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GM. This is Milk Road, your friendly neighbor that’ll mow your lawn without even asking.

It’s Thirsty Thursday. Let’s boogie:

• TBT: Celsius paused withdrawals ⏪

• No interest rate hikes this time 🛑

• Graph of the day: BTC supply on exchanges 📉

• Apple’s beef with Nostr 🍪

THROWBACK THURSDAY: 3 LESSONS FROM CELSIUS ⏪

It was early June 2022. It was a hot summer day.

Pool szn was in full swing. Popsicles were melting. Life was good. Everything was quiet…

And then it happened. Rumors started swirling that Celsius, the king of crypto lending platforms with $12B in assets, was illiquid.

The Sahara Desert had more liquidity than Celsius at the time….

Yep, the (then) king of crypto lending platforms with $12B in assets itself.

Then, Celsius paused withdrawals on June 13. And it all went downhill from there:

• Bitcoin fell even further (-30% in one week)

• Celsius’ CEL token crashed (-70%)

• The crypto market fell below $1T for the first time since January 2021

• Celsius filed for bankruptcy in July

• And Celsius became known as one of the biggest failures in the industry

But a year later means we’re a little bit wiser. Here’s what we’ve learned:

1/ DYOR. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

Remember: high yield (~20%) = high risk. It’s even more dangerous when the company offering it is worse at managing money than your 11-year-old sister.

The company overleveraged AND placed risky bets at the expense of their customers (who, collectively, are waiting to get $4.7B back btw.)

Celsius f*cked up, and people who trusted it lost big time.

2/ Not your keys, not your cheese

If you have money deposited on a centralized platform, it’s not yours: it’s theirs.

Repeat after me: there’s no safe CEX in crypto (use a DEX.)

3/ Crypto CEOs are gonna crypto CEO

Celsius’ Alex Mashinsky still thinks the sun shines out of his ass and that he did nothing wrong.

He’s not the only one - 3AC’s Kyle Davis, Su Zhu…

Ladies & gents, may you have the confidence of an exec whose crypto company went down faster than the Titanic.

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THE FED PAUSED INTEREST RATES 🛑

Yall, we’re not gonna lie - sh*t’s been bleak.

10 consecutive federal interest rate hikes over the course of 15 months will do that.

But we finally have some slightly good news… the Fed didn’t raise them yesterday.

It’s the first time since early 2022 that the rates haven’t changed (they remain at ~5%; the goal is 2%.) We thawing out our good steaks tonight. 🥩

But there’s a catch…

We might still see hikes later this year. Womp womp

Here’s what else Jerome Powell said:

• The things we need that will bring inflation down “are coming into place”

• We’re “a couple of years out” for rate cuts

• I shouldn’t call yesterday’s decision “a skip”

Big Ross from Friends energy honestly…

GRAPH OF THE DAY: BTC ON EXCHANGES HITS 5-YEAR LOW 📉

We’re in the middle of A Great Migration.

BTC is moving away from crypto exchanges for the (crypto) winter.

• In 2020, 16% of BTC’s supply was on exchanges

• Today, it’s only 6.4% of BTC’s supply.

It’s the lowest level since 2018.

Why? People are scared.

Centralized exchanges are shutting down, getting sued, or just flat-out stealing money. (*cough FTX cough*)

So it makes sense investors want to pack their crypto up and move to self-custody.

But it got us curious…

Click your answer on the poll above! We’ll share the results later this week.

MILK & COOKIES 🍪

Apple’s threatening to kick off the Damus app (decentralized social media platform) because of its Bitcoin tipping feature. Apple has a strict 30% cut that it takes from all in-app purchases.

Adidas is teaming up with NFT artist Fewocious to launch a new shoe: The Adidas Originals Campus 00s. The kicks will be sold via NFTs 👟

A court is letting Bittrex (a bankrupt crypto exchange) start allowing withdrawals today. It said it would stop operating in the US before the SEC sued it in April.

Subscribers to the r/Bitcoin & r/Ethereum subreddits hit an ATH last week. Many went private this week to protest Reddit’s new API pricing terms.

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.