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GM. This is Milk Road, the newsletter that might be about to break even on the NFTs it bought last cycle.

Here’s what we got for you today:

• ✍️ Why everyone is so hyped on $PENGU

• ✍️ The first (public) AI-to-AI transaction

• 🥛 Milk Road PRO Portfolio updates

• 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: Why $100K+ Bitcoin Is Just the Beginning w/ Lark Davis

• 🍪 EU is now thinking about a strategic Bitcoin reserve

HOW PUDGY PENGUINS 15X’D THROUGHOUT THE BEAR MARKET 🐧

We think we might have figured out why everyone is going nuts about the Pudgy Penguins $PENGU airdrop.

The secret sauce seems to be this:

The airdrop isn’t just for Pudgy Penguins holders – users across the Ethereum and Solana ecosystems will be receiving airdrops for things as simple as ‘using the Phantom wallet’.

(Everyone feels like they’re about to get richer → everyone talks about it).

But as we researched this story, we learned that the $PENGU airdrop is just the tip of the iceberg here.

Hell, it’s just a cliff note in the story of Luca Netz (the dude that built it into what it is today).

And boy is it a doozy!

There’s a LOT of context that needs to be set here, so start stretching, ‘cause we’re about to speed run this mf’er.

Deep breath in…aaaand go:

• Luca grows up homeless → drops out of school at 16 → begins working for Ring (the doorbell company) to earn a little cash

• He starts an online business selling replica gold chains on the side → grows that to a $1M+ per year business → starts offering to build online retail businesses for influencers 

• Grows the influencer business to $250M in total revenue by 21 → sells his share of that company back to the influencers → starts a toy company called Gel Blasters.

(And if they look familiar, it’s because Gel Blasters became America’s fastest growing toy company! 👇)

It’s a feel-good rags to riches story – and we haven’t even got to Pudgies yet. 

Let’s fix that.

It’s April, 2022. Luca has stepped back from his role at Gel Blasters, and spent the better part of the trailing year buying NFTs…

He sees that the creators of Pudgy Penguins are selling the project’s IP, and on a whim, makes an offer for $2.5M.

Now, if you weren’t around in mid 2022 – lemme set some context here:

At the time, the idea of some seemingly random dude buying the IP of a failed NFT project seemed like a clear top single.

And it kinda was. Check out the Bored Ape historical chart…

But what the rest of us didn’t know at the time was that Luca had a finely honed skill set which would allow him to take Pudgie's cutesy IP, and absolutely sprint with it.

This dude took Pudgies from a failing b-grade NFT project, to the shelves of Walmart and Target, selling 1.5 million plush toys – all while Luna and FTX collapsed.

And throughout the market collapse, Pudgy Penguins didn’t just survive – the collection’s floor price actually grew:

On the news of the $PENGU airdrop, Pudgies floor price went as far as flipping that of Bored Apes and was even beginning to threaten CryptoPunks (the largest NFT project in the world)!

Though, as the laws of physics dictate: what goes up, must come down.

Post airdrop, the Pudgies floor price cratered by more than 50% in 24hrs, to around 15.8 $ETH.

Even so, it’s still clocking a 15x gain from its ~1 $ETH floor price in April 2022.

So yeah, the $PENGU airdrop is cool and all...

But what’s more exciting is to see where the hell this thing goes in its first real bull run!

And if ambitious plans from All Star CEOs is your thing, check out this episode of The Milk Road Show from a few months back, where we talked to Luca about what he has planned for the future!

TWO AI AGENTS JUST PUBLICLY TRANSACTED WITH EACH OTHER (USING CRYPTO) 🤖

Small changes in context can make all the difference.

E.g. “I just drove down to the shops, but I’m back now.”

If your wife said that, you wouldn’t think twice about it. 

But if your three year old son said it, you’d feel a weird mixture of pride (“this kid might be a genius!”) and fear (“there’s a good chance child services will be paying me a visit”).

Same goes for this story…

Luna tweeted that she was looking for someone to design some imagery for her → a guy called Stix replied to her and said he could help → Luna paid him $1 for the task.

Boring story in its current state. 

But once you consider that Luna and Stix are both autonomous AI agents, and that this was the first publicly recorded AI-agent-to-AI-agent crypto transaction, it holds a whole lot more weight!

The Twitter exchange:

The payment:

(It’s beautiful, no? 🥲).

Here’s why we’re so bullish on what might feel like a small milestone:

If AI agents eventually grow stable/reliable enough to do a bunch of tasks on your behalf – many of those tasks will probably involve financial transactions of some sort.

(Grocery shopping, booking appointments, paying bills etc.)

And for all of this to work, each of those transactions will need to be done on the blockchain.

That (right there 👆) is the perfect recipe for mass-adoption!

MILK ROAD PRO PORTFOLIO UPDATES 📊

If you hear a ticking sound, that’s ‘cause — like clock-work — every Tuesday, we’re here to share our updated list of investments from the Milk Road PRO Portfolio. 

Disclosure: We are not a day trading portfolio so don’t expect a high volume of trades. Read our “how to build a crypto portfolio in 2024” report to learn more about our portfolio strategy.

Portfolio performance 📈 

The Milk Road PRO Portfolio saw a notable increase over the past 7 days. Our portfolio value is at $141K, up 7.80% since last week.

We’ve started noticing some interesting trends in the markets over the past week. 

Only the crypto total market cap and the NQ100 (tracking 100 major U.S. technology companies) are hitting new all-time highs (ATHs). Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (which includes 500 top U.S. companies) remains relatively flat, and the broader IWM index (covering 2,000 U.S. companies) is significantly down.

So, what does this tell us? There’s a clear increase in demand for technology. And it seems like the markets might be starting to price in Trump’s potential impact. 

Simply put, Trump aims to position the U.S. as a leading global technology hub, taking the lead in AI, blockchain, and other emerging technologies. 

His goal? To boost productivity and drive stronger GDP growth.

We’ll keep an eye on this trend and share updates as it unfolds.

Portfolio changes 👀

BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪

sBTC launches on Stacks mainnet. Everyone’s talking about Ethereum and Solana DeFi but Bitcoin DeFi seems to be quietly making moves.*

EU is now thinking about a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Proposing a Bitcoin reserve has officially become the cool thing to do. Oh, how far we’ve come.

Stanford is now diving into AI agents. We thought AI agents were the hot topic in crypto, but it looks like the broader world is catching on too. Unexpected? Yes. Will we take it? Absolutely.

MicroStrategy is now sitting on a $20B profit from its Bitcoin investment. Yes, profit. I can’t even wrap my head around numbers like that. Saylor’s a genius.

We’re growing our team! We have 5 open positions across Milk Road and Impact3 (our parent company). Think you’ve got what it takes? Click above to explore the roles and apply.

DeFi Saver manages all your positions across multiple networks. Lending on Ethereum but borrowing on Arbitrum? DeFi Saver keeps it all in one place. Sleek.

* 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.