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- đ„ Week 3: The U.S. vs. Sam Bankman-Fried âïž
đ„ Week 3: The U.S. vs. Sam Bankman-Fried âïž
PLUS: Uniswap announced a BIG change is coming... đ
Todayâs edition is brought to you by Bakkt, the company behind BakktÂź Custody - an institutional-grade solution to custody your digital assets.
GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that gives you the same feeling as finding $50 in your old pair of jeans.
Itâs Tuesday. Letâs boogie:
Week 3 highlights: The U.S. vs. Sam Bankman-Fried âïž
A big change is coming to Uniswap đ
Weekly crypto funds flow report đ
Crypto is going to college đȘ
WEEK 3: THE U.S. VS. SAM BANKMAN-FRIED âïž
Itâs week 3 of cryptoâs trial of the centuryâŠThe United States vs Sam Bankman-Fried.
Uncle Sam vs. Banned-From-Family-BBQs-Sam.
Side note: A few people have been asking why we call him âfkSBFâ. So let me clarifyâŠ
On November 9, 2022, we officially stripped âSBFâ of his letters. (nicknames are only for the solvent)
So over the last 342 days, weâve referred to him by his government name âSamuelâ or âhe-who-was-formerly-known-as-SBFâ. Or fkSBF for short.
Ok. Now that we got that out of the way, back to yesterdayâs trial highlights.
The main witness of the day: Nishad Singh. HeâŠ
Was the former director of engineering at FTX
Went to high school with fkSBF
Was part of fkSBFâs âinner circleâ
Nishad and fkSBF went from MySpace-Top-8-Friends â> Courtroom-Foes.

Here are the top 4 things Nishad said during his testimony:
1/ fkSBF was the ultimate decision maker.
Marketing. Investment decisions. Endorsement deals. High-level business decisions.
You name it, fkSBF was the one making the decisions on it.
This is big because fkSBF has repeated countless times he wasnât touching the big decisions with a 10-foot pole.
2/ fkSBF balled out on âlavish expendituresâ.
Hereâs a short list of fkSBFâs purchases/investmentsâŠ
$200M on a stadium (formerly FTX Arena)
$50M to Tom Brady and Giselle Bundchen
$30M+ on a penthouse in the Bahamas
$28.5M to Stephen Curry (NBA legend)
$10M to Larry David to appear in a Super Bowl commercial
In total, over $1.1B was spent on these types of deals. (!!)
3/ fkSBF made Nishad process political donations in his name.
Apparently, there was a Signal chat (with disappearing messages) called âDonations Processingâ.
The people in the chat: fkSBF, Gabe Bankman-Fried (fkSBFâs brother), Nishad, and Ryan Salame (the co-CEO of FTX).
The goal: funnel funds to political candidates.
Ryan Salame would pick the candidates.
The funds would be routed out of Nishadâs bank account to â the candidates.
Nishad would also sign blank checks in his name to give to Gabe Bankman-Fried for other political donations.
fkSBF wanted to make Nishad the face of these donations for âadvantageous opticsâ.
Milk Road Translation (BS-free): âI donât want to get screwed, so put it under your nameâ.
4/ fkSBF had Nishad create code to give Alameda Research âspecial privilegesâ.
Some of these privileges included:
Letting Alamedaâs account go into negative balances
Letting Alameda trade, borrow, and even withdraw funds in excess of its balance amount
Making it so Alameda would never be liquidated
In other words, Alameda was in God-Mode.
Milk Road Take: In our non-expert legal opinion, Nishadâs testimony was a big win for the prosecutor's side.
It showed that:
fkSBF was behind the decisions, and he didnât care whether people agreed with him or not.
Alameda did indeed have special privileges (because Nishad was the one that built the damn thing).
fkSBF was continuously misusing customer funds to fund his lifestyle. (i.e. million-dollar mansions, signing celebrities to sponsorships, political donations, etc)
Nishad will finish up his testimony and get cross-examined today. So, weâll see if there are any other milky details that get exposed.
P.S. - fkSBFâs defense ended the day by asking the judge to delay the trial until Thursday.
The reason? fkSBF needs more Adderall.
The defense argued that fkSBF's âlack of access to prescribed medicineâ is hurting his ability to stay focused. And without it, he may not be able to testify.
You canât make this sh*t up.
fkSBF is showing everyone his BCE - Big Crackhead Energy. And I havenât seen BCE levels this high since Tyrone BiggumsâŠ
The judgeâs response: "I can't have lawyers giving drugs to people on trial.â
DENIED.
*mic drop*
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A BIG CHANGE IS COMING TO UNISWAP đ
Uniswap Labs just dropped some big newsâŠ
What happened: It will start charging a 0.15% swap fee.
Why this matters: Uniswap Labs created Uniswap - one of the most popular decentralized exchanges in crypto.
Itâs done $4.6B in volume over the last week and has $3B+ in total value locked (TVL) - which is 2x the next closest DEX.
Uniswap is putting up Wilt Chamberlain numbers.
Well, its recent move to implement a swap fee doesnât come without some controversyâŠ
Many people were anticipating that Uniswap would turn on a fee switch to reward UNI token holders, but this fee is to fund internal operations.
Other DEXs without swap fees are using this announcement to try to gain market share.
The list of tokens that incur a fee includes many of the most popular trading pairs.
Uniswaps token (UNI) is down 3% on the news. Tough crowd.

WEEKLY CRYPTO FUNDS FLOW REPORT đ
CoinShareâs latest weekly Digital Asset Fund Flows Report just droppedâŠ
The results? $15M in inflows.
Hereâs everything else you need to know:
Bitcoin led the way, again. The OG cryptocurrency saw $16.4M in total inflows last week, bringing its yearly total to $260M.
European funds are loving crypto. Sweden was the only European country that saw outflows last week.
SOL and XRP have been investorsâ favorite altcoins. SOL saw the most inflows amongst altcoins, while XRP saw its 25th straight week of inflows. Impressive.
The best part? It was the 3rd straight week of inflows.
Weâll see if it turns into a 4Peat next week.

BITE-SIZED COOKIES đȘ
Coinbase Ventures and Haun Ventures are teaming up to back a crypto accelerator program at the University of Arkansas. Thatâs right, crypto is going to college!
Tether has frozen wallets linked to terrorist groups in Israel and Ukraine. In total, 32 wallets were frozen holding a total of ~$875K in crypto.
Binance announced it has stopped accepting new sign-ups from customers in the U.K. The top crypto exchange said it was "looking for a new FCA authorized approver" so it could comply and continue to onboard customers.
FTX bankruptcy estate has introduced a new plan to disperse creditor funds. The plan aims to return more than 90% of creditor holdings prior to the collapse. (worth ~$8.9B)
Australia has outlined a licensing program for crypto exchanges. Crypto exchanges will be required to adhere to obligations including minimum standards for token holding, custody software protocols, and transactional integrity.
Lido announced it will discontinue its staking operations on Solana. Staking has been discontinued and no new stake will be accepted. R.I.P.

MILKY MEMES đ€Ł


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ROADER REVIEW OF THE DAY

VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY
"Advantageous optics"
â Milk Road Images (@MilkRoadImages)
3:10 PM âą Oct 17, 2023
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.
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