Today’s edition is brought to you by Kraken Pro - the one-stop shop for pro traders backed by one of the most trusted names in the industry.

GM. This is Milk Road, your daily dose of crypto caffeine - we get you hyped, energized, and ready to conquer the day.

Happy Friday. Let’s boogie:

• FedNow is LIVE 🏦

• Why BTC’s booming in Japan & Turkey 🪙

• A Milk Road WTF moment 🥴

• Telegram bots are at a ~$100M market cap 🍪

UNCLE SAM’S INSTANT PAYMENT SERVICE IS LIVE 🏦

Ladies & gents, it’s here.

FedNow is LIVE. (*cue the fanfare*)

What is it? The Federal Reserve’s new instant payment system.

It allows banks & credit unions to transfer money 24/7, instantly. Meaning banks can process your money in seconds vs. days.

Here’s everything you need to know, in under 60 seconds:

• 41 banks/credit unions are already signed up, including JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, & USBancorp. So is the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

• FedNow lets banks/credit unions settle transfers in central bank accounts. It’s mainly for businesses, so still gotta use Venmo to send $5 to your friend for Taco Bell.

• It will use the Metal blockchain, a crypto network that can set rules for transfers (i.e. “don’t send to non-US citizens”, etc.)

• The Fed wants to onboard all 10K financial institutions in the country eventually.

• The Federal Reserve says FedNow isn’t connected to any CBDCs and it cannot look into customer accounts to view balances and activity (source: TrustMeBro™.)

This all comes with good news and bad news…

The Good News: FedNow will help speed up how long it takes to send/receive money.

Paychecks and invoices can take hours or days to process.

Now it will only take seconds.

The Bad News: Many think FedNow is the first step in the government introducing stuff like CBDCs, social scores, government surveillance, etc.

It’s like Pandora’s Box - once it’s opened, a bunch of bad sh*t happens.

Milk Road Take: We’re fans of getting paid quicker (mo’ money, mo’ Cheesy Gordita Crunches) but we think FedNow is nothing but bad news.

We’ll be sticking with our Bitcoin.

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BITCOIN’S BOOMING IN JAPAN & TURKEY 🪙

Every once in a while, we need a reminder of what crypto was made for in the first place…

An alternative finance system.

One that isn’t controlled by a centralized government, unlike the current systems… (**cough fiat currencies and FedNow cough**).

And while many fiat currencies around the world are drowning from record-high inflation and interest rates…

There are a handful of markets that are looking to Bitcoin as a solution.

1/ Japan

• Bitcoin trading volume on Japanese exchanges rose from 69% → 80% in the first six months of 2023

• Total trading volume was $4B in June - that’s a 60% surge year-over-year

• Why? The yen is depreciating like crazy. People there want to put their money into something that won’t plummet in value. Enter Bitcoin.

2/ Turkey

• BTC prices hit a new ATH against Lira on exchanges. BTC was trading ~1.3% higher on Turkey’s largest exchange than it was in global markets

• Why? The nation’s local currency (the Lira) lost ~30% of its value against the U.S. dollar since January

• Turkey also raised its interest rates to 17.5% this week to try to curb its whopping ~40% inflation rate. Yikes

Milk Road equation No. 38: Inflation = rise in Bitcoin use.

NOT TOP PLAY OF THE WEEK 🥴

Growing up, I looked forward to Fridays for one thing…

SportsCenter’s NOT Top Plays of the Week. It’s a highlight of some of the worst (and funniest) moments of the week.

People running into each other. The referee tripping a player. You name it.

So, we wanted to do our own version - Milk Road’s WTF Moment.

This week, we present to you… drumroll...

Guy Tries To Buy Car With NFTs.

MILK & COOKIES 🍪

The European Blockchain Convention kicks off on October 24th. The largest blockchain event in Europe takes place in Barcelona, with one day left to get a discounted price on tickets.*

Trend Watch: Telegram bot tokens are almost at a $100M market cap. These are automated programs that make crypto trading as easy as sending a Telegram message. (And business has been boomin’!)

Solana Labs dropped a new compiler called Solang. It lets developers use Solidity (the main Ethereum programming language) on Solana. So-Long, Ethereum.

Kuwait has imposed an “absolute ban” on crypto. No crypto trading, no crypto payments, no crypto mining. Nothing. Zip. Nada.

OpenSea launched a new NFT trading feature called Deals. It lets people offer NFT trades to each other, in a secure way.

*This is sponsored content

MILKY MEME 🤣

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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.