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GM. This is Milk Road, the PB&J of newsletters – we mix crypto news and laughs to make a tasty, snackable read.

(No crusts).

Here’s what we got for you today:

• ✍️ The first big rug of 2025

• ✍️ What to look out for this week

• 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Is the 2025 Crypto Bull Run Over? Expert Analysis w/ Michael Howell 

• 🍪 6 firms are copying MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin strategy

THE FIRST BIG RUG OF 2025 🏃‍♂️‍➡️

If you were to ask ChatGPT to create a tagline for a DAO that is most likely to blow its value up, it’d probably spit this out:

Investment & Development DAO focused on accelerating Crypto x AI.

Turns out, that’s pretty much the exact tagline for the Aiccelerate DAO.

…and guess what. It worked! This thing got so much freakin’ attention it wasn’t funny!

…unfortunately, the story we’re about to tell you isn’t a happy one.

The founders of the DAO @cryptopunk7213, @markus9x, and @ropirito seemed to have aligned a dream team of talent. 

I mean they had 150 advisors and professionals onboard (we’re talking Bankless, ai16z, and an army of Key Opinion Leaders), ready to develop and market this thing.

Problem was…when they launched the whitelist for these early contributors to buy-in to the DAO’s $AICC token – they didn’t put any rules in place around selling.

I mean zero.

Usually there’s a lock up phase and/or Liquidity Provider plan – but Aiccelerate had none of that!

This meant insiders could (if they chose to): 

Hype this thing up → pump the token price → immediately dump on retail investors.

Thankfully, they didn’t do any of that stuff.

Ahhh, you got me! I’m just messing with you (can you imagine?) – no, these guys dunked on retail harder than I did on my older brother when he was going through his ‘fedora phase’.

As a result, $AICC has been pretty much down-only since its public launch on Saturday. 👇

For context: even though the token tanked, many of these insiders made 1000x returns on their pre-launch investments!

Now, to balance things out – from what’s being said right now, this rollout wasn’t intentionally malicious on the creators’ part as much as it was a bunch of MASSIVE oversights born from a rushed launch.

Either way, it ain’t a good look!

The takeaway: sure, decentralized and permissionless systems are revolutionary…

But they can often be dangerous. Many of the checks and balances we’re used to in the TradFi world are either watered down, or don’t exist here.

So it's on us as users to be hyper vigilant in our research.

(Not sure how to research? Let the PRO team do it for you 👈).

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR THIS WEEK 📅

Alright, it’s the final week before Trump takes office and (hopefully) turns this sucker of a short-term market around!

Here’s what we got:

1/ Macro 📊

Guess what, we got you a present: a full week of not caring about CPI and PPI.

Sure, CPI and PPI data is coming out this week:

• Tuesday we get December PPI Inflation data (how much has the cost of production gone up or down) 

• Wednesday we get December CPI Inflation data (how much have household costs gone up or down)

• And on Thursday we’ll see December’s Retail Sales data (how ‘merry’ was our collective Christmas).

But unless this data comes back really really good, or really really bad – we already know how this is going to affect the Fed’s upcoming interest rate decision: not at all.

They’ve been pretty darn clear: they’re holding rates where they are, for now.

2/ Earnings Season 💣

Ready to learn what ungodly amounts of cash BlackRock earned last quarter after Bitcoin ripped to new all-time highs? 

We find out on Wednesday, alongside a couple of other heavy-hitting financial institutions:

3/ Token unlocks 🔓

Good lord! This might be a new record – $2.6B?? And mostly thanks to Ondo?

If you’re an $ONDO token holder, brace for potential price volatility.

4/ Milk Road PRO Portfolio Update (Wednesday)

If you’re a Milk Road PRO member and have ever looked at the PRO Portfolio, only to find yourself scratching your head and thinking: 

“I don’t quite understand why they’re holding that token.”  Or… 

“Why won’t she return my texts, I thought we had a great time?” 

Well, you’re about to have one of those two questions answered!

5/ Today’s podcast with the liquidity GOAT Michael Howell

If you’ve ever seen or used a CrossBorder Capital liquidity chart (the same one we show every Thursday in our “Where are we in the cycle” indicators) – Michael Howell is the guy behind it.

Michael knows macro like Tony Hawk knows compression fractures, and we just sat down with him on today’s episode of The Milk Road Show and asked:

• What's causing the market to have a slow start to 2025? 

• Is this current pullback concerning?

• Will liquidity injection be necessary for market success in 2025?

• Is there a possibility that Trump will accelerate this process?

You don’t want to miss it (seriously, we’ve never seen our Podcast Manager, Adrien, give such a glowing review!). 👇

YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

With a 99% detection rate, Forta Firewall stops hacks before they even happen. Chains like Plume have already adopted it, and Conduit has enabled a 1-click integration for all their rollup customers.*

6 non-crypto firms are copying MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin strategy. After the success MicroStrategy has seen, everyone wants a bite of the pie. - DL News

Tether is relocating to El Salvador. From DCAing into Bitcoin to now housing crypto’s biggest stablecoin company, El Salvador is lowkey killing it. Proof what progressive regulation can do for a country.

BlackRock launches Bitcoin ETF in Canada. More institutions buying Bitcoin? Hells yeah.

We’ve added a new job opening! We now have 4 job positions available, the latest one being a social media manager here at Milk Road.

2025 is jam-packed with crypto conferences and events. Not sure which conference to attend? Our crypto conference guide has got you covered.

* 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.