising or pausing interest rates later today. Until then, investors will look like this…

WEB3 WEDNESDAY 🗒️

It’s that time of the week, Roaders…

Wed3 Wednesday. Where we round up all the cool Web3 gigs that are open out there.

Here are this week’s:

• Partner Success Manager at Aptos - Palo Alto, CA

• Business Development Lead, Capital Markets, at Aptos - Remote

• Senior Full Stack Engineer at SuperRare Labs - Remote

• Senior Backend Services Engineer at SuperRare Labs - Remote

• Filecoin TLDR Externship Program at Protocol Labs - Remote

• Research Intern at The Block - Remote

• Staff Software Engineer, Core Services at Chainalysis - Remote, UK

• Senior Data Engineer, Infrastructure at OpenSea - Remote

• Lead Product Designer at DappRadar - Remote

• Senior Product Manager, Base Ecosystem at Coinbase - Remote

• Senior Program Manager, Core Technology at Parity - Berlin, Germany

• Associate, Data Engineer at Galaxy - Hong Kong, China

P.S. - Are you trying to hire in Web3? Learn how to get your open jobs in front of 250K+ crypto enthusiasts here.

MILK & COOKIES 🍪

Guy Fieri launched an NFT loyalty program for his tequila brand, Santo Spirits. Flavortown 🤝 Web3

Etoro followed Robinhood’s suit by delisting 4 tokens the SEC called securities. Sayonara, ALGO, MANA, DASH, & MATIC.

Snoop Dogg launched a new NFT collection that will change with each stop in his tour. Think of the NFTs as tour posters for each show.

Sturdy Finance (lending platform) is offering $100K to the hacker that stole $800K (442 ETH) from the protocol. The attacker pushed the stole funds through Tornado Cash (crypto mixer.)

MILKY MEME 🤣

HIT THE INBOX OF 250K+ CRYPTO INVESTORS

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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.