🥛 Ethereum has a BIG upgrade coming soon... 🔧

PLUS: Solana keeps making crypto history 👀                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 December 26, 2023 | [Read Online]( Today’s edition is brought to you by [Metal X]( - the all-in-one crypto platform equipped with trading, lending, borrowing and yield farming, and powered by the XPR Network and the expertise of Metallicus. [Enhance your DeFi experience!]( GM. This is Milk Road, the newsletter that’s like a piñata - whack it open and savor the sweet, sweet pieces of crypto knowledge. Here’s what we got for ya today: - The 4 most interesting charts we saw during Christmas 👀 - Crypto court cases will heat up in 2024 - here are the ones to watch 🍪 [Prices as of 7:30 AM ET. Click here for our Fear & Greed Index]( THE 4 MOST INTERESTING CHARTS WE SAW DURING CHRISTMAS 👀 1/ Solana is dominating stablecoin volume. Last week, [Solana]( made history... it passed all other blockchains in daily [stablecoin]( transfer volume, for the first time ever. And for 7 out of the last 10 days, Solana has kept that lead. Including $12B in stablecoin volume yesterday alone. [Source: Artemis]( Why this matters: Stablecoin transfer volume is a good sign that investors are loading up funds to do stuff on a blockchain - i.e. buy tokens/[NFTs](, [provide liquidity]( to protocols, etc. Think of it like going to Chuck E. Cheese as a kid. (Btw, if you aren’t familiar, it’s the Las Vegas strip for toddlers - except instead of poker, roulette, and alcohol, it has juice boxes, ski-ball, and claw machines). It’s awesome. But every time you’d go, you’d have to swap your (parents) cash for some tokens to play. Well, stablecoins are like the Chuck E. Cheese tokens of crypto. More stablecoin supply on Solana = more money people are likely to spend “playing” there. 2/ Ethereum’s next big upgrade is coming in early 2024… There’s no official date for when the upgrade will go live on [Ethereum’s]( main network, but developers did release a preliminary schedule for the tests. Think of it like clinical trials - a drug has to go through phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, etc. before it gets to humans. Same thing with Ethereum. And here are the dates for the tests: - Phase 1: Goerli (scheduled for Jan 17). - Phase 2: Sepolia (scheduled for Jan 30). - Phase 3: Holesky (scheduled for Feb 7). - Phase 4: Ethereum’s mainnet (not scheduled yet). Crazy, I know. The testing networks all sound like STDs you tried avoiding in college… Anyway, why does this matter? “Dencun” will be the first major upgrade for Ethereum in a year. And it includes something called EIP-4844 (AKA “proto-danksharding”). We won’t get into all the nerdy, technical details today (wouldn’t want you to proto-dankshard-your-pants the day after Christmas), but we’ll dive deeper in future editions. The #1 thing you need to know right now is… the upgrade is supposed to significantly reduce gas fees for Ethereum’s [Layer 2 rollups]( - like Optimism, Abritrum, [Polygon](, etc. Check it out: [Source: IntoTheBlock]( Milk Road Prediction: L2 tokens ($MATIC, $ARB, $OP, etc.) could perform well as the Dencun upgrade gets closer and the narrative around it gets stronger. 3/ Bitcoin’s security budget. Here’s a crazy stat for ya… (courtesy of our pal, [Kofi](). [Source: @0xKofi]( Why this matters: According to Kofi, this will be the first year where [Bitcoin’s]( annual security budget as % of the market cap will be higher than the year before (from 1.8% to 1.9%). This is a good thing. Think of the security budget as the amount miners earn for securing the network… - The higher the value, the more secure Bitcoin is. The network turns into crypto’s Fort Knox - unbreakable. - The lower the value, the less secure Bitcoin is. The network turns into a bank vault made of Lego pieces - easy to break. 4/ VCs invested over $10B into crypto startups in 2023. We’ve got good news and bad news… The good news: Crypto startups raised $10.7B this year. The bad news: That’s down 68% from last year ($33.3B was raised in 2022). [Source: The Block Research]( Milk Road Take: Crypto startups raising $10.7B during a bear market is pretty impressive (even if it was technically a “down” year)… And with the market heating up again, we predict this number will 3x in 2024 and hit a new all-time high. You heard it here first. [THE BEST DEFI APP YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF]( What happens when you combine the power and speed of the XPR Network and the expertise of Metallicus? You get the most advanced DeFi crypto experience on the market: [Metal X](. A complete trading experience where every single trade is shown on-chain, nothing is hidden. Complete limit orders, stop loss, take profit, and soon, futures. [The Metal X app]( is the best place to earn crypto with liquidity pools, yield farms, staking, trading rebates, and a decentralized lending market where you can borrow or lend all major coins on-chain. Sign transactions with the hottest new crypto wallet - [WebAuth](, using your favorite security key or biometric device including FaceID, TouchID, and Yubi keys. Support for all major blockchains and tokens including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Metal Blockchain, and more. And best of all, no gas fees. Literally none. [Enhance your DeFi experience!]( BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪 [Crypto court cases will heat up in 2024 - here are the ones to watch](. From FTX to Binance to Coinbase, next year is set to be a big one for crypto court cases. —DL News [Mt.Gox creditors have started receiving reimbursements](. After almost a decade, the wait is finally over! [Industry leaders see Hong Kong as the next Bitcoin ETF hub](. Many speculate Hong Kong could join the race if, and when, the U.S. accepts its first Bitcoin ETF applications. [Japan seeks to exempt companies from tax on unrealized crypto gains](. Japan’s cabinet approved the 2024 tax regime revision on Friday but it still needs to go through legislative approval. [Nigeria has lifted restrictions on bank accounts for crypto firms](. Fun fact: Nigeria is the country with the most crypto holders (47% of people hold crypto) according to Chainalysis. [Paxos receives approval from New York regulators to expand to Solana](. Paxos said it plans to offer USDP, a USD-backed stablecoin, on Solana to the public on Jan. 17. MILKY MEMES 🤣 [Source: @AltcoinGordon]( [Source: @PlatoNFT]( Share Milk Road You currently have 0 referrals, only 1 away from receiving The Next 10x Opportunity in Crypto for 2023. [The Next 10x Opportunity in Crypto for 2023]( [Click to Share]( Or copy and paste this link to others: ROADER REVIEW OF THE DAY VITALIK PIC OF THE DAY [tw profile: Milk Road Images] Milk Road Images @MilkRoadImages [tw] He's a🐱-magnet Dec 26, 2023 0 Likes 0 Retweets 0 Replies WANT TO SPONSOR THIS NEWSLETTER? 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